Bbe Maximizer Guitars Basses Keyboards Survey This is an "always on" pedal for me. This is a great product by a great company and it does one thing and does it well. This is the pedal version of the rack unit utilized in many artists' studios. Here's how it works: Essentially, low and high frequency sound waves travel through the air at different speeds and hit your ears at different times. This sometimes contributes to tones that are not pleasing. This pedal sorts out the frequencies and aligns them so they travel through the air at the same speed. Results: Ultimately, this provides a clearer, punchier tone that sounds fuller. However, like any processing unit, too much of a good thing is detrimental to your tone and will leave it sounding very "digital" and artificial. I tend to run the PROCESS knob just below 12 o'clock and the LO CONTOUR knob at 1 o'clock. As a point of reference, I play a Fender Strat through a Blues Junior. This pedal helps with the "boxiness" of the Blues Junior's small size and cheap cabinet material. it will NOT transform your amp into something it is not. It will help with some of the inherent sonic short comings with amplifiers. This stomp box is worth the cash. It adds a real dimension to your electric guitar sound and not just volume. It really brings out the "character" of your sound without changing it, if you like the clean sound as I do or when you need something extra for the dark sound, it can be "twisted" some, too. You will need to experiment with the effect settings for a while because there is no instructional booklet or suggested settings, but once you find the sweet spot you will absolutely love it. I purchased the Sonic Stomp based on other reviews, here and elsewhere. It delivers as advertised. I have mostly low to medium grade amps and the Sonic Stomp works wonders on these, giving them a clear more defined sound. It is pretty subtle but when you A/B the effect on/off you can clearly hear the difference. I have a Peavey ValveKing 112 tube amp and a Crate RFX65 solid state amp and the Sonic Stomp works well with both. I have Peavey MAX158 practice bass amp and it makes it sound fantastic. I also have a Roland JC-120 which is a higher end amp compared to the previous amps I listed, and the effect is more subtle but still sounds good. My conclusion with the amps that I have tried it on is, the lower grade the amp the more of a difference you'll hear. The controls are solid and the setup is simple. They recommend putting it at the end of your effects chain or run it threw the effects loop. I have tried it both ways and it works equally well. It comes with a 9 volt battery and an AC adapter. They recommend an adapter but it is quiet either way. I read in some other review that it's like removing a blanket that's covering the speaker. That is the best description of what this box will do for your sound. It is built solid, all metal including the knobs, easy no tool battery access, rubber on the bottom of the chassis, and it's true bypass. I hope this helps somebody. I went through two of these before giving up. Both had noisy pots and I found the effect more trouble than it was worth. This is a very old and broadly-misunderstood effect that still stirs much controversy. I think it still may be of limited utility in certain studio mastering functions -- where it is best applied as a VST -- but it has little place with personal stage gear. It is generally reviled among more experienced musicians and especially by FOH sound techs, who find the effect disruptive to the house mix when used on individual instruments. In converting the chip to work on 9VDC, numerous compromises were made compared to the 120VAC rack units. According to BBE, the unit has less headroom than even the cheapest rack version, now discontinued. Pass on this. Ok. A friend of mine had an older crate amp. He connected this sonic stomp pedal to it. It made a hudge positive difference. It gave it a volume boost, clarified channel frequencies and all in all made it sound pretty damm descent. I went out and bought one. When I connected it to my computer moduled line 6 and peavey vyper amps they had no effect. NONE at all. IMPORTANT
CONCLUSION: if you have an older non computer modeled amp ( DOES NOTcome with a drastic amount of effects electronically produced by an built in electronic computer processor) it WILL make a drastic bad a$# difference. If you have a newer or computer processed based amp it will NOT do anything. Jdhisto
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