The Swedish Meatball Tourbox had a nice mix of pedals to try - Distortions, OD and Modulation. And certainly some things not often seen.
1.) MP Little Green Wonder
Vol - Little Green Wonder has TONS of output - I was running it at 2 into a clean amp, but it clearly has a lot to drive a distorted amp.
Body - Seems similar to the nature control on a Honeybee, but adds grit as you turn it to the left. This control was a bit hard for me to get a grip on. At first it seemed to be like a second gain knob, but I could tell the tone was shifting, too. Clearer to the right, thicker and more grain to the left, maybe?
Gain - The Little Green Wonder has grainy, gritty tone. For my uses, I wouldn't play it into a clean amp - the distortion tone didn't seem to suit me for that purpose. It did have a good amount of grit to add to a distorted amp, though.
When I tried it into a slightly distored amp, and it was great - mixed excellently with the amp tone. And into a Honeybee, one of the best stacked tones I've heard. AMAZING - just like a cranked amp tone to me. I would say the LGW was built to stack with amp or pedal distortion.
Next was a pair of Distortions - at least I paired these two in my head:
2.) Fetto
Vol - Good amount of output, not as much as the LGW, I think.
Tone - a Very wide sweep, from muddy to tinny, with lots of usable tones in the middle.
Gain - Best at high gain to me - at lower gain settings, not for me. But the higher gain (2:00 and above) was very nice.
Low end was nice and tight, singy lead tone, chunky ryth, great 70's rock a rolla sound.
3.) OLA OD
Volume - Lowest output of the three drives, but nice.
Tone - I thought the tone knob was pretty subtle on this one. Not as much swing as the Fetto, at least. But a lot of usable tones.
Gain - The tone on this was warmer, softer, but still a bit clangy - Who-ish, I thought. Firm but still some ring.
Something about the base tone of this I liked a lot, especialy with the volume up and at med gain settings. Great into a clean or distoted amp, nice firm sound. But there was something about the sustain that was a bit off, in the same way that the OCD was for me. It felt a bit sluggish.
4. OLA Boost -
Volume and tone knob.
My fav of all the pedals on this tourbox. VERY natural, neutral boost. I would say this boost is the most transparent boost I've heard. A lot of clean boosts still seem to hit the high end, making it more treble-y. OLA Boost seemed to just make it louder, with tone at 12. And when you turned the tone, it was very natural - it didn't seem to change the quality of the tone, just the balance of highs and lows. Not as much boost, or as much swing on the tone knob as some other boosts, but excellent tone.
The Delay, unfortunately, didn't work too well for me I had some noise issues with it. But I've had a few modulation pedals here that had noise which didn't show up at anyone else's house or rig, so I gotta chalk it up to the modulation pedal gremlins. Oh, well...
Excellent Tourbox, and a very nice chance to check out some rare and tonefull pedals. Thanks so much for including me.
