All user reviews for the Toadworks Death Rattle

US-built pedal, all analog and handmade in San Diego. It exudes quality workmanship, in spite of obvious bad taste in aesthetics - Toadworks said to be serious the only brand to use Comic Sans MS in its logo.

2 channels of overdrive + boost linearly movable in a pre-or post-gain when the drive is switched on and, most useful, usable as a clean boost when the drive is OFF.

For each channel, precise calibration of TONE, GAIN and LEVEL. The coloring of the tone is quite reactive.

UTILIZATION

Very simple, just a little quibble for awesome sound quite easily. The pedal comes with a manual suggesting a series of presets for convenience.

SOUND QUALITY

CHANNEL TWEED: soft and very warm overdrive, particularly by the accused a clean channel tube amp with 6L6GC. The expressiveness of the game is well made with single coil pickups (a Fender Jaguar with pickups of 63), this channel is supposed to mimic the effect of the circuit crunchy "tweed". Fairly neutral color, letting it breathe the natural sound of the guitar but with very providentially boosting harmonics. The sound is open, warm and dry enough and accurate in the low and medium high. Great for blues, surf, country or rock 60's.

CHANNEL PLEXI: heavier overdrive, Marshall grain type. The sound is dirty and the extension of the gain is significantly longer than the channel TWEED. I find my account with a gain of 11 am, making the slightly fuzzy crunch without being muddy. This channel is more like a real drive but remains accurate even pushed back.

The boost has the potential to expand the sound palette copiously being independent of specific circuits: the overdrive front, behind or without overdrive overdrive at all. Very clever on the part of Toadworks guy!

OVERALL OPINION

Looking for a quality pedal to compensate for the lack of "flexibility" of the TC Electronic VPD1 (excellent pedal after all, but sometimes difficult to adjust for the stage), the natural sound and accurate, I think I found a pedal which, despite its métalleuses sounding name, is perfectly suited to his specific guitar attached to a natural saturation vintage, requiring a mile gain. The pedal is not given (between 250 and 300 euros new) but sprayed a bunch of other Stompboxes in its class.