i am a huge fan of the 80s marshall tone. jcm800s, jmps, hot rodded jtm45's i love em. but man, im just a college student and well i dont have all the money in the world to buy a half stack though i have tried some all tube amps (both in solo jams and rehearsals) and i think ive become familiar with the "tube tone and feel"
enter two pedals made by our country's own. MarkV's DS1 british mod, and CGI Electronics' BSIAB2. to me both qualify as pinoy made since markv made this mod, and CGI made his own tweaks to the bsiab circuitry so no "the ds1 is made in taiwan" or "the bsiab circuit isnt his" arguments.
lets start by outlining what i did and how i am going to "rate" the pedals:
Gain: the amount of gain the pedal has. the lower the gain, the better the cleanup but that isnt always the case.
Tone quality: self explanatory. this includes clarity and articulation, frequency response, and harmonics. more *'s = more betterness
Feel: how good the pedal feels. fuzz-like ba or tube amp ish response? is it dynamic? or compressed? did it make me play effortlessly or slow me down?
Overall: this is my overall rating for the pedal.
First up is the BSIAB2 or brown sound in a box... two. its a distortion pedal designed from the ground up by Ed Guidtry with a few people providing input. i had a pretty neutral experience with the first bsiab i tried and it has since been tweaked and updated by CGI to the current version.
It has 3 knobs, volume, tone and gain. and two toggle switches. the first is a mid hump switch, this subtly increases the mid hump. sort of like a shelf increase (multiple frequency boost). the other switch boosts upper mids.
the bsiab is an excellent pedal for high gain leads. it has this sticky feel to it that makes the instrument feel a lot closer to me. doing speedy picking lines feels like a joy and the pick attack is audible, but not accentuated; just right for making you SOUND fast but not sloppy. this pedal hides mistakes pretty well (whether its a plus or a minus, its up to you. for me its a plus haha). slowing down, it has this beautiful singing quality to it and yes, the fabled "sustain to feedback" thing that it does that makes me love it so much. playing legato is a breeze because of the range of the gain knob. instead of adding more fizz beyond 2 o clock, the pedal COMPRESSES to make things sound more even you can legato all day with this thing. for slow singing leads, and channelling players from Slash to Paul Gilbert, this is an excellent choice.
on low gain, i feel that it lacks punch. its a bit "paper" sounding. flat and lifeless. it lacks "balls". but hey, thats not what it was made for! sure it lacks the super ballsy bass punch and throatiness of a slightly driven marshall but it cleans up pretty well for the amount of gain it has and it still sounds smooth and buttery. no transistor fizz at all.
on rhythm, i went from my band's music (which is hardcore) to playing some dirty blues and then back to some van halen stuff. it sounds good but i found note clarity a bit lacking especially when doing open chords. lower the gain and you lose a little bit of balls for clarity. but hey, its high gain. with proper eq'ing this thing can do metal as well. bass response was a little flabby though. not quite the tightness im looking for but a little adjustment in technique is enough. its good for classic rock but as i said, it lacks balls in the low gain department.
one major caveat i have with the pedal is noise. if you have a p.o.s. wallwart this thing is gonna hum like the last note in the song "i believe i can fly". the circuit is pretty straightforward and it seems to go about the principle, "garbage in garbage out" when it comes to power. when using a regulated powersupply though, the hum goes away. it has a little bit of hiss on higher tone knob settings and gain settings but its just an afterthought. shut it off if you dont like hiss. its true bypass anyway.
if the bsiab were a singer, he would be a smooth singing tenor. not quite the rasp you would want in a gritty blues band or something but has a fluid beautiful singing quality to it that makes it priceless for the solo guitarist.
Next up is the MarkV ds1 mod. this is another marshall voiced box. i wouldnt really call it a "distortion" (i was weaned on the thought that super crunch grrrrr arggh metal and hardcore sounds were distortion.). i would like to call the ds1 a really ballsy overdrive pedal (balls.. who doesnt like balls). if the bsiab was a tenor, this would be a street spittin, impolite dude whos a bit short in stature growling wherever he goes.
again this pedal has three knobs but in a different order. when i got the pedal i accidentally put the level up high thinking it was the tone knob. lets just say i had a rude awakening and had to rest my ears for 5 mins so i could get in reviewing condition again. tone - level - gain.
this one takes off where the bsiab lacked in: low gain balls. (sorry for the lack of imaginative adjectives for describing a subjective tone quality). it has a raspy throaty "angas" feel to it on low to mid gain rhythm. classic rock crunch? this is perfect for it. open chords are really open and uncluttered. and the lows. this has a bottom end bigger than Jennifer lopez. even on low gain you could literally FEEL the lows (not jennifer's). this thing was made for ac/dc and other forms of classic rock. i put my guitar on the neck single coil and bam awesome srv gritty tones.
now i dont have a tubescreamer but i think this would be a lot better for lead if i had a pedal boosting it. it lacks gain for all the hi gain g3 ish fusion whatchamacallits. so hi gain shredders (except the really good ones) can forget this pedal. this is also an HONEST PEDAL. i was in the same playing condition with the bsiab (feeling all paul gilbert-ey) but when i switched to this i sounded like a wannabe shredder. it might be the lack of gain or the better articulation, but i wont certainly risk the illusion of playing clean and fast for this. nobody wants to sound sucky right? dont get me wrong, this has awesome tone. but i really feel like slowing down because its embarrassing to play shred on the ds1. i was doing a 12-13-15 lick on the high e string and it lacks the fluidity of the bsiab. haha. im iron man and hi gain is my powersuit. without it im just an a**hole in a business suit.
one of its key selling points is its cleanup ability. this thing cleans up AWESOME. and the added bass and articulation keeps it from sounding muddy or thin. it sounds like a clean amp if you werent looking at the floor.
strat players will love this pedal. since its already been made by boss, rest assured that this isnt as wallwart sensitive as the bsiab. and its quiter too. it isnt as finicky with psu's as the bsiab.
in conclusion, even though these two pedals were voiced to marshalls, they both have different applications. the bsiab is awesome for hi gain singing leads and ok on hi gain rhythm but on low gain, it isnt as throaty as the ds1, which was made for low to mid gain.
one other aspect is about boosting. the bsiab doesnt like being boosted. it compresses at higher gain levels and nothing significant happens when you do. it has more than enough gain already as is. the ds1 is very OPEN to boosting. unfortunately i dont have an overdrive pedal to boost it with.
and now the ratings:
__________________________________________________________
BSIAB2
Acquisition Price: around PHP3000
Gain: ****
Tone quality: ****
Feel: *****
Overall: ****.5
Pros: excellent feel and high gain tone. singing quality. sustains to feedback.
Cons: noisy with wallwarts, flat low gain tone
MARKV DS1
Acquisition price: around PHP3000
Gain: ***
Tone quality: ****
Feel: ***.5
Overall: ****
Pros: great low-mid gain growl, not picky with psu's, articulate and good cleanup
cons: bad feel for shred and lack of gain for shred or metal.
(a ***** would be a real jcm i tried a while back. i am not cussing. thats 5 stars.)
Equipment used:
Max rufo custom warrior with GFS crunchy rails and lil killers
Peavey Bandit 112
Marshall valvestate half stack
Tone references:
Marshall jcm800
Peavey 5150
Egnater Tourmaster half stack
Reviewed by Paengkee.
