T-Rex Hobo Drive

     This pedal is one of the better overdrive/distortion pedals I've ever played.   It's basic sound is like the gain channel of a high-end tube amp.   It's got some of the most tube-like, textured drive sounds of any pedals I've ever played, especially for a solid-state pedal.   At $280.00 street price, it's a bit pricey.
     It's got four knobs.   One for preamp, one for master, one for tone, and one for boost.   It also has a toggle switch, it switches between pre and post, and controls the order of the boost in regards to the overdrive section.   The preamp knob controls the gain, and ranges from a light overdrive to a medium gain distortion.   The break-up is refined and grainy, with the touch-responsive, tactile sound of a tube preamp, although this pedal is a solid-state pedal with no actual tubes.   It bristles with complex harmonics and has a chewy, tube-like reaction to your playing.   The master controls the overall volume of the overdrive/distortion and has enough range to overdrive the front of your amp or, with it backed off, to offer unity gain settings with no problems matching levels.   The tone knob offers a wide variety of sounds, from a warmer, wooly tone to a bright but not screechy slightly thinner tone.   All of the available settings are useable and sound good.   The boost knob goes from unity gain all the way counterclockwise, up to a huge bump in volume all the way clockwise, and it's engaged when the boost footswitch in on.   The drive and boost functions work alone or at the same time.   With the toggle on pre, the boost is placed before the drive.   With this setting, the boost is less noticeable volume-wise, and increases the gain depending on the setting.   The higher the boost, the more gain and overall volume.   With the toggle in post, the boost doesn't increase the gain any, but the increase in volume is cleaner and more noticeable.     The footswitch on the left turns gain channel on and off, the footswitch on the right turns the boost on and off.
     This pedal is definitely a unique sounding and complex-sounding overdrive/distortion, but buyer beware: while the pedal was designed in Denmark, it's manufactured in Taiwan.   Despite this fact, they still have a normal street price of $280.00, which IMHO is kind of a rip-off for an Asian-made pedal.   I got mine for $100.00 from Musician's Friend, but the special price is no longer available.   It was a decent deal at that price, but anything over that is too much to pay for an import pedal, especially when there are plenty of US-made pedals available for around that or less, or even just a little more...    

Blackstone Mosfet Overdrive

     This is one of the nicer pedals I own.   It's in an unassuming MXR sized box, with two footswitches and five recessed knobs that you can turn with your nail or a guitar pick.   The two on the left are for the the red level and the brown level.  The two on the right are for the red drive and the brown drive.   And there's one in the middle for the EQ.   The footswitch on the left switches between the two channels and the switch on the right is for bypass.
     The knob for the red knob at noon is the least amount of gain.   Turning it towards the left, counter-clockwise, increases the gain with the bottom end shaved off for use with humbuckers and P-90's.   Turning it towards the right, clockwise, increases the gain with the low end intact, for use with single coils.   The knob for the brown gain works like a normal knob, as do the two level knobs.   Most people would use the brown knob for their lower gain setting and the red channel for their higher gain setting   Higher gain settings can be a little bassy when used with humbuckers, so the red channel with it's dual settings allows the user to get their settings right depending on their pickup choice.   Both knobs have the same amount of gain when maxed, so you can set the knobs however you want and have dual gain channels.
     The knob in the middle controls the EQ, but it works differently than a typical tone knob.   With the knob fully clockwise, the mids are left intact.   With the knob counter-clockwise, the mids are cut.   With this EQ set-up, you can go from a mid-cut sound with enhanced bass and high end to a more flat response with the mids left intact.
     On top of all of this, there are two trim pots inside the enclosure that can further shape the tone   One controls the overall gain of the pedal and one controls the overall presence.   On top of that, there's a resistor on the circuit board that can be replaced with resistors with a different value in order to add or subtract low end to the red channel's humbucker mode.All in all, it's the finer details like these that make this pedal a truly versatile beast indeed.
     I set the gain trim pot slightly higher than stock and the presence a hair less (my guitar has a brass nut and is a little bright already).   With the red knob all the way counterclockwise and the brown about halfway, the two channels offer two totally amp-like sounds, with the brown sounding like an AC-30 and the red like a vintage Marshall.   The overdrive is crunchy and amp-like, with nice low end, complex mids and an extremely sweet high end, with no trace of any artificial-sounding sizzle.   The feel of this pedal reminds me of how it feels plugging into an amp with it's natural tube distortion, the way the pick digs in as you riff.   And the distortion is very touch-responsive, plus as you turn down the guitar's volume, the pedal cleans up more so than most.
     This pedal offers some of the best overdrive/distortion tones of any pedal out there and is well worth the $225.00 it costs to buy one new.   It'll make you forget you're using a pedal, it's totally amp-like and like no other.

Hip Kitty Java Distortion

     This review is for the Hip Kitty Java Distortion.   This hand-painted and numbered pedal is a total Boutique pedal.   It has two knobs, one for drive and one for volume, and three LED's, with two footswitches.  
     The drive goes from a light, nicely balanced overdrive to a medium gain distortion, with a fat bottom end, creamy mids and a sweet treble.  It's bright without any excessive high end sizzle and the breakup is refined and worthy of it's decidedly Boutique flavored overall sound.  
     One footswitch turns the effect on and off and the other switches between the gain knob setting and the gain maxed, with a 10 dB boost.   There is a wide variety of drive knob gain levels to contrast with the maximum gain and higher volume of the second setting, plus the bypass mode.   The EQ of the effect is so balanced that you don't really miss having a tone knob.  
     The sounds the pedal gets are pretty tube-like and are so pleasant to the ears that I'd have to say this is one of the better pedals out there, especially for the extremely reasonable price.   Along with it's charming hand-painted graphics, this is a super cool pedal that scream Boutique all the way.