Black Arts Toneworks Black Forest

     First of all, I have to comment on this pedal's killer artwork.   It's all black, but somehow etched with a forest, so if you look at it in the light you can see the relief.   It's pretty sophisticated for a stompbox, I think the newer version has a less elaborate design.
     This pedal is based on a Coloursound overdrive pedal and is a medium gain overdrive with a healthy dose of fuzz, 60's style.   At it's highest gain setting think Led Zeppelin, at lower gain settings it ranges from a low gain drive upwards to various shades of fuzz flavored overdrive, with a very sweet high end and a healthy low end with a smooth midrange.   It's got high and low tone knobs along with the gain and volume knobs, and with these you can dial in a huge range of tonal flavors, as each tone knob has quite a wide sweep.   The clipping of this pedal sounds soft to my ears, it's not a harsh pedal by any means.   As a matter of fact, when placed before my Fender Super Champ on a low medium gain setting, the pedal sounds a little mushy.   But when running into a clean Fender 59 Ltd Bassman, it offers a nice range of overdrive sounds with a wide range of tonal options for when I want a vintage 60's-70's overdrive with a taste of fuzziness thrown in for good measure.   It cleans up well with adjustments to the volume knob and it's fairly touch responsive.   Not for everyone, but I suspect there's a healthy number of guitarists who rely on this pedal for their dirt needs.