Nice review dude!

Thank you my brother.

I just got the box in today.

I have a few items in front of it, due to a pedal fest in Houston but, I will get to these pedals in short order and let you all know about my thoughts on them..

OK, I already own the Chorus pedal and imho I think it's better than the original Boss CE-1.
I base my comment on trying it out along with Paul's CE-1. The sound and size make it a no brainer.

More later,
George

quote:

Originally posted by PedalworX dude:
I just got the box in today.

I have a few items in front of it, due to a pedal fest in Houston but, I will get to these pedals in short order and let you all know about my thoughts on them..

OK, I already own the Chorus pedal and imho I think it's better than the original Boss CE-1.
I base my comment on trying it out along with Paul's CE-1. The sound and size make it a no brainer.

More later,
George

I don't have a CE-1!

That was at Ted's store in Maine.
It's OK, you're older than me and these things do happen.




Looking fwd. to your reviews George, I know you're (thankfully) a hard guy to please when it comes to tone.

Thanks to wavydb for the excellent reviews.
With the assortment of pedals inside,
this is the kind of tourbox where there's something for everyone.

quote:

Originally posted by cubba65:

I don't have a CE-1!

That was at Ted's store in Maine.
It's OK, you're older than me and these things do happen.

Is there a tour box out there somewhere?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PedalworX dude,

Unable to test in a vacuum I decided to do a mini shoot out of these pedals and compared them to some other pedals.

Here is what the shoot out looked like.



Retro-Sonic Chorus versus Retro-Sonic Stereo Chorus



Here we had the clash of the Titans
The mono version is AC powered and requires a special adapter while the Stereo version runs off 9 volt neg. tipped power (or battery) making it perhaps more user friendly to most.

But, what about the sound? Are they equally as good or what? I was most curious and found that I could tune them both to sound identical, much to my surprise! I think perhaps the AC powered unit might have a tad more bottom end, when so set, but this could also be interpreted as the Stereo version being a bit more hi-fi as well. I only own a single amp so I could not test the unit in Stereo but if the mono test was any indication this pedal is a real winner!

Long story short I think I like my AC powered unit better because it has Blue LEDs and we all know how much effect they have on the tone

Analog Delay Shoot out



I picked the ever popular BYOC Delay to do this shoot out with since most are familiar with it.

Short delay or long the Retro-Sonic had a deeper tone to it which reminded me of the depth to the chorus pedal that I just finished testing.

Slap back echo I found easier to tune in on the BYOC pedal but I am not a big knob tweaker kind of guy and having on three knobs kind of made it easy on me.

Beyond slap back the R-S left the BYOC in the dust.
The stomp for long/short delays make this a versatile little pedal and one many would most probably like.

I think the bottom line was that it's kind of cool to be able to go from a slap back echo to a longer, spacier type of delay/echo with just a kick of the stomp.

Layout and build quality was top notch in the entire Retro-Sonic line up. I would trust these pedals on a gig which is not the case with many "Popular" pedals out there on the market right now.

Phaser Shoot Out

Next up was the R-S Phaser which I put up against the ever popular MXR Phase 90.



First thing I noticed about the R-S Phaser was three knobs. hmmm, I was most curious.

Seems they added Level and Depth to the familiar Speed knob. Well, I have to say I really love it!
Although the Phase 90 tested was not a vintage piece the R-S simply slaughtered it!

It's a not brainer here, if you want a phaser go with the lush sounding Retro-Sonic!

Once again I see the depth to the effects as a common thread across the line up of pedals and one that makes R-S a favorite over here. A+++++++

Over Drive Shoot Out

I see the letters in TS green so I tested it up against an old TS (actually an 808 in a 9 shell)



Nice compact size, well laid out and rock solid but all of that aside I prefer the old, beat up TS pedal.
It came down to the size of the note/compression and open-ness of the signal. Sorry Tim!

Compressor Shoot Out



R-S up against the BJFE Compressor this time.

Once again the R-S has a depth to it!
Man, this has to have the fullest sound that I had ever heard in a compressor!
It appears that they have succeeded in improving a popular design once again!

There really is no comparison between this and the BJFE pedal as they sound completely different from one another. No doubt they are based upon different designs but not being a big compressor guy it's all I had to compare it to.
BJ's stuff appears to be Mad Professor European Quality Refined which brings a smile to one's face. That's about as accurate as I can portray it.

Bottom line is Retro-Sonic now has an entire pedalboard line up which I think would make most very happy. It's good stuff!

Thank you for letting be a part of the Tour Box and I wish you the best of luck with all of these fine pedals.

Regards,
George

I enjoyed the reviews George, plus having all the pretty pictures was just frosting on the cake.

George,

Thank you very much for the reviews, I'm glad you enjoyed the pedals, and it's grreat hearing from a fellow builder.

Can you elaborate on the differences between the overdrives? I've never tried a true vintage 808 curious to understand more of what the differences were. Plus did you give the trimpot for the low end a try?

Cheers,
Tim

Cool reviews guys. It's so much fun to read everyones own take on these pedals. I liked the pictures too George, cool stuff! I can never get enough Gear Porn!

quote:

Originally posted by Retro-Sonic:
George,

Thank you very much for the reviews, I'm glad you enjoyed the pedals, and it's grreat hearing from a fellow builder.

Can you elaborate on the differences between the overdrives? I've never tried a true vintage 808 curious to understand more of what the differences were. Plus did you give the trimpot for the low end a try?

Cheers,
Tim

Hi Tim,

I will go and give that trim pot a try and post a "porn" pic of the inside of the pedal for Twanger

I think the original TS pedals were very open and natural sounding.

I had tested values, on the better sounding pedals, and found a few things common to them.

Some of these items should have been obvious and some not so obvious but the combination adds to the magic of he pedal.

Let's chat on the phone about it and if you want I will send you that beat up TS pedal to take a listen to.

Regards,
George

Here is the trim pot pic.
It's the black thingy

The bass was turned all the way up so I turned down the bass and now it sounds a lot closer to the original that I have here.

I went back and forth to hear the difference but without a reference point this is close enough for Rock & Roll.

Really nice coming from a guy that never even tried a vintage 808 out!

I looked under the hood to see a nice layout and very neat, road worth wiring.

OK here is another sexy Twanger type porn pic of the pedal



Regards,
George

quote:

Originally posted by PedalworX dude:

George, I'm pretty sure you and I have discussed this once before.....

Foot switch mounted directly to the main circuit board? I've never understood why a boutique builder would ever do this. To me that's just asking for trouble. What happens a few years down the road when the foot switch gets loose and someone stomps it right through the box and cracks the board? I understand that it saves time during the building process, and can sometimes make for a neater looking build. I just think it's asking for trouble. It wouldn't be that hard to run short jumpers from the board to the switch.

Check out the insides of a Barber pedal. He's got the right idea for a clean foot switch wiring. Bob Sweet is using a mini sub board for his foot switches which seems like a good alternative if you want easier building.

H

twang_007,

the tourbox is on the way to you.......

George, those are GREAT pictures and a WONDERFUL write-up!

cool,gots my eyes peeled! can't wait to check these out!

Looks like a great box of gear. I may have to bug Corleone to let me watch over his shoulder when it gets to be his turn to demo them....

Hey George thanks for the pics, it's good see a handbuilt pedal that doesn't look like the board was cut with a dull butter knife (that is a compliment Tim). They look like well built pedals and I can't wait to try them out.

George...fix the time/date on your camera

they just arrived from george safe & sound.they do look very cool all lined up in a row! i have ta admit,after all these in depth reviews & pix,i'm tempted to just play them & unless i really don't dig one,just report back: yeah,what they said! i'll try to come up with something,i promise.& as luck would have it,after the demise of my instro trio that i'm desperatly trying to continue,i was invited to a jam sat. @ a pretty big party, to sit in with a friends informal blues/blues rock band.so i think i'll bring the comp,drive,& delay & use them in stead of my usual suspects.
so,i'll have some non-bedroom/real playing to check them out.i could see using the vibrato-chorus also for some fake leslie & some lonnie mack vib's.

well,i had these for a few days now & have been digging the hell out of them.i'm going to spend the large portion of this afternoon/evening wrapping uplaying,comparing,etc.but for now i'll report in about my non-bedroom playing yesterday @ this big party.for the record,when i'm playing in a band situation i don't use to many mod pedals.my ultimate guitar tone is a mix of british blues-beck,page,clapton,green-pre 1970 w/a sun records vibe mixed in.fat gnarly tube amp,echo,verb,trem & my clean tone is @ least a nice crunch.i usually use a ross/dynacomp type comp,& depending how much i can crank the amp,either a boost or fulldrive 2,
or hotcake,trem pedal,slapback,& reverb.i have 2 verb tanks & my fave slaps are from my chandler or h&k replex.i also dig fuzz pedals.so to sit in i'd scale back to comp,drive/boost,delay pedal or holy grail.so i brought to the jam the 8o8 overdrive,the comp,& the delay,plus the chorus/vibrato just in case.i played through my vos historic singlecut les paul special,esp 400 series copy of a 62 tele custom w/rio grande muy grandes which is set up as my slide guitar,my dr.z ghia head & my peavey classic 15" ext. cab w/a weber ceramic 15" chicago in it.
i bought my first tube screamer in 82-83 when srv's first lp came out & i saw him in a tiny club.i already was playing strats & teles through a 64 super reverb playing blues & rockabilly so the tubescreamer was my main if not only pedal until the early 90's when i saw every one was using them.i still have a couple,i love them for teles & my chandler lap steel.so i had no problem w/the 808,& the comp.my main comp is an atomic w/is a ross clone ,so again the comp fit in no problem either.i was able to get my basic sound with little tweaking & was quite happy.the delay was really cool.i used it for a short echo to fatten up my sound.as we were playing blue/blues rock i didn't need a real long delay,so it was kind of wasted @ this jam.the big suprise was the chorus/vibrato which i wasn't sure if i'd even use.i'm not much of a chorus guy,but the vibrato setting is worth having this pedal for me.we did a fast shuffle with just me bass & a drummer & i was able to dial in some killer lonnie mack magnatone type sounds which just blew my mind.all in all i was able to just set up & go,pretty cool considering they are not my pedals.i was getting some nice fat tones,the les paul special sounded killer & my slide sounded cool also.the other guitarists were very impressed,they didn't know me @ all,except for my friend who invited me.big thumbs up all around.ill go in to more detail in the big wrap up to come.

I totally enjoyed reading your experience with the pedals. You don't vacillate, but know exactly the tones you're going for. Cool about the Lonnie Mack Magnatone type sounds with the Chorus/Vib. The GAS builds with each review.