"Not happy Jan...."

[Willybomb]

Had a friend stay over for a few days this week, and we went through every pedal I've got here (~30).  It's not something I'd ever really ever sat down to do as a lot of my pedals get tested, boxed, tested again, and put on the shelf.  While some didn't do it for us as well as the others (Dangerzone, I'm looking at you), and some reminded me of how good they actually are (Boneyard), none of them really came close to my HT-Dual...

This really bugs me as it looks like I'm still going to have to make allowances for an oversized pedal with it's own PS until I get a CIOKS AC10 - I really wanted a straight 9v board.

The thing is, the HT has a massive low end compared to anything else I've got, and I suspect that most of the other pedals will actually play better in a live band situation without having to fight for sonic space with the bass.  The Brown Betty gets somewhat close, but not really.  It's still a completely different beast, and the boost/zen/plexi combination I have in the Leviathan seems to cover 90% of cover music anyway...

Bah.

[Muadzin]

I reckon it depends on whether or not you play in a live band setting or not. If you do, then auditioning dirt pedals at home is probably not the best way to do so.

[Willybomb]

I fully agree with you.

I was working in a duo with backing tracks I'd put together and for the life of me I couldn't gel with my "Last Starfighter" BE-OD/Fetto build in that situation and I actually sold it.  As I said in my OP, my "Leviathan" Boost/Zen/Plexidrive seems to be a fantastic fit for a coverband.

Ideally, I'd set every pedal up and work my way through them at a rehearsal and decide from that...

[Muadzin]

I've lost count of the number of new dirt pedals that I used to bring along to rehearsal and put on my board to see if they would work out. And then didn't.

[gordo]

It's maddening when they sound so good on the bench and then sound WAY different in a live setting and band mix.  I've found that happens to me with all variants of Muffs.  Worse yet, I can give the pedal to another guitar player and they can make it work.

[GermanCdn]

It's amazing how much better an appreciation or understanding you can get when you listen to someone else play through your rig/guitar/pedals.  When Jacob was over a few years ago, it was the first time I got the chance to sit back and actually "listen" to what my setup sounded like as opposed to playing my setup.  He ran through probably 50 guitars, and the two that came out the winners for both of us were definitely not the ones I would have picked up front, because they were nowhere near the nicest/most expensive/best equipped, and truth be told, one of them was a real oddball.

[Muadzin]

It's maddening when they sound so good on the bench and then sound WAY different in a live setting and band mix.  I've found that happens to me with all variants of Muffs.  Worse yet, I can give the pedal to another guitar player and they can make it work.

That's why I think that a mids boosting switch should be mandatory on a Muff. Going from standard scooped to flat mids is often all the difference to 'Where the f*** am I?' in a mix to 'Hell yeah!'. And its such an easy mod to make to a Muff.

[somnif]

I think Muffs work best in a stripped down band. Guitar and Drums, for example, with a nice Civil War spec setup will let your fuzz cut through (I'm an old Black Keys fan, so sue me...)

Add a bass, a second guitar, and one of the brighter tone'd builds of the circuit and you just get white noise, annoyingly.

[Muadzin]

I'm probably old school, but to me a stripped down guitar/drums band is not a band. You're missing something crucial in the overall sonic spectrum. Technically of course it is a band, but its just incomplete. That's why I LOVE the power trio so much. It's the most basic stripped down band you can have that not only works, power trios actually kick ass best! And Muffs work fine in any band context, Pink Floyd had in its latter days basically a whole orchestra on stage, backing vocalists, extra guitars, keyboards, percussion, brass, and Gilmour never had any problems, you just need plenty of mids to cut through. Once you have that, any Muff can work. Then its only a matter of personal taste.