Bad Monkey?

I have a Rondo Tele with a humbucker in the neck. At home, practicing, I play through a Pocket Pod. Once a week I get together with some guys from work and play through an Vox Valvetronix AD30VT run directly into a PA.

So... I'm looking to get something that will give a little boost like an overdrive or distortion peddle. I've just watched some demos of the Bad Monkey and am curious if that would make sense with the gear I've listed above. Or, is there another peddle that fit better with what I have?

The bad monkey is a great pedal for a great price. I recommend it for no other reason that its so much cheaper than most others, and I think it sounds great. I had one guy tell me he thought it sounded better than a keeley tubescreamer, and he has great gear ears.

Don't know if you've seen this one yet or not, but here's my demo of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTzfu4Sczr4

A Bad Monkey sounds exactly like what you want. Great pedal, great price.

Don't know if you've seen this one yet or not, but here's my demo of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTzfu4Sczr4

too funny... I just finished watching that. Great demo. Thanks.

The bad monkey is a great pedal but if you want something that will go from a clean boost to overdrive the danelecto transparant overdrive is the way to go. I have both.

I got one. Excellent value for money.

Yes, Bad Monkey!

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Pick one up! I grabbed mine for $30 :grin:

I didn't really bond with it for low gain applications, but I also haven't really demo'd it too much yet.

As an aside, it was unexpectedly amazing for pulling Metallica type chunk out of humbucker equipped Squier Strat and my Bluesbreaker :mrgreen:

As an aside, it was unexpectedly amazing for pulling Metallica type chunk out of humbucker equipped Squier Strat and my Bluesbreaker :mrgreen:
The Bad Monkey has a surprisingly wide gain range. It can be used simply as a boost in front of a tube amp, all the way to pretty nasty distortion.

The Bad Monkey has great overdrive tone that lets the guitar tone jangle through.
The BM also has seperate bass and treble knobs....you can boost the bottom sperate from the treble to increase the body in your overdrive tone. A TS9 Tubescreamer just has the single "Tone" knob. Two knobs are better.

I have a Bad Monkey, a Maxon OD9 and a BBE Green Screamer. I love the two tone knobs on the Monkey.

The Bad Monkey is cool. The Evil Monkey from Family Guy is also cool.....

http://remainsofthedesi.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/evil-monkey.jpg

thanks for all the responses. I think I'll pick one up.

I'd agree as well... I ended up selling my bad monkey in favor of something else, but nothing on my current pedal board is anywhere near as flexible as the monkey was... Plus, the price is untouchable...

I might steer you away from the bad monkey if this were something you were going to use with your main rig every time you played and you were going to have a compliment of other overdrives pumping into a tube amp or something... However, even then, the Bad Monkey compared extremely favorably to every single other tube screamer-ish pedal I tried. Most were merely a tiny bit "different" but very few would have been day and night "better" in my opinion, and the ones that could beat out the Monkey were absolutely NOT $50 or less. I just saw one of these today for $19 at a local pawn shop...

The other thing is that the Bad Monkey has a dedicated output for running straight to a mixer that adds surprisingly good cabinet emulation compared to just about anything...

Honestly, if I had to go to the studio with only one guitar and one pedal and had to try to lay down a whole bunch of cover tunes or something, I'd have a really hard time justifying taking anything else other than a Bad Monkey ESPECIALLY if I had to run direct to the board. I suppose I might go with something from Damage Control like a womanizer pedal or something if money were no object, but even then, I think it would be pretty darn hard to justify the difference in price...

Get the Monkey - you won't be disappointed! Price is fantastic, the range of tones is fantastic, and the extra EQ options are truly unique and VERY useful...

If you don't have a daisy chain type of AC adapter - get one! I got a brand new pre-wired '500' board this year for around $35 bucks.

Who needs to invest in a bunch of 9 volt batteries unless you're playing in the great outdoors?

The Monkey is a great pedal. I like it better than the Dano TOD.

You can get a Dano Fab OD for about $20 incl. shipping & they are very versatile.

The other thing is that the Bad Monkey has a dedicated output for running straight to a mixer that adds surprisingly good cabinet emulation compared to just about anything...

I'm actually using that output into my VT30 ... to my ears it seems a bit smoother, a bit more buttery. I'm favouring the tones it's giving me.