A multifaceted Muff clone offers brutalizing and beautiful sides of the Sovtek coin.
RatingsPros:Beautiful variations on Sovtek-style tones. Copious tone-shaping options. Very nice boost circuit. Cons: Mid-forward settings can sound too dense. Street: $225 street Wren and Cuff Super Russian wrenandcuff.com | Tones: Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value: |
With little fanfare, Wren and Cuff has evolved into one of most reliably excellent small pedal makers in the world. The last few years have seen the company diversify beyond their fuzz roots to build an imaginatively executed germanium compressor and chorus/vibrato pedals, among others. But their reputation was built on Big Muff clones. And as the new Super Russian makes plain, the Southern California company’s Muff-style pedals still rank among the best.
The Super Russian marks a departure in some ways. Rather than recreate an existing Muff circuit to some exacting standard, Matthew Holl’s used his version of the classic Tall Font Russian circuit as a jumping off point, leveraging his fluency in Muff circuitry to add new inflections to familiar mods and to the Tall Font circuit itself. It’s among the most flexible Sovtek-inspired pedals I’ve ever played.
Built to Bully
The fit, finish, and design that goes into Wren and Cuff pedals is always apparent. And though the inverted circuit board means you don’t see what components populate it, you do see ample evidence of careful construction. Jacks are chassis-mounted. And while I didn’t confirm it with Holl, I suspect even the selection of the included Sunbeam 9V battery, which reads “Super Heavy Duty” on the side, was carefully considered.
Topside, things are busier than your average Muff. The three rightmost knobs, volume, tone and distortion, are typical Big Muff stuff. The two sturdy mini toggles, however, activate two “mods” that transform the Tall Font circuit. The switch on the right shifts the EQ profile from the classic scooped Sovtek sound to what Wren and Cuff calls a flat EQ setting. The left toggle activates Holl’s version of the famous (if somewhat controversial) “Creamy Dreamer” mod. The left footswitch activates the pedal’s germanium boost circuit—a very nice, transparent boost, controlled by the “push” knob that works seamlessly with the Tall Font Russian circuit.
Blast First
On balance, the Tall Font side is buzzier and airier than my Sovtek or any of my favorite Sovtek clones—a very cool thing. You hear a lot more detail and articulation, and there’s less of the dynamics-blurring compression that can make even the best Muffs sound muddy for certain leads and complex chords.
Flat mode changes the Super Russian’s personality considerably. The additional midrange makes the basic tone much more heavy metal. That will please players that lament the way a Muff can go missing in a loud band. It may be less popular with Sovtek traditionalists that like the gauzy, hazy mystery of the mid-scooped profile. One super-cool possibility opened up by the flat mode is the filter-y, cocked-wah-style lead sounds you can get when you advance the distortion and tone. It’s killer for twisted, monstrous variations on psych-punk biker fuzz tones.
Creamy mode is a nod to the famous/infamous Creamy Dreamer mod that many Smashing Pumpkins fans adopted to replicate Billy Corgan’s Siamese Dream tones. (All for naught, it turns out: Corgan used an OpAmp Big Muff rather than a silicon-transistor variant.) To my ears, the high-gain creamy mode is less flattering to the old-school scooped setting—rendering dynamics and note detail less distinct and robbing the distortion profile of much needed oxygen. Using it with the flat setting helps offset the muddiness with extra high-mid presence, though this setting, too, gives the pedal a brick-walled, everything-in-the-red feel. Whether this is good or bad is very subjective. I thought it sounded awesome for gnarly, mid-focused single-note lead tones, but enjoyed it much less for chords and dense note clusters, where I wanted to hear the growling harmonic rainbow of the Tall Font circuit.
My favorite tones came by way of marrying the very effective germanium boost to the traditional, scooped Tall Font setting. They’re a great match, and the germanium boost lends vibrancy to the Tall Font circuit’s already very pretty distortion colors. The boost circuit also shifts the more aggressive flat and creamy modes from stun to kill. It can be an amazing tool for putting a lead out in front of a band, though it also highlights the creamy mode’s wall-of-sound intensity.
The Verdict
Even if you only use the traditional, scooped Tall Font circuit along with the boost, the Super Russian is a good value for a superb Sovtek-style pedal. And even though I love Sovtek-style scooped tones, I found that the flat and creamy modes could be tailored in cool ways using the very responsive tone control. For players that love mid-forward, wall-of-fuzz variations of the Muff voice, the Super Russian will be a tone bonanza.
A bass OD that shows the combo of German engineering, top-quality parts, and modern design isn’t only for luxury cars.
RatingsPros:High-quality, robust construction. Ability to blend in clean tone. Cons: Difficult to manipulate controls. Unusual layout. Significant volume changes when adjusting settings. Street: $299 street RMI Basswitch Enhanced Overdrive rmi.lu | Tones: Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value: |
From the country that gave us Beethoven and BMWs, Germany’s Lehle is producing a bold new distortion called the RMI Basswitch Enhanced Overdrive. Much like German automakers, the pedal builder has made a name for itself by using exceptionally high-quality components and paying attention to detail. The manual for the Enhanced Overdrive states that the pedal “starts where a little distortion is not enough,” which had me primed for a test drive.
Tanks a Lot
The Basswitch Enhanced Overdrive is completely manufactured in Germany and the all-metal housing is solid as a tank. There are four control knobs for tone, mix, gain, and volume, and the knobs are uniquely recessed to protect them from damage and inhibit unintentional setting alterations. The company also incorporates a proprietary footswitch, which I won’t go into in detail about here, but suffice it to say it’s an ultra-robust design that feels practically indestructible. The pedal’s status LED is always on: glowing blue when the distortion is engaged, and white when bypassed.
The Basswitch Enhanced Overdrive is not a true-bypass pedal, but instead features a high-quality and audibly transparent buffer intended to provide a very low-impedance signal to combat any possible cable length issues. The pedal is powered via a standard 2.1 mm barrel connector accepting 9–15V (AC or DC), which is then internally brought to 18V for increased headroom. The pedal does not have the option of battery power.
Lehle-ing It Down
For initial testing, I went with the old standards: a 1965 P bass into a 1965 Ampeg B-15. My first impression of the pedal was that it was bright sounding and a bit brash. I know how much high end can get gobbled up by drums and guitars in a mix, however, so I pulled up a track I had recently recorded in my studio and replaced my original bass line with one using the Lehle overdrive. Sure enough, a lot of the obnoxious frequencies were tamed, and those previously objectionable frequencies allowed my signal to cut through the mix in a very pleasing way. And the quality of the distortion in combination with the original signal via the mix control gave my tone a nice, tight bottom with plenty of low end intact.
I did find that the overall control of the box takes a bit of getting used to. For me, the recessed knobs were somewhat difficult to manage. And because the controls are all very interactive, I found that any changes to the settings usually needed some notable compensation with the volume control. Also, the mix and tone controls are, in a sense, “upside-down,” since middle ground is 6 o’clock rather than the typical 12 o’clock. All of this said, however, I’d imagine many players will find their desired sound and leave it. Another feature worth noting is that the tone control actually adjusts the midrange, which is unusual, but it’s quite effective in shaping the tone of the grit, since it’s placed before the gain stage.
The Verdict
Yes, it took me some time to “get” the Basswitch Enhanced Overdrive. It’s like that esoteric new band your friend recommends. The band’s sound might not grab you at first, but after you start to sink into it, they quickly become your favorite. The minimum gain setting on the pedal still delivers a lot of distortion, so I found the Basswitch Enhanced Overdrive to be a little bit of a one-trick pony. It’s a very good trick, however—especially if you like the idea of great, aggressive distortion that will not turn your bass tone into a thin, washy mush.
Reverb’s depths made accessible in a small and super-economical package.
RatingsPros:Great sounds, extremely versatile, feature-rich, small enclosure, affordable. Cons: Would love a preset button. Street: $149 Electro-Harmonix Oceans 11 Reverb ehx.com | Tones: Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value: |
Though Boss’ RV-2 might have been first, Electro-Harmonix’s Holy Grail reverb was among the earliest digital reverb stomps to attain relative pedalboard ubiquity. But while the Holy Grail is still a fantastic pedal in its original guise, advances in DSP technology have made it a sort of Volkswagen Beetle among reverb stomps—solid, simple, and economical. In the form of the Oceans 11, Electro-Harmonix is mating some of the simplicity and utility of the Holy Grail with the DSP power of EHX units like the Cathedral and compact multi-verbs like the TC Electronic Hall of Fame and the MXR Reverb. Even by the high standards set by those units, the Oceans 11 is a superb digital reverb.
Shallow Box, Deep Circuit.
The most remarkable thing about the Oceans 11 isn’t necessarily the number of reverbs on hand (Eleven, if you’d hadn’t yet made the connection.), but the fact that they’re all genuinely musical and inspiring. It’s also noteworthy that these various reverbs share very little sonic overlap between one another and don’t go to cartoonish extremes to achieve their differences. What’s more, most of the reverbs here have multiple voices available via the little “mode” button nestled at the center of the pedal’s knob array. There are even more hidden parameters accessed through the Oceans 11’s sneaky “secondary knob mode.” The device rounds out an impressive feature set with a clever dual function footswitch that allows you to engage an infinite reverb loop by holding the switch down, while whatever you play on top of the loop is doused with the reverb you’re already using. It’s an impressive, expressive, and thoughtful tweak.
With the number of options and sounds packed into a pedal this compact, you could be forgiven for assuming something must have been sacrificed for economy’s sake—especially with a price tag at about $150. But the Oceans 11’s sounds are truly stellar and inspiring. The most common reverbs, like spring, plate, and hall, felt and sounded organic and authentic.
The weirder stuff like the polyphonic setting encouraged unexpected ideas, even at their most extreme. The Oceans 11 also packs in a slew of contemporary favorites, like an ethereal shimmer ’verb and an ECM Records-approved echo reverb—sounds that are must-haves for players in the indie-pop and post-rock realms.
Navigating the Abyss
The Oceans 11’s controls (FX level, time, tone) change function depending on the reverb voice you select. And each control has a wide range regardless of the function it is regulating, making it very easy to dial in everything from super subtle sounds to over-the-top, fully drenched vibes.
While there’s plenty of payoff for knob tweakers willing to dive deep and explore the Oceans 11’s expansive feature set, I found the pedal extremely satisfying to explore more intuitively. And whether routed through the front end or sent to the effects loop of my Friedman Dirty Shirley 40, the Oceans 11 melded beautifully with my dry signal and added lush dimension without sterility. It sounds like a much more expensive effect.
The Verdict
Even though the Oceans 11 is small, there are many more features than can be covered in this review. The only gripe I have with the Oceans 11 is that its copious sounds aren’t accessible via preset. That said, at this price I would not be at all surprised to see these appearing in pairs on pedalboards. The Oceans 11 is a killer reverb solution for a small fly-date board, for recording sessions that require spatial sounds, and could even prove a useful tool for acoustic players that need to spice things up when plugging into a DI or PA. Indeed, the Oceans 11 is much more than the sum of its 11 voices.
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