BearFoot Dyna RedHot Distortion Research

[SteveA]

It really looks like Bearfoot is actually expanding the BJF lineup with further research pedals! Love it. I mean I haven't tried the Honey Beest yet not the Red Hot but now that I see what all the fuss is about i'll definitely get in on them. Love the research attitude of Bearfoot.

[Donner]

It really looks like Bearfoot is actually expanding the BJF lineup with further research pedals! Love it. I mean I haven't tried the Honey Beest yet not the Red Hot but now that I see what all the fuss is about i'll definitely get in on them. Love the research attitude of Bearfoot.

Yup thats the plan - Give the people what they want , even if they dont know it yet

[rockeroo]

The DR(H)D has some sweet tones on it, Donner. I have played through it for about an hour or so, and have gravitated towards several tonal ranges on the pedal. Not having owned a DRD, I have struggled to glean from the original tones of the DRD to evaluate the DRHD, but hopefully my thoughts make sense.

My first opinion of the pedal when I plugged it in was: whoa! the distortion range is extremely wide...from nothing to almost cliffhanger II territory. Additionally, the range of tone is quite expanse. Having not had the luxury of cranking my old JMP50 (because of the welfare of my neighbors), I really cannot wrap my mind around what cranked marshalls would sound like. My guess is that as the tone becomes more saturated, the compression hits the overdriven tone pretty well. As the gain increases to its limits, a fuzz-like character can be achieved when using the neck pickup (or adjusting the pedal's tone). If that is the case, I think you have hit the nail on the head with the Dyna Red Hot Distortion.

The pedal felt loose and comfortable. The tone could be used to focus the mids rather well, allowing for a variety of distortion tones. The lower gain settings were nice, but the essence of the box is in its powerful gain. I compared the DRHD to my CH2, and found some similarities (and of course differences) in terms of gain and tone range. The CH2 seemed to have a touch more gain, and the lower gain side of the CH2 was more enjoyable to my ear. With that said, the DRHD did some things in the mid-region that the CH2 cannot do with an EQ/Compression stack.

On the research side of things, I might say there are a couple things I would consider changing for my taste, but those things might not be for everyone. First of all, instead of having the ability of going from -3 to +13 on the DRD, I might rather open up the 0 to +13 or +3 to +13 range more. I noticed that as the distortion gets turned up, there is a tiny range at the top (maybe 30 degrees-worth) of mayhem. I would probably prefer to have a little wiggle-room in the higher gain territory, because dialing in varying amounts of distortion has a fine line.

With that said, I would certainly give up the additional breadth of the distortion spectrum for a little more output on the volume knob. With the distortion off and the tone backed down a bit, I really had to crank the volume to get unity. Perhaps the reason for this is logical, but a little extra headroom would be nice (what voltage(s) did you say the DRHD could be operated at?).

Thanks for bringing this hot-rodded DRD to our ears.

Cheers!

[Donner]

Great feedback guys, anyone else? First big public batch will be done this week

[cajone5]

Better start saving my pennies!

[Donner]

I remember Bjorn Or Donner mentioned the Little Green Emphaser was designed for the DRD and added gain but also allowed for a change in EQ. I wonder, is the Red Hot sort of like a LGE running with a DRD?

Well thats part of it , maybe a third of it --- theres some other things going on to get it just right......

and the range on it might seem odd comparatively - in a way the lower half has little in common with the upper half and could probably be two pedals - in fact you could probably chop the drive knob into fourths and make a whole new line out of it


But its like the hot rodded amps that are fairly clean until you get them up near igniting and then they start exploding rather quickly ....... kind of like lighting a gas stove you turn on the gas and hear a little hissing and hint of ~~~ then hwoooof its on fire --- thats what turning up the dirt dial on this one feels like to me.....


Anyway Ill declare this one officially 'bjorn' and the first batch is up for adoption in the Customshop store ......

[rockeroo]

Only three testers are sharing their thoughts?? Hopefully we can engage in more dialogue in future "research" projects. I appreciate the feedback both Vox and Jonny had to offer. It illuminated my time playing the DRHD, encouraging me to try things I may have overlooked. Perhaps the limited dialogue is because this research is sort-of "case closed" and into mass production.

I would love to hear others' thoughts on the DRHD (if there are others' thoughts).

Thanks for giving us something different in the DRHD, Donner. I really like the amp-like character in both the Beest and DRHD. They can both cover a LOT of ground and sound fantastic together and apart.



Cheers.

[jonnyrocket]

So finally am getting some more time to play with the Dyna Red Hot and just noticed something. When I crank the gain all the way up and back off the Treble all the way down, the pedal gets very fat and fuzzy. Have any of you try this? It's pretty cool! I tried getting the same results with the regular Dyna Red and was unable to do so. Even with the Treble all the way down, the regular Dyna Red has considerably more highs.

Donner, were there also changes done to the Treble knob of the Dyna Red?

Anyways, back to playing now.

cheers!

[Donner]

So finally am getting some more time to play with the Dyna Red Hot and just noticed something. When I crank the gain all the way up and back off the Treble all the way down, the pedal gets very fat and fuzzy. Have any of you try this? It's pretty cool! I tried getting the same results with the regular Dyna Red and was unable to do so. Even with the Treble all the way down, the regular Dyna Red has considerably more highs.

Donner, were there also changes done to the Treble knob of the Dyna Red?

Anyways, back to playing now.

cheers!

Yes isnt that fun !!!! Its almost like a fat muff but a bit more pushy -----
and that leads to the second point that this is a very different tone control than the DRDs and why it has so much range - like with the gain up and tone down its a very different pedal and can cover some fuzz duties for some....


We also got about a dozen of these done this week so Ill be filling the customshop back orders

[alanbarley]

Hello everyone! I've been tied up for the last couple of weeks dealing with a family crisis but that's passed, I got my focus back, and I spent some time this weekend with the Dyna Red Hot. I appreciate everyone's comments on this pedal, and I tend to agree with all of you and share the enthusiasm.

It can get the low slightly broken up sounds but for me and my rig setting the controls at noon and past are where I had the most fun. I used a PRS 5310 w humbuckers, a Badcat Classic Cat 6v6 20 watter, and a Diamond MLjr and I kept the amp relatively clean. With the distortion and brightness knobs past noon and all the way to fully aimed this pedal keeps giving. Its a heavy rock sound, modded amp sound, and very satisfying to play. I wouldn't use it for light OD stuff as there are other things that do that better. But for over the top gain this is great. Note separation for chords was maintained and once I had the gain up a bit single note soloing was easy to do. With the two controls dimed it actually seemed to have more clarity and I really like it at that setting.

I did a quick iPhone demo showing how the pedal sounds in various settings. It's rough but you get the idea. I have it up on my personal site.

The Demo is at

http://www.alanbarley.com

and click on the Bearfoot Dyna Red Hot tab to view.

AlanB