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- Verified Buyer
I'm here reviewing this because of Josh Scott of JHS pedals. In a recent (Mar 2022) JHS video on YT about classic Marshall pedals (search for 'Marshall's Greatest Pedals'), he held up the AmazonBasics Distortion in a segment about clone pedals of the v1 Marshall Guv'nor pedal--he then made a lame joke about Jeff Bezos and quickly put the pedal away.It's an interesting suggestion--that this pedal may be a clone of an original Marshall Guv'nor--although he didn't exactly come right out and say it.I know the early Marshall pedals have a solid reputation. Much of the interest in OG Marshall pedals came from the fact that John Mayer had a v1 Marshall Bluesbreaker on his pedal board in the Continuum era. That set off a feverish market for Bluesbreakers that continues to this day.The Bluesbreaker wasn't the only Marshall pedal made notable by a famous player--Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood used a v1 Marshall Shredmaster on his pedal board in the mid to late 90s, and Gary Moore used a v1 Guv'nor through a Marshall full stack as far back as 1990.Anyone who really knows about the v1 Marshall Guv'nor knows that it's recognized as the first 'Marshall in a box' pedal--a pedal trying to emulate the sound of classic Marshall amplifiers--and it forever changed the course of the guitar pedal industry.The sad thing is, Marshall discontinued that original pedal line many years ago, and since then, the company has made no efforts to reintroduce the original circuits to the market. The v2 Guv'nor pedal has been around much longer than its predecessor, although most observers view the v2 Guv'nor as lesser to the original.That's why this particular pedal is very interesting--what if it's a clone of an original Marshall Guv'nor circuit? If it's faithful to the original, the AmazonBasics Distortion would be a very cool pedal indeed.At this price, there was no reason for me to put off the purchase--it's an absolute no-brainer. Ethically it's justifiable, as well--it's not ripping off any company's trademarks, and Marshall doesn't even produce the circuit anymore.The real proof is in the pudding--how does this pedal sound? My expectations were very low. I was more than ready for the possibility that this cheap pedal was going to suck really hard.But the fact is, the pedal is honestly quite good. It does do a range of Marshall-style sounds, from JTM to something of a JMP and even a variation of a JCM. The voicing of the pedal is very well chosen--it's a really good crunch sound that will do a lot of kinds of hard rock and classic rock. The EQ is also well done--it's not too middy, and it has enough bass and plenty of treble on tap.I'm really enjoying this pedal. In fact, I'm having trouble finding something the pedal doesn't do at least pretty well. Even at maximum gain, it's a reasonably tolerable and even usable sound.For me it's money well spent. Even with all the 'Marshall in a box' pedals I own, the AmazonBasics Distortion has earned a rightful place in my collection. I am amazed.The only thing left is to learn more about the original Marshall Guv'nor pedal and find out just how close this pedal really is to that legendary sound. Whether it's spot on to a v1 Guv'nor isn't even necessary--this is a good Marshall style pedal, and I'm happy I got it. Thanks to Josh Scott for his offhanded recommendation.This compressor pedal does what it's supposed to do, and it does it well. No frills, just sustain, level and attack. The level control has a wide range and can be set to use as a clean boost (or more) if you need that. I like the range of the Attack control. You can set it to clamp down hard and fast, or gentle and slow. The Sustain control adjusts the amount of compression from practically none up to more than you probably should use. I set mine about 9:00. You could spend a lot more but why? This does the job well at a fraction of the cost of a boutique compressor.It's kind of a 2 for one, boost and compression. It doesn't add the most compression, but it does add a nice boost to the sound, driving your amp. It adds some nice sustain as if you cranked the gain, without muddying the tone. If I'm in a situation where I'd play my guitar with volume on 10, I'd rather just have this pedal on.On the flip side, playing dynamics are practically impossible with this on. I'd guess it's like that with every compression pedal, but it definitely is with this. The volume knob also might as well not exist, it's on 10 with this on.Overall, a helpful pedal that I'm glad to have on the board. It's on for probably half the songs I play live.The pedal came in a plastic bag, with some instructions. The pedal has a good overdrive tone, similar to a tube screamer. Seems to add a small bit of static to the sound, may not have enough gain or tone for some sounds. Overall in my opinion its a good buy.So, I was psyched to finally get a looper pedal at an affordable price. I'd prefer a multibutton looper with dedicated start, overdub, erase, A/B foot switches, but for such functions, you're talking used car prices.So, I went with this one button looper for budget reasons. In my initial testing the sound quality is good enough. I didn't really amplify the signal and check the sound quality, but at room level playing the pedal had no degregation of the sound quality of the recorded signal, or the bypassed signal. Maybe at gig volume there would be an issue, I don't know, I haven't tested it yet.It's one button stomp interface works well enough. You can record, play, overdub, pause, and restart well enough, though it would be nice to have a manual to help you figure out how to achieve all of these standard looper functions.AND, I really like how the pedal retains the last loop that you recorded, even if the pedal is powered down, and I mean all the way powered down, no power supply at all. I like it because I write songs by starting with a riff, and just build from there. I can record the chord progression, with all of the rhythm articulation, that I might start to forget, just overnight, some of the little details just escape my recollection. But with this pedal, I power up the next day, and that nuanced rhythm chord progression is ready to go, the pedal boots up into pause mode, and you can play the loop from the day before. These may seem like a small thing, but for me it is a huge, and really helpful feature.But, here is the but: The pedal doesn't work as a looper. When you're looping, the real trick, the real skill is to punch in and out right on the beat so you get seamless loops that you can play over. This pedal, and other chinese looper pedals I've encountered all have this fatal flaw where they add a moment of silence at the end/start of the loop. Now, this can be a technique issue, it can be hard to punch in and out exactly on the beat, but I know how to work with a looper, and the moment of silence was there every time. So, just to check if I was maybe somehow wrong, I sent the pedal a constant tone, and hit the record button and then hit the stop recording/play button and there was a gap in the continuous signal.So, this pedal needs to go back, and I'm left really disappointed as this pedal otherwise works really well. But with a looper, you NEED to be able to create a loop that is in time, that loops seamlessly. If you count out a bar loop on the looper you get, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and and 1 and 2 and... you may think you can conpensate, but nope, you can stop the recording early, counting like 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 an... the gap is just so far off the beat you can't get a seamless loop, in this case the loop goes like this: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 an and 1 and 2... the beat is just destroyed.Also, when looping it is often advisable or necessary to have sustained sounds/chords sustain from the end of the loop through to the beginning of the loop, especially if you have reverb or delay as part of your sound, you don't want the reverb to be cut off at the end of the loop, then the first note of the loop is dry then the reverb kicks in again. That's a major no no. You deal with this by playing the loop one time through, then punching in/starting recording on the 1 downbeat, then punching out at the end of the phrase. This should give you a continuous sound as the loop loops. It won't sound like the reverb is cut off at the end of the loop, and that there is no reverb at the beginning of the loop. But with this looper, you cannot do this, because of the pause of silence that is inserted at the end/beginning of the loop.So, no matter what you do, you're going to get a glitch/moment of silence at the end/beginning of your loop, and the loop is going to be out of time, as the insertion of the pause throws the phrase/loop off the beat, and out of time.This is a tragic pedal. I hate fatal flaws. Some pedals have deficiencies that you sort of work around, either for budget reasons, or for tone reasons, like you just really like the tone, so you put up with finding a 21 volt powersuppy! But that is not the case with this pedal, everything works well, except for the CORE FUNCTION of the looper, and that is to loop recorded audio. And this pedal just doesn't do it. It is going back, with regret.BE FOREWARNED(I read a review of this pedal, and the reviewer said exactly what I'm saying, but that was the only review that said that... I was hoping it was user error. But sending the looper a constant tone, and the looper inserts a moment of silence at the end of the loop confirms, it is not user error, it is a design flaw. So, I ignored that reviewer's accurate review, and I lost. Hopefully you won't make the same mistake.)Not a bad box. Tis what tis, cheap Tube Screamer. The polarity is reversed from most pedals.I'm still experimenting, but the pedal is a little sensitive on the control. Have yet to dial-in a better compression that I get with my (equally cheap) Donner.For the price and the reviews I decided to order it, figuring it was no big loss if it sucked. It came in pretty much the next day (in a bag albeit) and it’s unbelievably tiny compared to most pedals, but most of that is the absence of a battery compartment- no problem for me, I use a power supply for all my pedals.The sound is unbelievable for the price, and the controls are simple. It sounds as good as some of the higher priced ones...maybe not as good as some of the hand wired boutique stuff out there, but as good if not better than a BOSS or Digitech.The tiny size makes it easy to fit into a cramped pedal board while still having a big enough switch to be able to easily step on it. It definitely needs to be secured to your board though, the small size and weight makes it very to knock it on its side just by stepping on the button.It has a good range of tone and adjustment and it throttles my full tube Traynor and Garnet amps back enough to not annoy my attached neighbours but it still allows my overdrive pedal to kick the amps into total overdrive.All in all, very happy. I’ve ordered the delay already as well which will ship as soon as it’s in stock, and I might even try the tuner and the others that they offer.Can’t be beat for the price and quick shipping.This is an ultra budget friendly compressor. It literally just comes in a plastic bag .Having said that for what it's worth .. wow. I am just floored how this sounds. Really punchy and clucky. And for me is like a clean boost too. Love the low low profile this is is and it squeezes onto any pedal board with minimal space. ..The main thing I can complain is how tough it is to press the pedal button. It makes a very loud snap sound and affects the output to create a popping sound in the output chain. To be honest this pedal is permanently on for my chain.Awesome stuff Amazon!!The product doesn't come with the 9V power cable that is needed to run the pedal. There is no indication on the listing that this is the case (as far as I can see) which is sort of a bummer when you are excited to try it out. That being said, the build quality seems good, it is fully metal and appears to be durable. The sound quality is to be determined, however, many other reviews seem to speak very highly of it. Going to have to spend another $10-20 on a power cable. Just keep in mind that unless you have a spare power cable around, you will have to buy one in order to use it.EDIT: I got a power supply and it works great. Very beginner-friendly and it is a ton of fun to mess around with. The knob on it controls the volume of the loop and you can record multiple loops with just one pedal. I changed my review from 3 to 4 stars. Would be a 5 star but the power supply not being included makes it 4.I use an rather precious Daion acoustic guitar to which I have fitted a Fishman Neo-D single wound pickup. That pickup produces a truly pathetically weak signal that Fishman ought to be ashamed of. Others have made the same observation.I have been looking for some years now for an affordable preamplifier to use with this guitar. Most preamplifiers sold today are made for fitting into the guitar (and usually for awful piezo pickups). There is no way I am cutting up this guitar to fit a pre-amp. I have therefore been looking for an affordable in-line or "stomp-box" type of pre-amplifier for a while now. Suitable in-line pre-amplifiers I have seen to date are simply too expensive for my appetite at far in excess of $130 and often much much more. Some less expensive ones are unacceptably noisy, producing irritating hiss that destroys an acoustic session.I saw this rather odd little device from AmazonBasics and thought it worth a try at the price point. I can report that, with the "Drive" (Gain) knob turned to maximum, the "Treble" turned to maximum and the "Bass" turned to 3/4 the device operates as a superb little pre-amplifier with high enough gain and low enough noise to do "quiet acoustic" music. I was even able to remove the equaliser from the train of devices.At this point, I am playing the guitar via this box straight into a Mackie 1202-VLZPRO mixer and I'm very happy with what I am getting. I as not anticipating a good result at this price, but I am suitably surprised.All in all, this was a very good purchase for me. I would imagine that it will develop distortion if used with more powerful pickups, such as double-wound humbucker pickups. It is sold for that "boosting" role, but it is fundamentally just a little amplifier with significant gain and some very limited tone controls.Its "stomp button" is seriously suspect though and clicks loudly like metal-on-metal. I do not aim to use that button much. It can stay permanently "on" for my use. Amazon should tell the manufacturer to fix that up, though.I find all of the Amazon basic guitar pedals very interesting.Inexpensive. Solid. They do what they say. It makes it hard to be that critical of a pedal as long as it works.How does it sound? Not bad. The overdrive is quite usable, especially when using a tube amp. It's not a distortion pedal (they have one of those as well). It gives you a bump and a bit of a snarl.The one drawback is the tone control. It's one of those where you turn the dial for a while and almost nothing happens and then, all of a sudden, big change. Ultimately, it means there's only a usable rotation of about 3 degrees of "turnability".If you can keep the dial there, then it could work a treat. But, a simple nudge can suddenly make it really muddy or quite trebly.I didn't return it. It does sound decent when in the sweet spot. I may explore to see if there is any adjustability on the circuit board. After all, it's not expensive. If I blow it up... So be it.
