ShortScale.org

Well I received a Box of Rock from light rail coyote today, and man I must say, what a wonderful pedal. I kinda wonder why he even sold it -- perhaps it didn't work with his setup? Or perhaps he was in dire need of some money... Either way, thanks for the great deal!

I haven't been able to test it with the band yet, but I will try to get a demo video up within the week (played thru my Twin Reverb). Also, I'll try to get a demo with my friend's Marshall Bluesbreaker when I can, as I believe the pedal was designed for pushing a Marshall in mind. I don't think most of the videos on youtube really do it much justice, so I'll try to capture the sound as best I can.

It really does create the illusion of playing through a bigger amp at relatively low volumes. Some people claim that it creates a "woofy" bass, and while it certainly does boost the lower frequencies, it does it in a pleasing manner and doesn't get muddy. However, my EQ settings on my Twin are Treble 5, Mid 6, and Bass 4 so things stay relatively clear no matter what pedal I'm using. It also sounds great with a Tubescreamer cascading into it, just like an amp would. I'll have to play around with it some more, but for now I keep the drive around 3-4 o'clock, and it sounds great. (I do use pretty low output single coils though, so you'd have to adjust to taste depending on what you're playing.)

You could really just use this pedal through a clean amp and call it a day. I might even just bring the BoR and a tuner on my next few gigs.

Does anyone else use this? How do you like it? What guitars and amps are you using with it? (I've heard it doesn't sound so great with class A type amps)

I think it's a great pedal. It sounds good with my Tiny Terror which while it isn't Class A is cathode biased and about as "Class A" as Amplifiers really get in the real world - what do you mean by Class A? Like a Vox AC30? There are no real Class A amplifiers really, but I know what you mean I think.

I think it's a great design and I really like it as a pedal - a nice range of gain and lots of volume on tap, and while the tone control isn't rubbish, the reason I added a 3-band EQ was because I wanted that pedal to be like a whole extra Amp channel whereby you could tailor the sound however you wanted - you can also tighten up the bass for palm muting if that's your thing, however that's only really an issue at the maximum gain levels. Overall it's a great sounding pedal, glad you're liking it.

I'm building one for my personal use soon, although if when I'm done someone wants to buy it, I'll sell it and build another, it's the way of things at the moment.

Yeah, Vox amps and their derivatives supposedly get too grainy/middy with it, because it emphasizes certain frequencies. It certainly pumps out a lot of mids that give just about any amp a Marshall flavor (whether that's good or not depends on the amp).

People, if you are going to buy one pedal from Mike*, you really should consider the BoR. It is a no frills straight up distortion pedal, but what it does it does well. You can get all your crazy fuzzes and overdrives and harmonic percolators and whatnot later -- if you want a simple clean/distortion setup that sounds great, look no further. I was kinda put off of distortion pedals for the longest time because my first pedal way back when was a Boss DS-1, and so I've bought quite a few fuzzes and ODs in the meantime. But a nice distortion is really what I wanted in the long run.

The boost is very useable to. I still prefer the boost on the MXR Micro Amp, but that circuit is entirely devoted to boosting the signal and adds a nice shimmer and slight compression, whereas the BoR simply increases the level without any real coloration. It's a nice perk, but really not the main selling point of the pedal.

*or ZVex -- but since Mike's circuits are modifications, and the BoR is mostly a modification of the classic "Brown Sound in a Box" pedal, it seems fair. Plus, come on, it's Mike!

I loved it at low volumes for playing in my bedroom by meself, but at band levels I just would always go to my big muff instead, and my bassman already overdrives quite a bit at that level. I liked it, but just never really used it with the band. I'm really glad you like it

I'm currently uploading a demo to youtube, however, its kinda long so it'll take awhile before its up. Just getting you all excited.

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i got one a week ago i love the hemp cloth it came in. sounds killer the clean boost is perfect too..(crackle okay)

Here's the link.

[youtube][/youtube]

And if you want to check out the guitar I'm playing with the pedal, check this video out:

[youtube][/youtube]

btw, if Mike (or whoever runs the shortscale youtube channel now) deems it worthy enough, I could add it to that channel.

Fixed the youtube links to be embedded.

Nice demo, it's a shame it got compressed to all get out by Youtube, even your clean stuff got the squishies?! I dunno whether they've upped their compression recently or what, it's kind of annoying.

Anyway, I'll pm you the info for the shortscalegeardemos account.

Mike wrote:Fixed the youtube links to be embedded.

Nice demo, it's a shame it got compressed to all get out by Youtube, even your clean stuff got the squishies?! I dunno whether they've upped their compression recently or what, it's kind of annoying.

Anyway, I'll pm you the info for the shortscalegeardemos account.

I think he uses a camera to record the sound as well as video, so thats the thing doing the squishin'

I know if I record with my camera it's got a nasty hard limiter that makes everything sound very squished, but it keeps it from clipping.