Perhaps it was destined, with the ‘Box-O-Brit’ Tourbox arriving to my house just a few days before Christmas that, out of the four Pedals included, my favorites would be Red and Green in color. Given the available choices, the odds seem stacked in my favor. Just a few weeks prior, I enjoyed the opportunity to participate in the Bearfoot FX USA Edition Tourbox providing me the unique experience to demo/compare all eight pedals. As I would share similar thoughts of the overall experience, including specific information about the Testing Platform, please visit my review of the BearFoot FX USA Tourbox.

TESTING PLATFORM

There have been some light changes to my gear setup over the Holidays, specifically with the Pedalboard and such. Pictured below, the effects chain is as follows: Guitar -> MXR Phase 90 –> (Moves left to) –> MXR Chorus –> (Up to) –> Strymon DIG –> (moves left to) –> Ditto X2. For purposes of testing, I swapped out the Iron Bell for the various Bearfoot FX Pedals.

While I enjoyed all of the pedals, there were two standouts: The Emerald Green Overdrive & the Dyna Red Distortion.

Emerald Green Overdrive

From Led Zeppelin to the early days of U2, these are just a few of the tonal references that came to mind when playing through this pedal on my Les Paul. Suffice to say, the Emerald Green Overdrive was my favorite pedal of the bunch. In many ways the Emerald Green OD unequivocally captured the classic American Blues sound but repackaged it with a fun british accent. Pictured with my favorite settings (above), I tend to like my overdrives set a just on the cusp of break-up but, in this particular case, I enjoyed having a bit more rawness/grit/bite in the Gain setting helping to provide some classic lead tones. Overall, the pedal had a very articulate voice, a bit mid-focused, with both the bass and treble, while adjustable, ever-present but a bit more subdued (think: loud but with flat response). As I just shared that both ends of the EQ are adjustable, it should be noted that one can really boost the bass higher than the incoming signal when the dial is turned all the way to the left. Best described, the image of a seasoned blues singer with a well-nurtured raspiness in their throat thanks to years of smoking, a hint of nasalness in their register, belting out some powerful blues in a dark bar …. this would be the Emerald Green Overdrive.

DYNA RED DISTORTION

The images of Slash, circa 1989, rocking the chords of Paradise City, standing in front of a stack of Marshalls, comes to mind when the Dyna Red Distortion is engaged. It felt like a very versatile pedal with a great range of drive and a ton of potential uses — a range and response very ‘Amp-Like’. On my prefered settings (pictured above), the Dyna Red provided some “controlled” and organic distortion (read: did not feel overly processed and layered on), a touch of highs, mids present but not overwhelming, and the bass frequencies with enough oomph for one to feel the vibrations …. As I have now come to expect from the Bearfoot FX pedals, they provide a solid ‘inspired voice’ as a foundation and then on-board controls to sculpt the EQ as needed. The pedals that I enjoyed most really handled the lower overdrive settings perfectly but had enough strength to enhance the bite when needed.

SUMMARY

I would first like to express my Thanks to Musica23 for organizing these Tourboxes; it was a great opportunity to compare, contrast, and explore the tonal offerings and nuance therein from a wide-variety of pedals from Bearfoot FX. I had no familiarity or experience with these pedals or manufacturer beforehand so it truly was a learning experience.

In having read and written my fair share of pedal reviews and posts over the past few years, I thought that, as a participant on this tour, I would try to keep things a bit simple by conveying sonic images that others can relate to, primarily through the use of analogies. To this effort, I hope that I succeeded.

Looking back at the experience, I was impressed with all of the pedals but certainly some resonated with me much more than others. As highlighted here, I truly enjoyed the Emerald Green Overdrive and the Dyna Red Distortion. From the USA Inspired overdrive tourbox, the Sparkling Yellow Overdrive 3 and the Model G were the standouts.

To conclude, the fun thing about Tourboxes is that we all enter this exercise with our own interests and style, gear and configurations, and the feedback shared provides a unique and comprehensive review like no other.