Manufacturer: Wounded Paw Effects
Model: Battering Ram
MSRP/Paid: $175/$100
New/Used/Loan: New
Battery: Yes
Power Supply: Yes
Size: 5” Wide, 3 5/8” Tall, 2” deep(Aprox including Jacks and knobs)
Available from:Direct

From the maker:

Battering Ram Overdrive+Fuzz for Guitar and Bass
Stomp on the OVERDRIVE switch and you turn the pedal on and activate the overdrive section. It’s a smooth overdrive which can go from completely clean to growling distortion.
The LO switch adds in the lower frequencies to make it full-range for bass as well as guitar.
The HI knob lets you either boost or cut the highs to dial in the tone you want.

Stomp on the FUZZ switch and the fuzz section gets added on top of the overdrive sound. This is a parallel processed pedal which means the fuzz section works from the clean guitar signal and gets mixed with the overdrive instead of one section following the other like in most 2 stage pedals.
The fuzz is a snarling, raspy beast which can get right out of control if you crank up the SUSTAIN. The deep lows are filtered out to keep it tight and bright. The TONE control goes from high-end cut to flat to a mid-cut, high end boost. And for another set of sounds there is the OCT switch to change the fuzz section into an octave up fuzz. Crazy.

This pedal can be used in a number of ways. Have the overdrive on all the time for your basic tone and stomp on the fuzz for that important bridge, chorus or solo. Or use both sections to shape your distortion sound. Use the overdrive for the lower frequencies to keep the growl without getting muddy and use the fuzz for the searing top end. Or keep the overdrive section tame and use the fuzz section with the octave switch on to add that one bit of octave up. True Bypass

Spent some time yesterday as planned cleaning up. I redid the right menu to make it all fit correctly and be a tad less cluttered, if you hate it… so you think I got a little heavy with the cutting hand let me know.

Additionally, I created a new page called ‘The Big List’. Rather than flip through the posts directly, or search wildy I figured it would be nice to have ONE location with which to find samples, overviews, or reviews that have appeared on this site to date. So if a pedal has been examined at any point (full review, golden age, show & tell) it will appear there for your browsing pleasure. If you have any suggestions for ‘The Big List’ just let me know!

Next review should be soon… Wounded Paw – Battering Ram

• Posted the Subdecay Prometheus review
• Made some changes to the review grids to get them consistent with each other.
• I’m probably going to redo the right menu stuff a bit to ‘tone it down’. Some of the older stuff needs to be de-prioritized.
• Updated Front Page Poll

Manufacturer: Subdecay Studios
Model: Prometheus – Resonant Filter
MSRP/Paid: $249/$249
New/Used/Loan: New
Battery: Yes
Power Supply: Yes
Size: 2.5″W x 2″D x 4.5″H (Aprox including Jacks and knobs)
Available from:Dealers

From the maker:

Prometheus – Resonant Filter
The Prometheus is a voltage controlled 12dB filter which can be manipulated by playing dynamics or an internally generated signal.

What’s it do?

The Prometheus is everything you’ve ever wanted in a filter pedal.

• Loads of headroom
• Reasonable size (measures about 3.7×4.7 inches)
• Highpass, Bandpass, and Lowpass filtering with adjustable intensity (resonance)
• Forward and reverse envelope following
• Sample/Hold step filtering based on 3 different wave forms.
• No special power supplies required. Operates with a single 9 volt battery or standard 9 volt adapter.

All that and it has some “hidden features” as well.

• The LFO rate can be adjusted to run much faster than the the step rate. This can be used to create very interesting arpeggiation.
• The Depth knob can push the filter cutoff frequency outside of the audio range. This can be useful to create a slow attack effect.
• The step rate can be turned up high enough for smooth modulation. This can be used to create and autofilter effect, that can sound similar to a phaser or tremolo.
• A fixed filter effect is possible by turning the depth knob down all the way, and using the Frequency knob to set the filter cutoff.

Technical:

• Powered by a 9 volt battery or 9VDC adaptor with a negative center 2.1mm barrel style plug. Current draw is less than 15mA.
• Input impedance: 1M
• Output impedance: Less than 1K in HP and LP mode. About 5K in BP mode.

Manufacturer: D*A*M – Differential Audio Manifestationz
Model: Meathead (standard)
MSRP/Paid: £132.50/£132.50
New/Used/Loan: New
Battery: Yes
Power Supply: Yes
Size: 3″ W, 4.5″ L, 2.25″ D (Aprox: including Jacks and knobs)
Available from: Direct

From the maker:

Meathead
This superior quality silicon transistor powered fuzz machine is as primitive as they come. One knob, input/output sockets, DC tap and a stomp switch. That’s your lot. Designed for players who like it simple, don’t want to break the bank and want a fuzz tone that will hit you up the side of your head like a bag of rusty spanners. The Meathead is an angry little fellow with plenty of output volume and a huge helping fuzzy goodness; it’s one of the biggest sounding little boxes money can buy!!

The tone produced is very raw sounding with a woody organic quality which is more than capable of producing a huge wall of meaty fuzz that will maintain good string definition and clarity even at high saturation. The bass and treble response is perfectly balanced for a thick but dynamic fuzz tone that will clean up wonderfully with the guitar’s volume backed off. The Meathead has very low background noise for such a high output device and features correctly biased gain selected silicon transistors so the tone is very fluid and articulate.

The Meathead features all the high quality parts and features you find on all out other pedals such as Ero Vishay metallised polyester film capacitors, BC components Electrolytic capacitors, 1% tolerance metal film resistors, audio grade Alpha potentiometer, Genuine Daka-ware Chicken head knob, Switchcraft jack sockets and gain selected audio grade transistors all lovingly enclosed in a heavy duty UK made cast aluminium enclosure finished in a highly durable stove enamelled hammer tone paint job.

The Controls
Just the one! Even through the Meathead has only one control many different tones can be achieved. As the Dirt control is turned up the signal gets fatter the sustain increases and the signal gets louder! Lowering the guitars volume control makes the tone fizzier and increases treble response.

Lowering your guitars volume control will give a variety of different fuzzy flavours. Running your Meathead into the clean channel on your amplifier will give a more “classic” or “retro” fuzz tone where as an overdriven channel will produce a heaver and more modern feeling fuzz, excellent for dropped tunings!!