June 14, 2007

Brown Creeper

大変お待たせしました! "ブラウンサウンド"が売りの極上のディストーションペダル Kaden/Brown Creeperが入荷しています☆

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The Creeper is an excellent choice for that "cranked Marshall sound". From fat 70's rock, to screamin metal tones, the Creeper provides a wide range of grit. Even at lower drive settings, it cleans up quite well to add a nice juicy overdrive tone, without losing its defining mid-range frequencies.

As with all our pedals, the Creeper is equipped with true-bypass switching.
Power: 9v battery or a/c adapter (negative tip)

海外のサイトでも初期のエディーのトーンを求めているプレイヤー達の話題の的になっています。

I use Gibson Les Paul Standards with stock Burstbucker pickups, and Seymour Duncans. I purchased this initially to use with my vintage Fender Deluxe Reverb amp, but now have a Mesa/Boogie Mark III that I use it with also.

The pedal does the cranked/hot rodded Marshall thing extremely well. The pedal has a very thick, but musical mid-range voicing, which helps it cut through the mix. I use this pedal almost exlusively in a live setting, and it cuts through everything with ease. Nice crunch from the bridge pickup, and smooth vocal like lead from the neck. Most distortion pedals either have too little mid range, or too much. This one is just right.

The only other pedal I can really compare it to is the MI Audio Crunch Box, which I also own. The Crunch Box has a little more distortion available and sounds more saturated, and it has a slightly more scooped sound than the Brown Creeper. Both are killer pedals, and both have a permanent spot on my pedalboard. I use the Brown Creeper with the gain just over halfway, for good intermediate rock tones. I use the Crunch Box for my gained up over the top sounds. Both compliment each other very well. As far as a distortion pedal goes, the Brown Creeper is quiet (quieter than the Crunch Box), and cleans up fairly well also (Crunch Box does not seem to clean up that well). The Crunch Box is more open sounding, while the Creeper is slightly more compressed and middy. I cant say I like one more than the other, both sound great, and I use both along with a Mosfet Fulldrive 2. The Brown Creeper is a pedal, so its not perfect. It could be a little less compressed, but Im splitting hairs at this point. I have owned it for a while now, and its a staple sound for me. Works great with the Fender and the Boogie.

Anyone looking for something that sounds good on the clean channel of a Fender amp or Fender style amp should check this pedal out. I have tried other boutique pedals, and modded Boss DS-1 pedals, and this one is a cut above. I think the key is the mid-range voicing, which is spot on. This is a very British sounding pedal. Great for Classic Rock and high octane Blues. Can also do 80's shred style sounds. I have been playing for 11 years now, and only purchase the best equipment. I feel that this pedal compliments my other gear very well, and inspires me to make music. No pedal is going to capture the true sound of an actual Marshall Plexi running all out, but this one is as close as you can get with a stompbox. Good enough for me, and Im PICKY!!

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I tested this pedal through a Rivera Quiana (6L6) with a Melancon Strat (H/S/S), Fender American Strat (S/S/S), and an EBMM Silhouette (H/S/H).
I'll just come right out and say it: the Creeper is an EVH box, and a darn good one. I've played lots of distortion boxes over the last 25 years, and this one does a better job of capturing the early EVH tone than any other I've personally played through. It has great sustain, the perfect mid-and-harmonic-heavy brown grit, and the natty attack that is characteristic of VH1 through 1984.
There are a couple benchmark licks that I seem to play when I'm judging the EVHness of a pedal: Panama (to hear not seperation), intro the Meanstreets (for harmonic content), Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love (for pick/note attack), and I'm The One (for single not clarity). It's all there. Even those tough to find tapped harmonics near the end of the Meanstreets intro jump right out. The attack is perfect, the note seperation is pretty good.
I do have a beef with the tone knob: it is somehow tied to the pedals volume (turn up the tone - volume goes up, and vise-versa). If you touch it you will also have to tweak the volume again to get back to unity gain. Boo. The pedal is also quite compressed, and doesn't respond to changes in the guitars volume knob near as well as others I've tried. There are some cool lower gain sounds to be had via the gain knob, but IMO that's not the point of this pedal.
Another word regarding the mid content of this pedal: I feel you are best off using low output humbuckers that are somewhat neutral in tone (incedentally just what Eddie used in the early years!). The reason: this pedal has a very signature sound with specific mid content. If you try to use pickups that have a high-output midrange tone of their own, things get a little crowded in the mids. My Melancon with low output 'bucker sounds phenominal. My Silhouette with DiMarzio PAF not so much.
This is the EVH box to end all boxes, IMO.

The pedal is very well-built, and the wiring neat and clean. I was curious as to what IC chip it used, and to my surprised the answer was: none. Don't know if that's unusual or not, but I can't think of any other Dist/OD pedal I've owned that didn't use one.
I've only had the pedal for a week, but build quality appears to be on par with other pedal I've seen. I'm not worried.

I've played other dirt boxes that were more dynamic. I've played others that had a bigger variety of useable tones. I've never played one that nailed the early EVH tone like this one. If that's the trick you're after, here's your pony!