The pedal arrived a few hours ago on my doorstep.
This little pedal is a little beast!! I didn't care too much for the tone of my mates metal zone, I didn't mind it though. This Keeley pedal just blows the standard one away.
There are 3 modes: (extract from the instructions)
SWITCH LEFT - This is the "stock" MT-2 sound. You will easily notice that the pedal has more presence, a more powerful and true sounding midrange and a tighter
bass response.
SWITCH RIGHT - This is the Triple Diode Mode. This is our favorite. This gives you the natural tube sound that makes molten guitar sound to die for. Sick, Fat, and more Muscle than the stock MT-2 mode.
SWITCH CENTER - This is the Ultra Tube Mode. You will blow speakers with this mode! Warning this pedal has a super powerful output and this mode should be used with a 4x12 cab that can handle the power and ultra low bass this pdal can deliver. Even more tube simulation and 2nd order harmonics to give you a sound available in no other pedal.
Now, onto my findings.
Plugged in as follows - RG421 (using bridge evo), into MT-2, into Marshall jcm2000 DSL 100w head (clean channel) running into a 2x12 cab w/ vintage g12 celestions.
On the pedal all knobs at 12 o'clock.
In normal mode, "stock mode", the MT-2 pretty much sounds the same. Just clearer. Less fizz, and hum. Basically a better sounding metal zone, nothing great really.
Switch the thing to the "triple diode mode" though and WOW. I couldn't believe that I could get that much saturation and still have the articulation of a tube amp from a BOSS pedal. I've not experienced anything close to this except for a triaxis + 2:90, or 100w
Dual recto through recto 4x12's.
The thing would actually respond to my pick attack. This out of a Metal Zone!
Switch to the center mode, the "ultra tube mode".. Output galore.
Switch back to the stock mode and you can tell the difference. Less response to pick attack, less rounding of the tone. Less "real".
Ok, so I thought, hmmm...lets try something.
I cranked it.
I also switched to the triple diode mode.
OUCH! High frequency overload. Typical I thought. But I hadn't moved any of the knobs yet.
Increase the bass, drop the treble a tad, increase the higher mids. High gain with TONE at VOLUME!
The fact that my marshall was responding as the dual recto 100w was in the store just a couple of days ago was amazing. (I do like the modern gain setting...which most hate. But hey, I have a marshall here, switch channels, and turn off the metal zone and I have marshall roundness heaven).
Anyway, tube tone from a pedal?
Ok, so I thought, maybe I'm hearing things.
I moved the mids again, dropped the gain a little (it was still on 12 o'clock), and tried to copy my marshall's high gain channel.
On a/b comparison after a bit of tweaking with the pedal I couldn't believe it. Sounded the same...almost. The pedal through the clean seemed to have more sustain than the high gain channel. Yet the way each reacted to my pick attack was the same. Pick harder, get more..umm..what's the word..saturation?
So yeah, it feels like a pedal with tubes, but if you want high gain saturation that sounds and feels round and natural it's right there. Cranked too!
I'm amazed. I truly am. Modern high gain dual recto sound in a box, for the price I don't think anything can be beat.
Can you see that I'm excited? I don't normally get excited. A few weeks ago I bought a pod, and had the s#!ts with myself cause I could not get a good tone out of it. Since then I've gotten "ok" tones out of the Pod. What really sucks is that I can now hear how much the POD is lacking.
This Keeley moded pedal out of the box kept me smiling.
Mr. Robert Keeley, you rule dude. I'm definently using this pedal live.
To my ears and feel it sounds like there are tubes in this thing. It really does. Switch back to the standard mode, and that feeling goes away. Wow. Really, truly an awesome modern gain sounding pedal.
wil..
