Barber Direct Drive [compact] - wow

fdesalvo

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I’ve had an issue with every Fender amp I’ve bought or cloned – OD pedals were either fizzy, thin, or lacking richness in the mids. More often than not, they were all of the above despite tube and speaker swaps and inputs with and without bright caps.

I’ve strived to have what most of us want – a sweet Fender clean tone with some type of British-inspired lead crunch. I’ve gotten close with a few pedal and landed on a pair of Xotic SL Drives, each set for diff levels of gain. They really carried the day, but I felt something was still missing. This drove my search for a more ideal OD pedal. My search led me to a product by Barber called the, “Direct Drive (compact)”.

I ordered it earlier this week and it arrived last night. I wasn’t too excited to test it out, figuring I’d be at the post office mailing it back out. I literally plugged it in and didn’t bother setting the controls. I rolled on the guitar volume and there it was! Wow, where has this tone been all my life – and why did it take me so long to try our Barber’s stuff?

I have another pedal coming in for low gain duty – a Catalinbread SuperCharged Over Drive..figured if I liked the Direct Drive, it would stay on the board as my main lead sound, but the truth is that is sounds equally amazing as an edge of breakup tone – very SRV/Mayer. Just nails it with a juicy tone and springy attack. If the Catalinbread pedal doesn’t at least perform this well, I’ll return it and get another Direct Drive.

Let me comment on the feel and overall vibe of the Barber – it’s an overused metaphor, but it really sounds like an added channel – or extension of my amp’s preamp. The feel, unlike the various TS clones I hoped would add the missing mids, is juicy! It has a little compression on the front of the attack, so it’s very amp-like. One thing I never liked about most of the other ODs I’ve tried is the stiff attack of the note. Very unforgiving. This is not the case here.

Finally, this is a pretty quiet pedal, given the level of saturation available. When you use singlecoils, you want a pedal that has a low noise floor. This delivers on this front, as well.

I really hope you guys get to try one of these. Seems pedals come and go. Some amazing pedals only have a brief moment in the spotlight before a new and shiny, hand-painted doodad comes along for some temporary glory. This Barber unit is a well-known and still hidden gem! Barbers are made for Fenders! Try to score one if you can.

Here’s the list of pedals it has dethroned on my board:
•Bogner, Blue
•JHS, Morning Glory
•JHS, Moonshine
•Maxon, AD808
•Xotic, BB
•Xotic, SL Drive
•Timmy
•Tonebone, Classic
•Tonebone, Hot British
•Blackout Effectors, Musket
•Carl Martin, Plexidrive II
•Dr Scientist,The Elements
•G2D, Creamtone
 
The joy is in the journey.  I've run the gamut of OD pedals and I liked the direct drive also.  Great pedal.  Theres so many variables in the rig (most importantly my fickle ears) that one must keep searching.  After a dozen or so my only keepers on the board are the Wampler Plexidrive Plus and a Jetter Johnny A, which is so inspiring its sick.  That said, I'm sure that my small board will look different in a couple months.  :dontknow:   
 
^ SO true.  I wish I could lock my ears down for once.  No more tone searching - more practice.

The DD on higher gain settings feels and sounds very, very much like my Budda SD30.  Hit me yesterday.  I ended up ordering a Gain Changer to play with, as well.  Will take advantage of Amazon's healthy return policy if I don't diggit.
 
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