Stomp Under Foot Tourbox Round 1

[mattpas]

Hey all,
I am looking for some people (U.S. only) that want to check out two pedals I currently offer on my site at www.stompunderfoot.com (http://www.stompunderfoot.com)
If you are interested please IM me your contact info.

This is what I am looking for from you:
Play the pedals for a couple of days then send it Priority Mail with a tracking number to the next address I e-mail you and e-mail me the tracking number.
Also, if you like the pedals please post a review in the forum.

The pedals are:


http://www.stompunderfoot.com/images/screamingpanda.jpg

The Screaming Panda
This is a fuzz/distortion mix that has the feel of a Tube Screamer, Big Muff Ram’s Head, and a Rat.
With the gain around 9 o’clock it has a dirty, gritty, light fuzz sound. Around 12 o’clock it has a fuller fuzz/distortion sound, and with the gain full out it has a really thick, full, gritty, blooming, rounded fuzz.

http://www.stompunderfoot.com/images/meangreenmachine_64fi.jpg

Mean Green Machine
Modified version of the TS808 Tube Screamer. The Mean Green Machine incorporates some of the most popular mods to give it a fuller, more natural feel, more gain, and a sweet tone.
With the gain around 9 o’clock it has a nice low overdrive that gives you a sweet, snappy, punchy tone. With the gain around 12 o’clock you are close to an original Tube Screamer’s gain which is great for very responsive leads and full, crunchy chords. With the gain full out it has a big, warm, Marshall type of gain with great harmonics that make chords sound huge and leads sing.

[wtdpblake]

PM sent

[cjs42079]

PM sent

[GTSR]

PM sent

[Panacea]

P.m.'d

[DaveG]

Those look great... PM sent!

[DaveG]

All set Dave.


Thanks, Matt... I'm looking forward to it! :AOK

[mixtery]

PM Sent.

[mattpas]

Hey guys I just saw this posting:
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=540905

[Panacea]

Hey guys I just saw this posting:
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=540905
Sweet. I'm looking forward to this...:cool:

[mattpas]

Sweet. I'm looking forward to this...:cool:

The Gear Page Tour Box started and the first one has them now.
Panacea you are fourth on the list.

[MERCYFULFATE]

i would like to see a pic of the inside of one?

[DaveG]

First of all, a huge thanks to Matt for doing the Tourbox, and letting me be a part of it!

I just finished my week with the Screaming Panda and Mean Green Machine, and I really enjoyed both of them. The pedals looked great & the workmanship on them was excellent. I mainly used a Tele with Pete Biltoft T-90's & an LP with Burstbucker Pros; amps were a BFPR clone with an Emi Big Ben, a DRRI with an Emi CRex, and a Richter 5e3 with a Jensen Tornado Neo.

The Panda is a fuzz/distortion pedal, and it shows it right out of the gate. It's gain comes in very quickly; below 8 o'clock it has the gain of a cranked TS, but from 8-9 o'clock it's gain was about like my Moho Mods Rat with the gain at 2 o'clock, and above 9 o'clock it left the Rat in the dust gain-wise. The Panda has a good amount of high end, but it wasn't piercing; it should cut through the mix easily. It sounded fantastic through my Richter 5e3, and seemed like it was made for it; the extra high end of the Panda & the extra low end of the Richter were a match made in heaven.

The Mean Green Machine is Matt's take on a Tube Screamer; more bass & mids than the Panda (of course), and more volume, too. It loved my BF amps, and had much more gain than a regular TS, it gets some Marshall flavor as the gain gets cranked. Bigger bottom end & more highs, too... the MGM has a clarity that I haven't found in other TS pedals. I tend to lean toward lower gain sounds, so my favorite tones with the MGM came with the gain & tone knobs about 10 o'clock with my LP & DRRI, but it sounded great with my Tele, too.

Even though I'm in the process of scaling down my pedalboards, I'm really trying to figure out how I can squeeze an MGM onto one of them... it was tough to send that one on. :) The Panda was very cool, too, but I'm not playing anything these days where I need that much gain. Matt's definitely on the right track with his pedals, and I'm looking forward to seeing what other cool stuff he comes up with next! :AOK

[mattpas]

Thanks to Trego for this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACpVWKqUkKk

[mattpas]

There are two guys left on the Tour Box.
Thanks to those that have taken part so far.

[mattpas]

WTDPBLAKE just posted a review on his web site of the Screaming Panda from the tour box.
You can check it out here:
WTDP (http://www.whatsthatdudeplay.com/2009/06/the-metallic-roar-of-the-screaming-panda/#more-1330)

[KRosser]

Excuse my ignorance -

Is a 'tourbox' a sample set of these that gets passed around? Any chance I could get in on that? I'm very intrigued by both of these

[mattpas]

Excuse my ignorance -

Is a 'tourbox' a sample set of these that gets passed around? Any chance I could get in on that? I'm very intrigued by both of these

There will be a new tour box going around.

[mattpas]

This is a review from the tour box I received in an e-mail.
Me and some friends got together for some jams last night, and we had the 'Panda' and G. Machine in the line. This is what we ran: Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret
Xotic BB
Xotic AC Booster
Mean Green Machine
Screaming Panda
Way Huge Fat Sandwich
Fulltone OCD v4
Electro-Harmonix DMM
Ampeg V4
Ampeg Reverberocket or an AC15

Guitars were:
Fender Tele Deluxe
Orville Les Paul Standard
Fender Jazzmaster
Fender Duo-Sonic.

I have to say first I love gain and I want a little 'hair' on the notes I play. Normally, I don't like the tubescreamer type pedals (I'm not sure that's what you were going for with the Mean Green Machine) but the Mean Green Machine has some awesome sounds in it. I've been loving my Dirty Little Secret since I got it a couple of month's ago, but it doesn't work great with all pickups. The Mean Green Machine sounded great through everything (with a little tweak to the Tone knob) single coil and humbuckers. I will definately get one of these. The Panda is very cool as well as it does a kind of Rat-esque, Muff-ey type of thing to my ears. Overall, after the dust had settled, we liked the Mean Green the most out of your pedals. Everyone liked the Fat Sandwich best of all of them, but the Mean Green Machine was second. I was suprised that the Dirty Little Secret didn't get as much play, but it kinda sounded a little brittle compared to the Mean Green Machine. As far as the Xotic stuff, I'm not a big fan (they belong to my friend) I do like the AC a lot, but it can get too bright very easily so it never got a place on my board. I'm sorry this is a little all over the place, it was a late nighter!

[Lolaviola]

Stomp Under Foot Screaming Panda—Mean Green Machine
“Tour box”

These pedals came to my house, (thanks Matt,) and upon first inspection it appeared that they were very well designed and built. The standard “tall” enclosure was finished well, and the knobs and jacks were tight and easy to manipulate. The simplicity of the 3-knob design is appealing for its lack of fiddly switches, but the sound needs to back it up…

Taking my Tele into the pedals, and out to my Mk1 Boogie, which is my present set up, I set to work… The sweep of the knobs was impressive because all of the range of the tone and the gain was completely usable. However they were not overly interactive, and each pedal retained its voicing well. The operation and the sounds are familiar, yet each one was tuned with very unique voice, and had a nice punch in the upper mids, that I found very pleasing. Overall I would say they exceeded my expectations.

Panda

A mid-to-high-gain distortion box, with a little fuzzy edge. And I mean just a little, because the bass was dialed in very well and remained tight. The Gain range has a natural taper, and I found several sweet spots along the way, from a hard gritty overdrive, to a singing distortion great for leads. Compared to my OCD, it holds its own, and has a little more mids and gain. It feels as if a great deal of care had been taken to voice the pedal uniquely. I would grab this for some Jazz Fusion, some Classic or Alt-Rock or some Heavy Music...

Mean Green

I found this to be a very versatile overdrive, with enough gain range to be useful (many hot-rod tubescreamers get mushy gained up,) for different applications. Sometimes you want to drive a hotter signal to the amp. This has enough level boost to do it. Sometimes you want to have a “second channel” sound, and this will do all that while offering several tone and gain shaping options. Compared to a King of Tone, the gain has more range. The tone knob is useful throughout the range (like the KOT) and it has more level to boost with. I found it had a unique voicing which was perfect for a darker amp. This is the one do-everything pedal to have when you are having only one.

Conclusion

I also tried a Les Paul and a Strat and didn't have any problems, just another pallette of sounds. My set up this week (Wah, OCD, KOT, DD-2,) uses 2 boxes, one for an OD and one for a Dist sound. I compared em directly to my KOT and OCD, they sounded comparable. I wished for a bit more bass sometimes; (compared directly to 2 pedals that have lots of bass.) Very close sounding but also very unique; I would gig with these 2-night, no problem!

[mattpas]

Great review!
Thanks for trying them out.
Tour Box 1 should be going to the last person.
I just finished two new pedals that will be going in Round 2 of the tour box.

[phazersonstun]

As promised to Matt, here is my review of the tour box.


I recently got the opportunity to participate in Matt’s Stomp Under Foot tour box.
This round included the Mean Green Machine & the Screaming Panda.
For reference, I tested these w/ a Les Paul w/ Duncan Pearly Gates in the neck & bridge positions played into a clean Fender Hotrod Deville 2x12 at gig volume.

Construction:
Both pedals share the same tall Hammond type enclose with rugged construction through out. True bypass 3pdt foot switches, smooth tactile feel to the pots, standard boss style 9v power receptacle, red status indicator led. If you want fancy paint jobs & colorful graphics, look else where. These are all about business, painted solid metallic green & solid white respectively w/ nicely done black silk screening for control labeling & logos

Sounds:
Mean Green Machine:
Do we really need another TS variant? I didn’t think so until I plugged in the Stomp Under Foot Mean Green Machine. The first two things I notice when I step on a TS type pedal are the mid hump, & the apparent blend of clean signal mixed with the OD tone. Some love it, some hate it. The blend can help with clarity at times, but also sounds artificial to my ears. The MGM does have a mid hump as a cooking tube amp would, but it’s voiced very naturally. No clean blend here & I like it that way.
Its tone is immediately comforting & musical. Plenty of output on tap, a truly usable gain control through the range of the pot, & a nicely voiced tone control.
The MGM’s gain sounds fantastic at low, medium & high with way more gain on tap than the typical TS type pedal. This pony has way more than one trick. I could cop sweet blues tones from the neck pickup in full bucker or tapped modes w/ all the touch sensitivity & responsiveness to the guitar’s volume, tone, & pu controls a player needs. Switch to the Bridge pu & crank the gain, & you could easily use the MGM for rhythm work from roots rock to G-n-R & VH just by using the guitars volume.. Its takes on a nice marshally voiced grind w/ the gain maxed but still cleans up to just a little hairy w/ the guitars volume. I was very impressed with neck pu leads with gain dimed.
I was shocked at how smooth & singing it was with gobs of sustain, I didn’t want to stop playing. That to me is the true measure of a great pedal. It inspired my creativity & desire to play. I will certainly be buying at least one of these to replace my MI Audio Blues Pro (which I love) if not 2 to use for different gain settings.

Screaming Panda:
This guy has a thick but clear voice at low to mid gain settings & takes on a hairy character slightly more towards fuzz than distortion in high gain. The tone control is similar to the contour control on a rat, or shredmaster. I am a gain junkie, but admittedly, not a fuzz fan so the higher gain tones on the Panda are not for me. My favorite spot on the gain dial was just under half way on the bridge pu for touch sensitive rhythm work.
The tone control lets you tailor the overall voice of the Panda to your tastes be it dark, middy, neutral, or bright. It’s responsive to the guitars controls just like the MGM.

I play guitar for a living so my gear has to sound great & just keep on working. Both of these pedals are well made, good looking, versatile, & toneful. They are available @ www.stompunderfoot.com (http://www.stompunderfoot.com/) reasonably priced at $119.99. Matt is on to something great here.

[mattpas]

phazersonstun thanks for the great review.

I want to thank those that took the time to write reviews for the tourbox. As soon as everything gets back to me I will take the names of everyone that submitted reviews and there will be a drawing for a free pedal.

I will also be doing a Round 2 tourbox with some new pedals in it.

[phazersonstun]

I was last on this tourbox, & loved the Mean Green Machine so much, it didn't make it back to Matt.

I sent the Panda back & paid him for the Mean Green Machine which now lives on my board.

Thanks Matt

[phazersonstun]

WooHoo! You've been PMed Matt.