INTRO

With the savory reminders of a delicious Thanksgiving dinner fresh on the mind (and taste buds), a little white box arrived at my doorstep filled with fun treats for my listening pleasure and experimentation – “Hello Bearfoot FX Tourbox – Winter 2015 Edition – USA”.

Since joining the GearPage.net, the Tourbox exercise has piqued my interest. The concept is simple yet, one that can provide a wealth of information. At the end of any particular tour, both the builder and the public are treated to a comprehensive review where, with each stop along the way, the pedals are tested in very unique environments, spanning a vast selection of gear, personalized playing styles, and across the entire spectrum of musical genres. In embracing this idea, after a week of playing around with the selection of USA inspired overdrives as provided by Bearfoot FX, I have focused this review to share my insights and thoughts on the Model G and the Sparkling Yellow Overdrive 3. All four pedals were solid in their performance but, if there were two that could end up in my effects library come 2016, the Model G and the SYOD3 spoke directly to my interest and desired tones. I have no doubt that many others will find preference and speak more about the Honey Beest and Uber Bee.

THE TESTING PLATFORM

To share a bit about the testing platform with which I demoed these pedals, the following is information about the gear/setup along with some notes about my musical interest.

Guitars: Les Paul Studio | Fender HM Strat Amplifiers: Quilter MicroPro 200-8 & Quilter Mini 101 (used for testing w/ headphones)
Effect Chain: Guitar → Barber Tone Press (light compression w/ 50% blend) → Barber Gain Changer (light gain setting when used), → Insert Bearfoot FX Pedal here → MXR Analog Chorus → Strymon DIG → El Capistan → Ghost Echo → Ditto X2 → AMP

As for my musical interest, I occasionally might rip into some Master of the Puppet riffs but I generally stay comfortably within a mix of Blues, Classic Rock, and Reggae (think: Floyd, U2, Marley, Cash). Specific to the use of overdrive, I tend to keep things mild using the effect as a boost while adding a bit of bite to the tone.

The Sparkling Yellow Overdrive 3

The Sparkling Yellow Overdrive 3 is the Cafe Cubano of Overdrives. With just the smallest of portions, one is provided with an instantaneous boost of energy and clarity. While in the midst of morning fog, with the click of the pedal, the guitar’s tone is lifted up and out becoming much more articulate — like the rays of sunshine bringing clarity in the morning hours. My favorite settings (as pictured above), had the VOLUME set to give the signal a slight perk, the GAIN providing a hint of breakup dependent on the attack and dynamics, the LOMID setting adding a touch of warmth while tightening the bass, and the treble ever so slightly lifted. Specific to the two tone controls, it was my experience that when both set to 12pm on the dial, it had a very neutral EQ response/adjustment in tone. As I turned up the Treble, it felt more like a mix of boosting the higher frequencies while increasing presence — almost providing an HD clarity to the tone. As for the LoMid, while providing some saturation of both low and mid frequencies when turned fully to the right, I found that the control flattened out the mids and bass levels in parallel which I would better convey as “tightening” the frequency responses resulting in a bit more percussiveness.

If there was one suggestion or critique I would have, it is found with the voice switch (knob). The differences, while there, were perhaps a bit too nuanced to have justified the switch. That said, any control that adds further refinement can always be welcomed — perhaps if it was in a toggle format, visually it would have vibed more for me.

To conclude, the Sparkling Yellow Overdrive 3 is a fantastic tone-sculpting overdrive that, like a strong espresso, adds a bit of spring to the step, some clarity and definition to notes, and some warmth and tightening of the tone. The control scheme gives the guitarist some targeted controls to shape the EQ response and amount of bite making the impact as subtle or aggressive as one desires.

The Model G

The Model G … it was randomly picked as the first pedal out of the box and, being honest, like a kid overwhelmed with excitement on Christmas morning, I played with it for just a few minutes before quickly moving on to see what other pedals I could demo; there was just too many toys to choose from for me to truly appreciate what I already had in front of me. It was not until I had given all of the other pedals a full tryout before I returned to the Model G — what a welcomed surprise.

As others have shared, the Model G felt, thanks to its response, the most ‘Amp Like’ than the other pedals in my opinion. While I have never had the opportunity to have played one of the amplifiers that the pedal takes its inspiration from, when the the tones of my guitar rang out, it was not hard to imagine playing through some sort of 70’s, Blue-Collar, grit-behind-the ears, a bit of rust and patina starting to show … Blues,Rock, and Soul Gibson Amp. It just captured that Vibe so perfectly. If the SYOD3 was the ‘Cafe Cubano’ of the pedals, the Model G was the ‘El Camino’ of the bunch; a bit of style and comfort on the front-end with some hauling power and flexible utility functions in the backend.

As pictured above, my favorite settings, I was able add to touch of boost, a saturated wash of mids (think: warmth), the bass tightened a bit (70’s funk anyone?), and the mids-to highs punching through with a slight compression for clarity. The Model G was very responsive to dynamics and, set just at the edge of breakup, enough distortion would creep in to remind us that we were riding in that ‘El Camino’ and not some hoity toity luxury car. From Detroit, to Chicago, to New Orleans, this pedal spoke the language of Blues, Southern Rock, Funk, and Soul. It ended up being my favorite with this Tourbox.

When stacked with the Barber Gain Changer (light overdrive setting) feeding into this pedal, the Model G responded perfectly and sounded fantastic. The Model G had this powerful but refined growl.