Tone Report Weekly Issue 101 | Page 63

delay, which seems to be inspired by a tape echo. On all settings, it has two main repeats the play at the same volume and clarity, and the rest just kind of trail behind it at a lower volume and clarity, like a tape echo. I wasn’t a huge fan of one knob for all delay, since I like to independently set feedback and repeats on a delay, to make it more rhythmically conducive. However, I found that setting it at 12 o’clock seemed to be the easiest to work with. When I “slapped” the low E string (as a bass player would), it created a very defined syncopated rhythm with a nice warmth, not unlike the intro to Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days”, the opening track on 1971’s Meddle. Remember as always to be tasteful with reverb and delay, as it can steal a lot of definition and clarity from your notes, even more so with the Mr. Black. Since it has the pitch shifting reverb, you have to be extra careful, mixed too high this can disorient you and your audience. This pedal is not without gripe however, and it has one glaring issue that makes it hard to recommend: tone suck. Upon plugging it in, I was shocked to hear that my bright Strat sounded all of a sudden quite dull. I started to grab at my amp’s EQ and fiddle with it to no avail. Cranking the treble and presence all the way didn’t help in the least, if anything it made it worse. However, upon engaging the pedal (without any of the reverb and delay mixed in), magically brought back the lost treble, albeit with a bit of a sheen. Yanking this thing out made my signal return to its natural balanced state, which I found odd. Looking at the manual slip, I saw this pedal has a relatively high input and output impedance, which is what I imagine contributed to the tone suck, but then again, I’m just a journalist. WHAT WE LIKE Wonderful ambient textures. Eye-catching, sparkly enclosure. CONCERNS High end tone suck. Delay could be a bit more versatile. Reverb can be a little seasick. ToneReport.com 63