I just got a tourbox to showcase these fine pedals from Coldcraft Efects.
The one I received was a 4-knob version, with the gain control. The site says now it’s a 3-knob, which makes sense, because I wasn’t sure what the gain knob was doing — there is no dirt in this pedal. With the 4-knob config, you have to turn up gain and volume a fair amount to get above unity gain.
The Smooth and Rage knobs are interesting. Smoth knob control the treble or presence range, while the Range control the low end. They don’t add anything, it’s all cutting frequencies out. When you dial these potentially offensive frequencies, you’re left with a boost that pushes only the places that count. Nice.
This one has two drive knobs and a Cut control. The drive A is warmer and with fatter low end, the drive B is brighter and a bit more cutting. Then you have the Cut which removes, once again, the potentially offensive high end. The two drives are in series and I think the pedal sounds best with both more than half way up, but depending on the guitar, bring out the parts that need more filling out.
This one has Gain, Treble, Volume and Shift. Shift controls the upper-mid range, and has a very big impact on the tone — back it off and you go smooth and sweet, while crank it up and it gets ballsy and in-your-face. The range is set very well — the whole sweep is useful. I personally liked it better when Shift was set high.
I’d like to point out that both dirt pedals have an excellent amp-like feel. Back-off the volume knobs, listen to the decay of the notes — no weird artifacts. Cool!
