BeholdSo, right off the bat, this pedal is more complicated than it appears. And, I would say to truly get the most from it, you need to have a MIDI switcher or their 'Faves' preset toggler.
Why? Well...
Each channel on it's own is average.
Both boosts are, you know, nice, high headroom clean boosts. Boosts are boosts, yanno?
The fuzzes are pretty cool, especially the IC side. You can get an ICBM sound out of this pedal with the first few minutes of fiddling.
The overdrives are the weakest link, to me. The JFET channel is the strongest, offering a transparent drive which excels as a low-gainer. It sounds to me like if a Timmy and a Bluesbreaker had a lovechild.
The IC drive is poor, to my ears. It gets very fuzzy early on in the gain dial, and sounds very similar to the JFET from a clipping perspective. If you were hoping for a TS-style opamp clipping from this you will be disappointed.
With that out of the way - why is a MIDI switcher required? Because, when you stack or use both channels in parallel, you can basically copy, within a 90% accuracy I would say, any drive pedal you already have. It's really quite powerful.
I've got a very convincing Bluesbreaker sound. I've copied the sound of my TS (Mojo Hand Rook) stacked into my Bluesbreaker (Snouse Blackbox). I've copied my ICBM Muff. You can get a lot of cool stuff from this pedal. And the real power comes with being able to recall all of these settings with MIDI. It's where it really excels.
In conclusion, this is really a cracking overdrive/boost/fuzz. It sounds really quite amazing. But it takes time to dial in. You need to understand that each tone control behaves differently (A is full freq, B is Mids only), and that's where the power is; and that you'll get good drive sounds from the channels separately, but really amazing tones when they're used together. Did I mention MIDI?
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Can it do that little-bit-o-hair like a RYRA or Klon ?
The thing with CBA pedals is that people tend to say 'i can't get this sound out of it' and Joel will just turn around and say 'you're not supposed to!' He's very much intent on them having their own sound.
i'm still fine tuning my main 3 gain sounds and once i'm happy with them i'll record some samples.
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Clever concept though. I think I'd rather save up and get a modeller like an fx8 or helix, but it's cool nonetheless and would definitely keep my tweak-head entertained for a long time.
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Additionally, warm is not what I'd call it! Of course I've now moved my Brothers on and gone back to a TC Nova Drive, which has similar MIDI capabilities without the need to buy extra boxes. The circuits on the TC work much better with my Fender style amp IMO
Did you like the Timmy? I think Brothers has a very Timmy-esque breakup which I really don't like.
And which amp are you playing through?
Glad to hear you're enjoying it. Nice to be surprised sometimes
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Was yours modded mate ? I wonder if so, if that made a difference...
Quite frankly the CB Brothers is astonishingly good. Tried it low gain into the Carr Rambler.
i seem to be particularly sensitive to how a pedal clips the signal and FET style sounds just send me on edge.
Don't get me wrong - I loved Brothers, thing of beauty - but its just too much capital locked up in one pedal that I wasn't head over heels with.
Nothing beats my Snouse Blackbox, basically.
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