I thought I'd end up replacing my ProCo RAT2 but it stays as well, each offer just a subtle difference that I still like. So I removed the TC Electronics Polytune (more about that later).
The MXR '78 Custom Badass Distortion Pedal surprised me at how good it sounds. It's like someone got inside mid to late 70s american rock 'n roll and copied it exactly.
One of the first few songs that I tried out were Rod Stewart's "Stay with Me", Eagles "Already Gone" and Bad Finger's "No Matter What". Perfect on all accounts! The crunch button really tops it all off, adds just a touch of fuzz that makes it so much fun!
Here's one of the coolest features of this pedal for me: when playing chords you get this full amp'd up heavy sound, but single note pick or finger pick and you get this clean sound that sounds like the engineer just had the channel volume up too high kinda of crackle. Great retro old school recording scratchy record kinda sound!
This thing is easily my favorite pedal with pure clear distortion, with a punchy cranked sound, a touch of fuzz and all that gooey harmonic goodness that you get from an dimed amp!
I will say, and I know people all will get different results with their particular gear, I'm keeping the RAT because my Les Paul with mini humbuckers just doesn't like the '78 at all. Don't know why but it just didn't have that same sparkle that it did with my Lucky #27 Custom Tele, my Strats or my '69 Thinline Tele with CS '69s.
Now on to the Polytune. I'm sick of this POS and this company. I've had it for over 6 months now and in that time, after the poly tuning novelty wore off, and it's inaccuracy (yes, I said inaccuracy! The very thing you DO NOT want in a tuner!), I strictly used it as a chromatic tuner, which it does well enough.
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| Just Say NO! |
Here's the thing: when tuning in "poly" mode, my low E and A strings were always flat, so I'd tune them up to have all in-tune in that mode. Then, when checking in chromatic mode, those same strings would be sharp! I think it's a huge flaw in the programming and abilities of this pedal and I think TC Electronics KNOWS IT! They have a FAQ on their page that states "if you have your hand on the tuning key, it might influence....", load of bullshit if you ask me! Then they say that you have to pick harder for those strings to compensate for the difference between chromatic tuning and poly tuning. Whatever!
So this pedal will be ebay'd. Sad to lose money on it because I'm afraid the word is getting out on these pedals and the lack of support offered by TC. After that G-System debacle and those poor schmuck devotees that they have duped into thinking is the greatest thing ever and it's okay that you have to bend over backwards to get the thing to work without robbing your tone, adding a ton of noise all with the excuse that it's a "pro piece of gear" as if all the other gear we all use is somehow just toys in comparison (even though most of the gear we own is the same used by the "pros"). Shaa!
If you have the thought you want to buy anything from TC Electronics at all, think twice. Goddam danes over there think we should bow down for their "excellent products" not realizing we just don't have to buy them at all! Fuck them!
BTW: Wanna buy a polytune? ha ha
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