New Electro-Harmonix Screaming Bird treble booster

[zorrow]

A friend brought me this weekend an Electro-Harmonix Screaming Bird treble booster pedal (the new Nano Series). He wanted me to give him my impressions about it. Normally one praises here the good gear one tries, but today it will be the contrary: I think this little pedal sucks big time.

I'm into treble boosters; therefore I've tried several of them. While the Screaming Bird comes in a cool package (sturdy little box made of metal), I can safely say it is probably the most "sterile" treble booster out there.

I plugged my guitar into the Screaming Bird, and then the pedal into my Pignose/Tech21 preamp-amp combo. I tested every combination I could, but none of them went beyond a very lifeless sound. Sometimes the high-frequency harmonics were more present, sometimes less... but in every variant I tried, my "touch" was lost, the "openness" of other treble boosters (e.g. my BBE Freq Booster) was no longer there, and all the bass frequencies were cut to dead --just horrible!

I cannot understand how a serious company dares to mass-produce such a piece of junk. All the responsiveness, the attack and the vocal-like color a treble booster is supposed to give to your sound is not there. To its favor I could say it's not noisy at all, but besides that, the sound this piece of cr4p produces is absolutely BAAAAAD.

Thus, I just wanted to warn you guys: don't even waste your time in trying one of those new Electro-Harmonix Screaming Birds. I know we all breathe tone here, so this one definitively is NOT for us.

[Devnor]

Didn't they make one the 70s with a 1/4" male plug sticking out one side? I used to use that, a Distortion + and EQ to slam the input of a super lead Marshall. Glad I have no recording of that beast!