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Fireguy8402 « Better than the Blues Driver. »
Published on 12/23/11 at 08:04The Screamin’ Blues overdrive/distortion is a dirt pedal from Digitech. It has the basic features of most overdrive pedals, Volume to adjust the overall volume, gain to adjust the amount of overdrive/distortion and low and high tone knobs to adjust the EQ of the pedal. Along with the regular output on the pedal, Digitech also throws in a Mixer Output with cab emulation.
UTILIZATION
This pedal has a solid metal casing and sturdy knobs, so it appears to be pretty sturdy. The pedal works great out front of an amp, and definitely do use an amp. After trying the cab emulated mixer output, I would never use it. This is barely better than plugging straight into the board, and probably just a marketing strategy to make the pedal look more appealing. No problem, just disregard this output and use the pedal how it was meant to be used, into an amplifier.
SOUND QUALITY
The sound out of this thing is actually pretty decent for the price. I was hoping this pedal would be a hot rodded version of the Bad Monkey from the same line, but it’s a little bit different animal. It works great as a boost into an already overdriven amp. It can achieve a light gain all the way up to a bluesy/rock drive on it’s own. The pedal is less responsive to dynamics than some pedals I’ve used, but it’s not what I’d call stale or inorganic sounding. I feel the Bad Monkey is a nicer sounding pedal, but this pedal does the medium and higher gain settings. The two band EQ really allows you to tailor the sound, and I don’t understand why more overdrive pedals don’t offer multi band equalization.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall this is a pretty good dirt pedal for the money. You aren’t going to get boutique sounds out of this thing, but when compared to many Boss overdrives this pedal comes out ahead. Honestly I don’t think there is a lot of difference between many distortion pedals in this range, but adding a two band EQ makes this pedal a lot more versatile than most so that’s a win in my book. I would pick this pedal up over a Boss DS-1 any day of the week, but I think the real gem in this line of pedals from Digitech is the Bad Monkey which feels slightly more dynamic to me.
UTILIZATION
This pedal has a solid metal casing and sturdy knobs, so it appears to be pretty sturdy. The pedal works great out front of an amp, and definitely do use an amp. After trying the cab emulated mixer output, I would never use it. This is barely better than plugging straight into the board, and probably just a marketing strategy to make the pedal look more appealing. No problem, just disregard this output and use the pedal how it was meant to be used, into an amplifier.
SOUND QUALITY
The sound out of this thing is actually pretty decent for the price. I was hoping this pedal would be a hot rodded version of the Bad Monkey from the same line, but it’s a little bit different animal. It works great as a boost into an already overdriven amp. It can achieve a light gain all the way up to a bluesy/rock drive on it’s own. The pedal is less responsive to dynamics than some pedals I’ve used, but it’s not what I’d call stale or inorganic sounding. I feel the Bad Monkey is a nicer sounding pedal, but this pedal does the medium and higher gain settings. The two band EQ really allows you to tailor the sound, and I don’t understand why more overdrive pedals don’t offer multi band equalization.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall this is a pretty good dirt pedal for the money. You aren’t going to get boutique sounds out of this thing, but when compared to many Boss overdrives this pedal comes out ahead. Honestly I don’t think there is a lot of difference between many distortion pedals in this range, but adding a two band EQ makes this pedal a lot more versatile than most so that’s a win in my book. I would pick this pedal up over a Boss DS-1 any day of the week, but I think the real gem in this line of pedals from Digitech is the Bad Monkey which feels slightly more dynamic to me.