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Warpsmasher wrote:Red maple with an ebony tint, a good tone wood, somehow a little softer than alder but harder than basswood. Screwed in the bridge, jack socket and pickguard by hand with no guide holes, very satisfying crunchiness there.

Hell yeah

In: Empress Nebulus and ParaEq Mk Ii Dlx. Supposedly scratch & dent but all I can find is that maybe the paint is a bit imperfect on the sides. If this what their S&D is usually like, a) that’s a crazy level of quality control and b) I feel no hesitation about taking the S&D discount in the future.

Hopefully I can put them through some paces this weekend.

Gone Fission wrote:In: Empress Nebulus and ParaEq Mk Ii Dlx. Supposedly scratch & dent but all I can find is that maybe the paint is a bit imperfect on the sides. If this what their S&D is usually like, a) that’s a crazy level of quality control and b) I feel no hesitation about taking the S&D discount in the future.

Hopefully I can put them through some paces this weekend.

Yeah, I got an S&D Empress Reverb a few years back and it was literally a pin prick sized blemish in the paint on the side of the unit. If I wasn’t told it was S&D I wouldn’t have noticed.

Pepe wrote:OUT: BOSS OD-20 Drive Zone
IN: ProCo Deucetone RAT

What'd you think of the OD-20?

The OD-20 is good, but not spectacular.

The mode I enjoyed the most was the "OCT FUZZ", which is based on the (pre Roland) Ace Tone Fuzz Master. I have and I have had some of the original dirt pedals and overall the OD-20 can come quite close to the basic sound of these. But there are some things that you miss, like the behaviour of the HM-2 mode, which is not at all how an original BOSS HM-2 works (no Swedish Death Metal setting is possible and neither are my favourite settings - somehow they completely fu**ed up the EQ). You must keep in mind, though, that this pedal was introduced in 2002, over twenty years ago!

Some modes are really good, like the BOSS OD-2 or ProCo RAT. I think that the TS808 mode (T-SCREAM) is good as well, at least it sounds a lot like the Hotone Golden Touch that I had for a while which is said to deliver a very good TS808 sound (this pedal was better than any other Tube Screamer version that I tried or heard before).

All in all you cannot do anything wrong with the OD-20 if you are at the beginning of your dirt pedal collection. Before buying a handful of pedals for over 1000$ you can grab an OD-20 for around 140$ or so to get an idea of all the famous models. It has six BOSS pedal modes, six original OD-20-exclusive modes and ten modes of other legendary pedals (MXR Distortion+, Klon Centaur, EHX Big Muff, etc.). The extra features like the "Attack Shape" or the octaver are really neat. Plus you can store four sound settings with the memory function.

I really liked it, but it was the same as with most digital versatile pedals that I have: it almost immediately started collecting dust. So I sold it for a good price and took that money plus a little bit on top to purchase the Deucetone RAT which I am going to enjoy for lots of years. I'm only waiting for new 3PDT switches to arrive, because the old blue ones have become unreliable.

I haven't looked at the deucetone in a long time, but having 2 rats on your board is such a legitimate thing. I never turn it off as it is, so the second one could be for an actually heavy sound

It's really awesome to have all the RAT models before the FAT RAT in one box. I have had the Turbo RAT for some years and I preferred it over the '80s RAT of a friend. The Deucetone RAT has both sounds inside plus the "(You) Dirty RAT" (Germanium clipping diodes) on Channel A and the Deucetone-exclusive "Clean RAT" on Channel B. I could upgrade the ICs for two LM308s, but I think that's not necessary. Since I'm going to replace the 3PDT switches anyway I'm going to socket the built-in ICs so that I can try out LM308 ICs anytime if I want.

Is the Clean Rat mode just a diode lift?

Wish I had picked up an R2DU before they got silly expensive. It’s kind of silly to use up a full rack space on so little, but very cool. Two Rats seems totally legit.

New scratchplate for the blue flower Tele as I don't like the clear ones. I'm waiting on a set of CS Nocaster pickups for it which should be here tomorrow.



Other than that I'm waiting for a W/B/W scratchplate for my Noventa JM as I don't like the mint green, which may or may not follow with some white P90 covers.

Then, hopefully, that's me done for 2023.

You really do need to be done, since you’re really making me want a Tele.

Gone Fission wrote:You really do need to be done, since you’re really making me want a Tele.

I'm fairly sure it's a well-known thing that everyone should have at least four Telecasters.

Paul_C wrote:

Gone Fission wrote:You really do need to be done, since you’re really making me want a Tele.

I'm fairly sure it's a well-known thing that everyone should have at least four Telecasters.

I hear that five is a good number

I do have five there's a tangerine Squier on another stand.

Gone Fission wrote:Is the Clean Rat mode just a diode lift?

Looks like just that. Sounded good so far, but I only had the chance to hear a little bit of it through headphones.

Gone Fission wrote:Wish I had picked up an R2DU before they got silly expensive. It’s kind of silly to use up a full rack space on so little, but very cool. Two Rats seems totally legit.

I read somewhere that the Deucetone has its origins in the 19'' unit. It's neat that the two footswitches are quite close together so you can easily switch one channel off and activate the other one without any problem. It will do a great job on stage, I'm sure.

Pepe wrote:The OD-20 is good, but not spectacular.

The mode I enjoyed the most was the "OCT FUZZ", which is based on the (pre Roland) Ace Tone Fuzz Master. I have and I have had some of the original dirt pedals and overall the OD-20 can come quite close to the basic sound of these. But there are some things that you miss, like the behaviour of the HM-2 mode, which is not at all how an original BOSS HM-2 works (no Swedish Death Metal setting is possible and neither are my favourite settings - somehow they completely fu**ed up the EQ). You must keep in mind, though, that this pedal was introduced in 2002, over twenty years ago!

Some modes are really good, like the BOSS OD-2 or ProCo RAT. I think that the TS808 mode (T-SCREAM) is good as well, at least it sounds a lot like the Hotone Golden Touch that I had for a while which is said to deliver a very good TS808 sound (this pedal was better than any other Tube Screamer version that I tried or heard before).

All in all you cannot do anything wrong with the OD-20 if you are at the beginning of your dirt pedal collection. Before buying a handful of pedals for over 1000$ you can grab an OD-20 for around 140$ or so to get an idea of all the famous models. It has six BOSS pedal modes, six original OD-20-exclusive modes and ten modes of other legendary pedals (MXR Distortion+, Klon Centaur, EHX Big Muff, etc.). The extra features like the "Attack Shape" or the octaver are really neat. Plus you can store four sound settings with the memory function.

I really liked it, but it was the same as with most digital versatile pedals that I have: it almost immediately started collecting dust. So I sold it for a good price and took that money plus a little bit on top to purchase the Deucetone RAT which I am going to enjoy for lots of years. I'm only waiting for new 3PDT switches to arrive, because the old blue ones have become unreliable.

Nice, thanks for sharing! I remember looking into it back when it came out because I didn't know much about dirt pedals and wanted a lot of options, but I think I got an amp modeler instead. I have a few of the other 20 series and sometimes get weird collector urges, and coincidentally there was one for $80 on CL over the weekend. But I have more dirt than I need already, so good to know I didn't particularly miss out.