Menatone pedals: Any opinion?

[blueprint]

I would like to have your opinion about Menatone products, and especially the dirt boxes.
Thanks!
:cool:

[aarondavis]

Extremely well made pedals. The attention to detail reminds me of the wireing inside my matchless and tophat amps. He has several pedals that emulate the clipping/eq response of different desirable amps. The results are pretty amazing, almost like analog, handwired modeling. My favorite is the King of the Britains, the new 6 knober is the best it think.

BUT, as with other pedals, I think even more so, are very amp dependant. I think they all need an amp with ample midrange to sound their best.

[John II]

I've tried a ton of overdrive pedals. I recently bought a Menatone Top Boost In A Can and love it. It captures the AC-30/15 tone beautifully. Plus, you can go from full rich sounding overdrive to a treble booster with a few turns of the knobs.

A keeper for sure.

~John II

[ROKY]

Brian has been around for awhile, and the number of pedal
builders has mushroomed, for sure .. lot's of good stuff to choose
from, now .

However, I think because of the fact he's been a known quantity,
many have tried him, earlier on, and sort of "moved on" to other
things, and continue to enjoy the smorgasbord of available stomp
boxes.

He has improved his designs with each version, and they were
awesome to begin with.

His amp in a can pedals are unbeliveable good, and as I've said,
somehow he's managed to improve them over time.

The best attribute of Menatone's products, is they retain their
open feel; something that some of the contemporary builders
are starting to incorporate, but Brian was among the very first,
to capture -- not everyone wants a compressed feel to in their
overdrive(s). His pedals have a clarity to them; some feel that
they are overly bright(not me); but that clarity is very useful in
a LIVE(full band) situation.

His Blue Collar is the best TS-9 "flavored" pedal I've tried, though
it really bares no resemblance to a TS-9, mainly due to the attack
and openess of Brian's design.. beautiful box.

The Red Snapper is equally great, in a TS808- "inspired" design.

His TBIAC,KOB,WMB, pedals have improved with each version,
as many who've gone along for the ride will attest.

The Dirty Blonde is another amazing pedal, that really cops the
feel and tone of an old Blonde Bassman . . great stuff !

Meantone is a gifted builder, for sure .

[raz]

Played a Red Snapper for the first time last weekend. It's a really classic "abuse the hell out of the tubes" kinda sound. Not the sound for me, but definitely a classic.

But it seemed to me to be more Fuzz Face than Tube Screamer. I didn't fiddle with the knobs at all, but the way it was set it reminded me a lot of the Fulltone '69 I owned.

R
A
Z

[blueprint]

Thanks to everyone.
By the way, do you think Musictoyz clips or videos do these pedals justice?

[jdsgilmour]

Bruno - I've got one of the early Fish Factories--combo Blue Collar/Red Snapper--and it is undoubtedly a great pedal. Both are tube screamer inspired, but as was previously posted, different. I love it in front of my Fargen Dual Classic. Great tones. Build quality is exceptional. I would recommend Brian's pedals whole heartedly. I have a few other Menatones on my gear wishlist, including the new versions of King of Britains, Top Boost in a Can, and Kar Krash. Just my 2 cents worth.

John

[Beatles-1964]

I have had plenty of menatones and have found that they are well built and sound like the amps/pedals/sounds they are modelled after.

A+++ all the way
:)

[madsr]

I have a fish factory and it truely is a great pedal .. the clips are good but you can get so much more out of the box than the clips give you...thumbs up for menatone in my book

[Tchello]

I have a KOTB new version and I think it's one of the best high gain pedals available today. I also like the Peasure Trem, a very good tremolo with many options.

[aarondavis]

Yeah, the Pleasure Trem 5000 is a killer trem. I was never really into tremolo, but thought I'd be happy with a cheaper trem pedal just to add the effect to my arsenal. Got what I though would suffice, soon figured I'd made a mistake. Started looking, borrowed the P T 5000 from my local dealer, got majorly hooked. Now I use tremolo quite a bit.

[Gearhead]

How is the Howie pedal? I keep thinking on getting one and running it into a Marshall Plexi-type (set for good headroom) and be able to cop both tones with one setup.