Before I let you read the review I gave Matt Noisemaker for the pedal he built me, here's the lowdown on what it actually is... I decided to combine a Five overdrive pedal feeding into a Bad Mutha Fuzzer fuzz. The original Five pedal uses one knob for volume and a toggle switch to switch between a low gain and a higher gain overdrive. I kept the knob, but replaced the toggle with a footswitch, so could switch between the two settings easier. On the other side, there's two knobs. One is for volume, the other was added to control the gain of the fuzz. The original Bad Mutha Fuzzer only has one knob for volume. The footswitch on the far right turns the overdrive on and off, the middle footswitch switches between the two overdrive settings, and the footswitch on the far left switches the fuzz on and off.
Although i was very careful deciding which two pedals I wanted to combine for my custom pedal, I had no idea how well the two pedals I decided to use would work together when the pedal was actually finished. I guess I'm just lucky, but I'm amazed at how well the pedal turned out. The Five overdrive was a little brighter than I expected, but this turned out to be a blessing, since I like my lower gain sounds to be nice and bright. The Bad Mother Fuzzer, on the other hand, was warmer than I expected, with less high end and gain than I thought it would have. Again, this worked out well. While the fuzz sounded good with the gain on higher setting or maxed, I decided I liked it best at noon, straight up and down. With the gain up halfways, the fuzz on by itself produces a warm, fuzzy overdrive with a slightly subdued high end which contrasts nicely with the brighter overdrive settings. With both pedals stacked, with the overdrive on either setting, the slightly darker tone of the fuzz served to tone down the brightness of the two overdrive settings, which results is a well-balanced, complex distortion with a nice low end, thick,smooth and textured mids and a sweet high end, with just enough high end to give it a slightly bright tone, but with noticeably less treble than the two overdrive settings. With the overdrive on the lower gain setting and both pedals stacked , the distortion is medium gain, with more gain than the higher gain overdrive setting and alot less treble bite. With the overdrive on its higher gain setting and both sides stacked, the distortion is high gain with more gain than any of the other settings, giving it a slightly brighter sound than the other stacked setting, but still with less treble bite than the two overdrive settings. Although all of the settings have a remarkably low noise level, both stacked settings are especially quiet. Overall the pedal sounds great on all of it's settings. With each setting having it's own gain level and eq settings, each of them sound unique, yet all of them work extremely well together, giving the pedal a wide variety of sounds to work with while retaining a certain consistency to the overall sound of the pedal. All of this despite the pedal only having three knobs and no tone controls whatsoever. Each setting can be accessed by using the 3 footswitches the pedal comes with. I am quite surprised at how well the Kitty Box turned out, it turned out to be alot more than I expected, with some of the best distortion sounds I've ever heard from any pedal I've tried so far. Not bad for a measly $150.00, if anyone else would have built it for me it would have cost twice as much, if not more. A big thanks to Matt and Noisemaker Effects.
