A brief review: Mosky Transparent Overdrive

OilCityPickups

I'm a total sucker for dirt pedals ... and when someone mentioned the Affordaboard site in connection with a Klon clone ... I just had to take a look. What I actually fancied was a transparent overdrive like a Timmy - and when I saw the Mosky 'Transparent Overdrive' at £35 I just had to pull the trigger. 
It arrived within two days - and so well wrapped it took me five minutes just to get into it! Still, better safe than sorry. 
Well, solid, well made and professional looking and feeling were my first reactions. It actually looks really classy, and the top mounted power and jacks are a breath of fresh air to anyone struggling with real-estate on their pedal board. 
Well it's quiet, and has quite a bit of gain available - which is - as it says on the tin - transparent. 
The black pedal next to the 'Timmy clone' is my custom built 'Oil City'TS808 clone, and yep ... the Mosky is uncoloured by comparison. The various 'mod options' available on the top right rotary switch are subtle and seem to be mostly about how much overall gain is on tap. 
This thing really likes my Gretsch's black top Filtertrons ... I set up my Peavey Classic 30 just on the verge of breakup and found that I could keep it's overall tone but go from 'touch of hair' to raucous Filtertron bark really easily and controllably - cleaning up well on the guitar volume. 
It stacks well with the Tubescreamer too. 
My Les Paul with it's alnico 2 PAFs sounded great - to me this is a really good pedal for 'Americana' into the front of a smaller tube amp and for £35 an absolute steal! 

And before anyone asks ... yep that's a Behringer Ultra Metal in the top left corner ... I have tons of filth available on my board ... there's a Big Muff Russian Deluxe further downstream - and yes the Mosky Transparent Drive plays super well with that too, tightening it up and making it even more 'doom'.  
 
   

TheMarlin

The Celine Blue is another good Timmy clone. 

I’ve always wanted an original Tim, but prices are nuts. I’d be plenty happy with one of these. 

OilCityPickups

TheMarlin said:

The Celine Blue is another good Timmy clone. 

I’ve always wanted an original Tim, but prices are nuts. I’d be plenty happy with one of these. 

It sounds absolutely huge with my Dynasonic Tele ... makes the bridge pickup so aggressive that if it were a dog you'd have to muzzle it! 

Littlejonny

Thanks for the tip - I’ll probably grab one of these soon

TimmyO

This whole new 'M series' of Mosky pedals looks interesting - full size, top jacks, clones of all the usual suspects with added options/versions on a knob or toggle. 

They'll sell loads!

monquixote

I'd not heard of Afordaboard before.

Does anyone know if Demon FX stuff is any good?

I've just picked up a cheap bass and I could do with a compressor and a drive.

fretmeister

monquixote said:

I'd not heard of Afordaboard before.

Does anyone know if Demon FX stuff is any good?

I've just picked up a cheap bass and I could do with a compressor and a drive.

There's a thread on basschat somewhere.

General view seems to be that the Darkglass stuff is pretty close - varies a bit by model.
I think there's some reviews of the compressors on there too.

Personally I think the Joyo Double Thruster is as close as you'll get to the B3K. It has a tiny tiny smidge less drive than the B3K but nobody uses that full up anyway. Well built too.

monquixote

fretmeister said:

monquixote said:

I'd not heard of Afordaboard before.

Does anyone know if Demon FX stuff is any good?

I've just picked up a cheap bass and I could do with a compressor and a drive.

There's a thread on basschat somewhere.

General view seems to be that the Darkglass stuff is pretty close - varies a bit by model.
I think there's some reviews of the compressors on there too.

Personally I think the Joyo Double Thruster is as close as you'll get to the B3K. It has a tiny tiny smidge less drive than the B3K but nobody uses that full up anyway. Well built too.

Great info thanks! 
Does anyone else do Darkglass clones, or are there any other decent cheap bass compressors?

LionAquaLooper

What does the "M" in the rotary dial stand for?  
And do you notice any audible differences as you go along the 4 modes?  I just watched a video on it and I can barely hear a difference between them apart from the M mode which seems fatter.  
Admittedly I didn't listen through headphones so wanted to see if you could hear the differences there in the room.

Dave_Mc

Excellent score! 

I've got a "real" Timmy (I got it years ago when prices were sensible) and to be honest it doesn't really sound any better than my Danelectro V1 Transparent Overdrive Timmy clone. I suspect yours will sound as good, too. There aren't any unobtanium parts or anything in a Timmy as far as I'm aware, so any clone should sound relatively close, as long as there are no mistakes in the circuit etc.

TimmyO said:

This whole new 'M series' of Mosky pedals looks interesting - full size, top jacks, clones of all the usual suspects with added options/versions on a knob or toggle. 

They'll sell loads!

They look excellent, that's for sure. I was a little annoyed when I picked up my DemonFX Distortion +/OD250 type pedal that I hadn't noticed that Mosky had come out with an even more full-featured type of pedal, but then some of the early Youtube videos sounded a bit "weird" (that's the best way I can think to describe it) with some of the first M-series pedals. I have no idea why. If they don't sound "weird", they're a great idea.

monquixote said:

I'd not heard of Afordaboard before.

Does anyone know if Demon FX stuff is any good?

I've just picked up a cheap bass and I could do with a compressor and a drive.

I haven't tried the bass stuff but as I said above, I got the DemonFX OD250/Distortion+ clone from Affordaboard, and it's pretty good. I've got an MXR Distortion+ too (just the bog standard block logo one, not a vintage one or even the fancier reissue) and IIRC it sounds slightly sweeter than the Distortion+ setting on the DemonFX, but I doubt you'd notice it unless you A/Bed them- plus the MXR one is half-assed bypass, so if the input impedance isn't that high, and I think it might not be*, that might be affecting its tone too even when it's turned on. IIRC I tried them both with a buffer in front too, and that made the tones of the two pedals a good bit closer, too. At that point IIRC there was very little in it. (I still have the pedals, just I did that in-depth comparison months ago!)

Plus the DemonFX version is way more versatile than the MXR version since it'll do DOD OD250, Malmsteen and Microamp tones as well (plus in-between tones of those, depending on where you set the switches).

EDIT: *I actually just checked on the MXR website, and the input impedance is supposedly 1M, so that's the standard "high" value, I think. The output impedance is 25k, which I think is fairly low but which could be lower (?). I was under the impression 10x difference between the two was considered to be enough but again I'm not sure. The other possibility is that I've had mine for a fair while now, and I could have an older version with a lower input impedance...

LionAquaLooper said:

What does the "M" in the rotary dial stand for?  
And do you notice any audible differences as you go along the 4 modes?  I just watched a video on it and I can barely hear a difference between them apart from the M mode which seems fatter.  
Admittedly I didn't listen through headphones so wanted to see if you could hear the differences there in the room.

I suspect it stands for "Mosky" i.e. their own setting. I think most of those pedals have an "M" setting. EDIT: I'm wrong Most don't seem to have an "M" setting. Mosfet? 

FWIW on the "real" Timmy, the clipping switch make very little difference too from what I can remember- it's a fairly low gain overdrive with a couple of diodes going each way IIRC so they're not clipping all that much. I don't like to touch it to compare the different settings in case I forget which one I prefer!

Dave_Mc

I should probably add, I've been aware of Affordaboard for a while now, I just assumed everyone else already knew about them! If I'd known it was a secret I'd have mentioned them sooner! 

snowblind

I have the DemonFX KoT clone and jolly nice it is too. I'm on the waiting list for a real one so at some point in star date 5726 I should be able to do a direct a/b comparison. 

abw1989

I've got the Mosky King Rat version of these and I think it's excellent.

Good range between the different modes, definitely different Rat flavours audible.

RickLucas

Well I've just ordered one after watching a few videos.  

OilCityPickups

LionAquaLooper said:

What does the "M" in the rotary dial stand for?  
And do you notice any audible differences as you go along the 4 modes?  I just watched a video on it and I can barely hear a difference between them apart from the M mode which seems fatter.  
Admittedly I didn't listen through headphones so wanted to see if you could hear the differences there in the room.

M is deffo a bit fatter - but there are only very small differences between the 'modes'. Seems more difference with some guitars and gain settings than others ... tried my Strat today and where I can barely hear a difference with buckers ... way more on single coils.  

The Timmy clone now has velcro and is on my 'gigging board' 

RickLucas

Gigged mine last night and was very impressed. Don't do what I did though, and unscrew the bezel as the retaining nut inside the chassis will fall off.

OilCityPickups

RickLucas said:

Gigged mine last night and was very impressed. Don't do what I did though, and unscrew the bezel as the retaining nut inside the chassis will fall off.

Ah ... won't do that then :-)

stickyfiddle

Is M the MXR version of the Timmy? I don't know if that is supposed to be a genuine 1-1 recreation or a slightly tweaked version

monquixote

stickyfiddle said:

Is M the MXR version of the Timmy? I don't know if that is supposed to be a genuine 1-1 recreation or a slightly tweaked version

I assumed Mosky.

The MXR is supposed to be the same but I thought it sounded worse.

OilCityPickups

stickyfiddle said:

Is M the MXR version of the Timmy? I don't know if that is supposed to be a genuine 1-1 recreation or a slightly tweaked version

Quite possibly ... I'm still exploring all it's capabilities - pusing into a Big Muff Russian or a TS808 it's glorious - used to kick my Peavey classic into filth ... excellent. Spent a half hour seeing what I could get with my Les Paul, the gain channel of the Peavey with the Timmy clone and TS808 stacked ... absolute heaven: wonderfully touch sensitive. One of the best £35 I've ever spent ...   

TimmyO

stickyfiddle said:

Is M the MXR version of the Timmy? I don't know if that is supposed to be a genuine 1-1 recreation or a slightly tweaked version

MXR is offered as 'same' - although the volume pot taper is different/wrong