So after my son's Duke of Tone turned out to be such an awesome pedal, I set up an account on AnalogMan's website to camp for a Prince of Tone drop. I managed to snag one on the very first Wednesday (last Wednesday) and it got here last Saturday. I wanted to spend some time with it before posting just to get a good feel for it. Turns out that, IMO, the hype is pretty well warranted.
First off, there's not a bad sound in this thing. It does shelve off a little bit of low end frequencies, even with the low-mids internal dip switch set to "on". I was a little bummed at first, as I was hoping for 100% complete transparency, but the more I play it, as I play through a Blues Jr. IV, the more it turns out that shelving a little low-end actually works out ok because the Blues Jr can get a bit flabby in the low end, especially with a lot of gain. As far as the pedal goes, it's actually a lot more sensitive to the difference in output between my pickups than any other pedal I've ever played. I have a Twisted Tele neck pickup, and a Custom Shop Texas Special bridge, so there's a bit of output imbalance, but this pedal really does accentuate the higher output of the Texas Special, which is something I actually like a lot.
Other than that, pretty much across the range of volume and drive, the sound of the pedal is just the sound of the guitar and amp, just with some amount more gain or volume, depending on settings. I prefer the internal treble trim pot bottomed out, as it comes, and then I like the internal dip switches (low-mids and higher gain), both set to on. Even with the high gain dip switch, on boost mode with the drive knob down, it can be an incredibly clean (and incredibly loud) clean boost. Bumping up the drive knob on boost mode makes for a ludicrously awesome gritty boost. The distortion mode makes a killer hair metal lead tone, like on all my favorite music from the 80's. I've got a Wampler Belle, which also makes a killer clean-to-slightly gritty boost, and I've got a Rat clone (Cyborg from Rare Buzz Effects) which handles the distortion sounds pretty well, and as luck would have it, the OD mode on the Prince of Tone is probably my favorite anyway, so right now that's were it's spending most of its time.
I can't say enough good things about this pedal. If I were starting from scratch I'd hurry and camp for another one, and pick up one or two Dukes of Tone, and use one for clean boost, one for gritty boost, one for OD, and one for distortion, and then use them in various stacked combinations. I mean, maybe not literally, but you know, you could, and it would sound amazing.
First off, there's not a bad sound in this thing. It does shelve off a little bit of low end frequencies, even with the low-mids internal dip switch set to "on". I was a little bummed at first, as I was hoping for 100% complete transparency, but the more I play it, as I play through a Blues Jr. IV, the more it turns out that shelving a little low-end actually works out ok because the Blues Jr can get a bit flabby in the low end, especially with a lot of gain. As far as the pedal goes, it's actually a lot more sensitive to the difference in output between my pickups than any other pedal I've ever played. I have a Twisted Tele neck pickup, and a Custom Shop Texas Special bridge, so there's a bit of output imbalance, but this pedal really does accentuate the higher output of the Texas Special, which is something I actually like a lot.
Other than that, pretty much across the range of volume and drive, the sound of the pedal is just the sound of the guitar and amp, just with some amount more gain or volume, depending on settings. I prefer the internal treble trim pot bottomed out, as it comes, and then I like the internal dip switches (low-mids and higher gain), both set to on. Even with the high gain dip switch, on boost mode with the drive knob down, it can be an incredibly clean (and incredibly loud) clean boost. Bumping up the drive knob on boost mode makes for a ludicrously awesome gritty boost. The distortion mode makes a killer hair metal lead tone, like on all my favorite music from the 80's. I've got a Wampler Belle, which also makes a killer clean-to-slightly gritty boost, and I've got a Rat clone (Cyborg from Rare Buzz Effects) which handles the distortion sounds pretty well, and as luck would have it, the OD mode on the Prince of Tone is probably my favorite anyway, so right now that's were it's spending most of its time.
I can't say enough good things about this pedal. If I were starting from scratch I'd hurry and camp for another one, and pick up one or two Dukes of Tone, and use one for clean boost, one for gritty boost, one for OD, and one for distortion, and then use them in various stacked combinations. I mean, maybe not literally, but you know, you could, and it would sound amazing.
