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Mike Rice
March 14th, 2006, 08:12 PM
My new (used) LovePedal Twin 60 showed up today. For those without history, mine that is...I have a Double Barrell Boost made by Robbie Wallace at RGW Electronics. It's essentially 2 Bad Bobs in one pedal, allowing them to act independently or be cascaded one into the other. Robbie is a good friend which is why I have this. It uses twin JFETs. Sean's Twin 60 uses Twin MOSFETs, it's essentially two Deluxe 60 boosts in one pedal and he now makes this on a custom order basis. I was lucky enough to find one used. When I mentioned I was in the hunt a number of foks said they'd want to hear about it, so if you still do...set a spell.
Solid little box, nice and small. The battery it came with was dead so I had to replace that. The wiring is done incredibly cleanly and it's organized, though it appears that the wires are longer than they need to be and getting the new battery back in place was a bit of a cramp. The etronics had a wad of that silly putty stuff stuck on it so you couldn't see what make it tick. I didn't even try to pull it off or even peel it back.
Before I even got to testing the tone and boost of the DB vs the T60, I noticed a major difference between the two pedals. The 2 footswitches on the DB are for unit 1 and 2 respectively. The T60 switches are bypass and A/B selector. This means that the 2 units cannot be run at the same time! I use the first boost on the DB cranked up to drive the 2nd boost, then use the 2nd boost to control the overall volume. You don't even need a master volume such as the ZVex Super Duper has. Varying the knobs gives me a wide range of the best overdrive I personally have ever acheived with a pedal. Aside from the great tone it's what I most love about the Double Barrell. Naturally I think this is a design flaw with the Twin 60. For now though, let's talk tone and boost.
The boost level from each unit is virtually identical with regard to volume. Very comparable. The DB has always had a quirk whereby to get the same boost volume out of the B unit as A, you need to turn it up almost 1 notch. So 11:00 on A equals 12:00 on B for volume. Since Robbie doesn't produce this pedal and I could care less, it's not something he's bothered with. Ironically the T60 has the identical symptom, to the same degree, even though the boosts are not cascaded.
Tone; it gets really tough here as we discussed several weeks ago. Some folks think MOSFETs brighten up the signal a bit, but I'm beginning to strongly suspect not and that MOSFETs might be more transparent than JFETs. When you boost the volume, especially signifcantly, all frequencies are boosted but I believe most people hear the high frequencies much more pronounced. It's why we often roll back the treble when we increase volume or use treble bleed circuits in our guitars. Or maybe MOSFETs do add a little brightness, or maybe it's a little of both. But the T60 is definitely brighter than the DB. It's not night and day, but it's clearly audible.
Bill Hullett has long theorized that the Bad Bob enhances the upper mids a bit. While I think Bill has solid gold eardrums to get the tone he does, I never particularly agreed with this assessment. Well, maybe I do now. Or Jack Ormann says that JFETs have a "harmonic" quality that makes them sound more tube-like. Could be that both Bill and Jack are right. We're talking subtleties here and, while I always thought I had a pretty good ear for such thing, sometimes you just know what sounds better to you without being able to put your finger right on it. The DB (and Bad Bobs in general) have a very subtle rasp rather than just the pure sparkle of the LovePedal and it really compliments a Telecaster big time.
If there was not Bad Bob or maybe even if there was but I didn't have a Double Barrell, I'd probably but putting this Twin 60 on my board. I would definitely inquire with Sean at LovePedal about a mod to cascade the 2 units, and I may still do that. But for someone that has an OD or distortion unit they already love, the Twin 60 will give you 2 great sounding boost levels with amazing transparency. I'll probably end up selling it eventually, but I'm intrigued enough that I'll probably also play with it for a bit.
Hope this was useful!
Solid little box, nice and small. The battery it came with was dead so I had to replace that. The wiring is done incredibly cleanly and it's organized, though it appears that the wires are longer than they need to be and getting the new battery back in place was a bit of a cramp. The etronics had a wad of that silly putty stuff stuck on it so you couldn't see what make it tick. I didn't even try to pull it off or even peel it back.
Before I even got to testing the tone and boost of the DB vs the T60, I noticed a major difference between the two pedals. The 2 footswitches on the DB are for unit 1 and 2 respectively. The T60 switches are bypass and A/B selector. This means that the 2 units cannot be run at the same time! I use the first boost on the DB cranked up to drive the 2nd boost, then use the 2nd boost to control the overall volume. You don't even need a master volume such as the ZVex Super Duper has. Varying the knobs gives me a wide range of the best overdrive I personally have ever acheived with a pedal. Aside from the great tone it's what I most love about the Double Barrell. Naturally I think this is a design flaw with the Twin 60. For now though, let's talk tone and boost.
The boost level from each unit is virtually identical with regard to volume. Very comparable. The DB has always had a quirk whereby to get the same boost volume out of the B unit as A, you need to turn it up almost 1 notch. So 11:00 on A equals 12:00 on B for volume. Since Robbie doesn't produce this pedal and I could care less, it's not something he's bothered with. Ironically the T60 has the identical symptom, to the same degree, even though the boosts are not cascaded.
Tone; it gets really tough here as we discussed several weeks ago. Some folks think MOSFETs brighten up the signal a bit, but I'm beginning to strongly suspect not and that MOSFETs might be more transparent than JFETs. When you boost the volume, especially signifcantly, all frequencies are boosted but I believe most people hear the high frequencies much more pronounced. It's why we often roll back the treble when we increase volume or use treble bleed circuits in our guitars. Or maybe MOSFETs do add a little brightness, or maybe it's a little of both. But the T60 is definitely brighter than the DB. It's not night and day, but it's clearly audible.
Bill Hullett has long theorized that the Bad Bob enhances the upper mids a bit. While I think Bill has solid gold eardrums to get the tone he does, I never particularly agreed with this assessment. Well, maybe I do now. Or Jack Ormann says that JFETs have a "harmonic" quality that makes them sound more tube-like. Could be that both Bill and Jack are right. We're talking subtleties here and, while I always thought I had a pretty good ear for such thing, sometimes you just know what sounds better to you without being able to put your finger right on it. The DB (and Bad Bobs in general) have a very subtle rasp rather than just the pure sparkle of the LovePedal and it really compliments a Telecaster big time.
If there was not Bad Bob or maybe even if there was but I didn't have a Double Barrell, I'd probably but putting this Twin 60 on my board. I would definitely inquire with Sean at LovePedal about a mod to cascade the 2 units, and I may still do that. But for someone that has an OD or distortion unit they already love, the Twin 60 will give you 2 great sounding boost levels with amazing transparency. I'll probably end up selling it eventually, but I'm intrigued enough that I'll probably also play with it for a bit.
Hope this was useful!