Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi NYC

     This pedal is well known, a total classic.   The world famous Big Muff Pi, made by Electro Harmonix.   This is the most recent version, a total steal at $70.00, pretty amazing for a pedal made in NYC.
     The pedal offers a smooth, slightly dark distortion/fuzz sound with a scooped mid, a fat bottom end, and a sweet high end.   With the three knobs you can get a fairly wide variety of fuzz tones.   With the tone at noon, the pedal is slightly darker than most, but the tone knob has enough range that you can dial in a bright enough sound with ease.  Lower gain settings sound pretty awesome, the pedal sounds pretty distorted with the gain knob at noon, and with the gain knob dimed, you get massive sustain and tons of gain.   There's so much written already about this pedal and all of the variations that I don't feel the need to write anything more.   Buy it.   A pedal collection without at least one Big Muff Pi is not complete.

Catalinbread Karma Suture, new superior Harmonic Percolator copy

     First of all, the silk-screened box, custom pick and free sticker were really nice.   I've never bought a pedal that came in a static shielded bag before-- nice.   Secondly, the graphics on the Karma Suture are really nice and the white vintage-style knobs are cool too.
     After I did the review of the Chuck Collins version of the Interfax Harmonic Percolator, I ended up selling it.   The pedal was noisy and had a subdued high end on all of it's settings that started to bug me after a while, and it ended up on Craigslist.  Although it's authentic to the original, the enclosure was flimsy and the components, although NOS, were not the highest quality.   The enclosure was held together with huge wood screws and one of the holes stripped.   It looked home-made, which it was, mostly due to it's lack of lettering or other graphics.
     A few months later, the folks at Catalinbread introduced the Karma Suture.  This is a boutique pedal, with NOS and newer components of the highest quality.   Right off the bat, it solved both the noise issue and the subdued high end.   Plus, at it's highest settings, it never gets nasal, like the Collins version.   It's got the standard output (volume) and input (gain), plus two extra knobs: one for diodes and one for density.
     The diodes knobs goes from more open and uncompressed with less clipping, less high end and more volume to a more saturated, compressed sound with more high end and less volume., Between the two extremes ther's a wide variety of tonal shades, which you can fine tune to your liking.   The output knob can be used to compensate for the differences in volume.
     The density knob controls the amount of low end fed into the input and goes from a thinner, cutting brighter tone all the way counter-clockwise to a fatter, slightly more saturated sound all the way clockwise.    With the knob at noon, it offers the most balanced tone.   The tone is a little cleaner with the knob all the way down and a little more saturated with the knob all the way up.
     With the two extra knobs, the pedal offers a substantially wider range of usable sounds than the Collins version, with more fidelity and less of the Collins pedals unwanted noise.   The enhanced even order harmonics are still there, with useable tone on all the different settings of the density and diodes knobs.    The pedal is touch responsive and dynamic, with excellent note clarity, even with complex chords.   The even order harmonics the pedal churns out keep all the notes clear and distinct.
     This is probably the best Harmonic Percolator type pedal out there.   I haven't seen or actually tried out of them (obviously), but of the two I've tried, the Karma Suture is definitely the better sounding and more versatile of the two.   Plus, it's substantially cheaper than the current price for a new Chuck Collins Harmonic Percolator.

Electro Harmonix Germanium 4 Big Muff

     This pedal receives a more bang for the buck award for combing two separate pedals in one, an overdrive and a distortion, with the option of stacking both sides at once.   It uses two Germanium transistors in each side, hence the Germanium 4 in it's name.
     The first side in the chain is the distortion, with knobs for gain, bias, volts, and volume.   The bias knob goes from compressed and squishy counter-clockwise to having more attack and a sharper sound clockwise.   The volts knobs controls how much voltage the circuit gets and can be decreased for a starving battery effect.   The volts knob is highly interactive with the bias knob.   With both of them, you can get low-fi tones, stuttery gated tones, open ringing overdrives, all the way up to more modern high gain distortion and everything in-between.
     The overdrive side has knobs for gain, bias, tone, and volume.   This side has a warm, low gain overdrive.   Even with the gain knob and bias knob maxed, it doesn't have alot of gain.   The bias knob offers a decent amount of gain shaping range and the tone knob is functional enough.   I wish it had more range on the gain knob, but it's a minor complaint.
     With both sides on the tonal options increase and you can further modify the overall sound substantially.   This pedal offers a wide range of options and has fairly complex tones for a pedal in it's price range.

Boss DN-2 Dyna Drive

     This pedal used to go for over $100.00, then it dropped to around $90.00, now it can be had new for about $50.00.   I don't know if this is limited to stock on hand, it might be on sale for being discontinued, I'm not sure.
     This pedal is in-between an high gain overdrive and a distortion.  Although it's a digital pedal, it still sounds fairly warm and musical.   It's got a fairly transparent tone, none of the mid-scoop and screeching high end of the DS-1.   Although not as sophisticated as the Fulltone OCD, it's got a nice touch responsive mechanism in it's circuit based on the Dyna Amp circuit of the Roland Cube 60, so that when you play softly it distorts less and as you play harder the gain increases.  At it's current price of $50.00, I'd say it's a steal, offering yet another flavor of Boss dirt for the budget-conscious guitarist.

Vanhouten Maestro MFZ-1 copy fuzz, currently available as Chicago Ironworks Black Fudge

   This pedal is no longer made as a custom pedal in a plain yellow enclosure, but it's currently available as the Chicago Ironworks Black Fudge.   If you order it now it comes in a nice silk-screened black enclosure with the Chicago Ironworks logo and Black Fudge graphics.   It's a copy of the infamous Maestro MFZ-1 fuzz, with the original TL022 chip and modern and NOS parts, built in a smaller enclosure with user-friendly knobs.
     The pedal has two knobs for volume and gain.   The volume has to be turned up fairly high to get unity gain.   The gain knob goes from a crunchy lower gain overdrive/distortion to a fairly high gain fuzz, with an emphasis on the odd order harmonics.   The pedal sounds good throughout all of the gain settings, with a fairly smooth distortion that has it's own unique sound.   It's a cool sounding pedal and although I never tried an original Maestro, I'm convinced that it faithfully recreates the vibe of the original, as it has a unique and musical sound.   Both creamy and gritty, sounding like the 70's pedal it copies, it was worth the low price I got it for,   The new version is well worth the money too, with it's improved look.   Vanhouten has been building all sorts of cool boutique-quality pedals for a long time, his new line of Chicago Ironworks pedals are the next logical step in his development as a worthy pedal maker.

Moen Moo fuzz

   This sturdy pedal from Chinese pedal makers Moen offers a nice, inexpensive version of the Electro Harmonix Big Muff, with gain, volume and tone knobs, like the real thing.   It's got a similar sound, with a little more upper mids and high end and a less pronounced low end, although it still sounds fairly fat.   It seems to have a little less gain, but still offers alot of sustain and harmonics.   I read somewhere on the internet that it's circuit is similar to a Ram's Head or Triangle Big Muff, but i have no idea of this is actually true.   If you're on a budget or if you simply collect Big Muff knockoffs, this pedal might be right up your alley, for around $50.00.

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.

Real Tube Overdrive by BK Butler

     This is the one pedal I own that is not fairly new.   It's from the late eighties.   Also, it is the only pedal I own currently that has a tube in it.
     With the stock tube, the sound was too high gain for me, with a mid-scoop sound that verged on being too metal.   I replaced the 12AX7 with a 12AT7 (ECC81) made by Mullard in the UK.   Now it has a little less gain, but still enough for a decent amount of drive when maxed and a wider range of settings with lower gain for more subdued sounds.   The change in tubes also added some mids and gave the pedal more of a classic rock type sound.
     There are knobs for gain, volume, hi, mid, and lo.   The EQ knobs have a lot of range in them and you have a huge range of EQ settings available, thanks to the 3-bands.   The pedal goes from no volume at it's lowest settings up to a bluesy/early rock sound, upwards to varying degrees of crunch all the way up to a fairly high gain sound, even though I swapped the stock 12AX7 for a lesser gain 12AT7/ECC81.   The sound is fairly smooth and sounds like a nice tube distortion should, with the overall amp-like feel that is alot like playing directly into the gain channel of a high quality tube amp.
   These pedals are usually fairly expensive for a used pedal on eBay, but are still alot cheaper than the Chandler Tubes Overdrives (new and used).   If you want a nice vintage real tube overdrive, these are worth checking out.

Idiotbox Mad Doctor Stutter Box

     This is another pedal from Idiotbox called the Mad Doctor Stutter Box.   It has two knobs, one for rate and the other for Ratio.   It's a simple idea, rather than tremolo, which is a modulation effect that rhythmically pulses low to high volume, it instead goes from no volume to unity gain volume.  On and off.   It stutters, so to speak.   Square wave stutters.   The rate is self explanatory, the ratio controls the ratio of the on to off, with the knob counter-clockwise giving a longer on signal and the knob to the right giving less on and more off.   There is a toggle switch that, when turned to the right, gives more of an even response.   When it's turned to the left it gives a more percussive response.   The two knobs are interactive, turning the ratio knob counter-clockwise slows the rate down, turning it clockwise gives faster repeats.   With the rate knob all the way on and the ratio knob at a faster position, the effect is cancelled out.
     The effect is a great alternative to more traditional tremolo.   It sounds more modern and can be used for a variety of effects, similar to tremolo and even delay, but with it's own unique twist.   With a fuzz in front and a delay after it, it offers some super killer sounds.   I give the pedal an A+ and the mad doctor on the artwork's eyes even light up in response to the rate of the effect.   Super cool!

Klinger Buzz Fuzz II

     This review is for a pedal that's my new favorite pedal of all time.   It's a hand-made Boutique version of the rare Burns Buzzaround pedal, as used by Robert Fripp during his heyday with the original King Crimson.   It's got the traditional three knobs the original has (Sustain, Balance, and Timbre), plus an added Pre knob, which controls the amount of signal going into the circuit, giving the overall gain of the unit more options.   Sustain controls the gain, Balance is kinda like a volume knob, and Timbre shapes the tone.   The Pre and Sustain knobs are highly interactive.   The pedal does overdrive, distortion and fuzz type tones with it's own unique sound.
     The pedal gives a wide variety of gain structures depending on the Pre and Sustain settings, from a nice crunch to a highly saturated yet very musical fuzz with a lot of natural sounding warmth and a smooth, yet bright high end, while still maintaining a healthy bottom end, with a distinct texture that recalls Prog-rock type tones, yet still sounds very modern.   The three germanium transistors give the pedal a smooth breakup, yet it maintains a healthy dose of crunch, and practically every setting of the four knobs is very useable.  The pedal stays touch responsive at all settings.    Arpeggios and complex chords ring fairly clear.   The effect retains relative note clarity for a fuzz, even at high gain settings.   It never mushes out.  The gain  cleans up well with the guitar's volume knob and retains its high end edge even as the volume is turned down.   This pedal is one of the best stompboxes I've ever had the pleasure of playing.
      This pedal is hand-built to order and uses premium NOS and modern parts mounted and hand-wired on turret strips, yet the price to order direct from Klinger is still very reasonable, even with the extra $20.00 AUD for shipping.    My pedal features a custom enclosure in silver Hammer, the first Buzz Fuzz II in that color, which Shaun Klinger did free of charge.   He stayed in contact with me during the building process and his replies were prompt and very helpful.   Check out the inspiring youtube videos of his current pedals.   I'm sure you'll be as impressed as I was, they are truly magical.

Idiotbox Death Ray Mangler

      I usually stick to fairly traditional dirt boxes.  Before I bought the Idiotbox Death Ray Mangler, I stayed away from the weirder boxes and stuck to the basics.   This might be a turning point in my taste on stompboxes...
     The Idiotbox Death Ray Mangler is one weird beast.   It's got an on/off switch and three knobs: Z, A, and P.   Z controls the main pitch of the square wave divider, A knob slews the pitch.   With the A knob on full, the Z knob gives a filtered square wave fuzz.  With the A knob backed off the pedal gives a wide range of lo-fi blip outs, octave overtones, video game sounds, and ring-mod type textures.   While the pedal is capable of more stable fuzz tones, it's all still pretty gated, so the notes kinda cut out as they fade.   The P knob controls the volume.   There is a huge variety of sounds to be had, from the more traditional to the way out stuff that noise freaks adore.  Again, this is one trippy pedal.   I spent a few hours playing with the knobs and still haven't done it all, the controls are highly interactive with each other and it would be impossible to dial in everything this pedal is capable of in a short time, if at all.
    I did Devo-ish ring-mod sounds, Wall of Voodoo "Ring of Fire" fuzz, 60's punk freak outs, early Cabaret Voltaire industrial chunks, Butthole Surfers inspired noodling, tones worthy of the Unsane and Sonic Youth, and I've just started...   Check out the Idiotbox Death Ray Mangler if you want unique and interesting fuzz with a twist.
     Just to say, the box takes a expression pedal to control the Z knobs parameters, I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure it will add a substantial extra dimension the the already impressive sounds coming out of this stompbox.
     This pedal is very reasonably priced, a big thanks to rocknrollvintage.com for what turned out to be a screaming good deal.   You can also order them direct from  idiotboxeffects.bigcartel.com.

Lovepedal Provalve 2

     After reading the original Provalve's review in Guitar Player a few years ago, I decided I had to check out the pedal.   While I was trying to scrounge up the money to buy it, it sold out.   Lucky for me, Lovepedal reissued it as the Provalve 2, with a slightly different tone cicuit.   I was able to purchase it while it was still available and I'm glad I did, for it's a really neat stompbox.
     Basically, it's two high gain distortion pedals in one.   It's got knobs for volume and tone, plus two knobs for the two footswitchable gain levels.   One footswitch turns the pedal on or off, and the other switches between the two gain settings.
     Before I get to how it sounds, I have to note that this pedal is LOUD!   Unity gain is around 9:00 and it's got plenty of volume to really push the front end of a tube amplifier for extra gain.   The pedal has a very usable tone circuit that is great sounding no matter how you set it.   The gain goes from a solid AC/DC crunch to a super high gain half-stack sound, with all the attendant feedback and sustain.   This pedal will make a small combo sound huge, and it's one of the better high gain distortion pedals I've had the pleasure of trying out.
     As far as I know, it's pretty much sold out, although the last time I looked, there were used Provalve 2's and one new one available on eBay.   Check it out for yourself and good luck...   

    

Danelectro Fab Distortion

     This pedal has got to be the cheapest pedal ever, only $15.25 on eBay.   After I got it I looked it up again and now they can be had for about $12.00...   Despite it's low price, it's a pretty nice pedal.   Plastic enclosure with a metal base, tidy PCB inside.   Volume, tone and gain knobs.
      The sounds it gets are actually pretty cool too.   Based on an unnamed 70's box from Japan, it gets a balanced warm distortion with a decent low end and a sweet high end.   It sounds as good or ever better than a Boss DS-1, at less than half the price.   Check it out on eBay for the best price.

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.

Boss OD-3 Overdrive

     This is a review for the Boss OD-3 Overdrive.   It's basic sound is somewhere inbetween the DS-1 Distortion and the SD-1 Super Overdrive, with a distinct overall vibe that is well worth the $80.00 price tag.   It's overall sound is bigger than the SD-1 and more amp-like, with more bottom end and less mids and high end.   It also seems to have less of a saturated gain sound.   It doesn't have the mid-scoop and super pronounced treble response of the DS-1, and the overall sound is smoother, with a lot less gain.   Overall, it's got a big bottom end and a balanced mid and treble response.   It's also got alot more output than either of the other two pedals.  It's touch responsive, much like the SD-1, and it's got nice clarity all throughout the travel of the drive knob.
     While the SD-1 is smoother and a litle more transparent in terms of coloring the tone of the instrument, the extended bottom end and more balanced mids and high end of the OD-3 may be more appealing to many guitarists.   While the SD-1 may be the better of the two for feeding into an already overdriven amp, the OD-3 is probably the better of the two when feeding into a clean amp.   It's an appealing overdrive with a vintage vibe and a big sound that would work for classic rock, blues, punk, and any other genre that doesn't require too much gain.   While it's a little more than an SD-1 or a DS-1, it's still an affordable pedal that gives the owner some major bang for the buck.
     Like the DS-1, this pedal sounds awsome with the SD-1 placed in front of it.   The SD-1 brightens up the darker sounding OD-3 and the two pedals together sound totally killer when you take the time to fiddle with the tone and drive knobs on each pedal to get the best sound.   I like the tone I get with the drive and level knobs on the SD-1 at noon and the tone knob at 10:30 and the three knobs on the OD-3 at noon.   The extra gain of both pedals running together has a excellent tube-like quality and the two pedals running at the same time is better than either pedal on it's own.   Both pedals only cost $130.00 total, which is a reasonable price that's about the same or lower than many single pedals out there and you can switch between the two pedals on their own as well as both on at the same time.   I prefer to run the OD-3 on it's own for a lower gain sound and add the SD-1 for a little more gain and sustain.  If you've already got both, try them out stacked.   You might just find the tone you've been searching for.  

Boss DS-1 Distortion

This review is for the Boss DS-1, which is probably one of the cheapest distortion pedals available at about $50.00 a throw.   It's the best selling distortion pedal of all time.   The pedal offers a mid-scooped fairly high gain distortion with a lot of sizzly high end.   Although it's not the greatest sounding pedal, it's still a good deal for the price and when the tone knob is turned down between 9:00 to 10:00, it produces a fairly decent overall sound.   It can sound pretty thin and buzzy with the tone knob turned above that, and of course the tone coming from your guitar and the tone of your amp are contributing factors in the overall sound you get. 
   One way to get a better sound out of this pedal is to place a Boss SD-1 in front of it and with the tone knobs properly adjusted and the gain on both pedals around noon, run both pedals simultaneously.   That way you have the two pedals on their own, plus the two combined, in addition to your clean tone.  
     There are many mods available online for this pedal, all sorts of variations on the basic circuit for the guitarists who aren't satisfied with the stock sounds of this pedal.   If you want to spend a little bit more than $50.00, you can also look for a vintage DS-1 made in Japan, the Japanese version supposedly being a little warmer and better sounding than the pedals from Taiwan.   In any case, whatever option you choose, this pedal is probably worth a shot if you want to add an old classic to your well-rounded pedal collection, or just need an inexpensive higher gain pedal for your rig.  

Noisemaker Effects Kitty Box-- a custom pedal

     This is a review of my custom pedal from Noisemaker Effects.   Besides making a whole line of very moderately-priced standard pedals, with some of the lowest prices I've ever seen for Boutique-type pedals, they will build you your own custom pedal according to your requests for a great price!
     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.