May 31, 2009

Fuzz Review: Wounded Paw – Battering Ram

Stashed under: Reviews - Fuzz — grygrx @ 8:41 pm

Conclusion:


This is the most versatile analogue dirt pedal I have laid hands on. The overdrive side is a solid tube screamer inspired dirt that in the ‘lo’ position does a great job retaining lows and provides some really nice low gain tones. This can be cranked up to a some pretty significant sizzle, but the lows start to suffer at that point.

Firing on the fuzz side opens a world of wild possibilities. This unique circuit reminds me a bit of a superfuzz with it’s sizzle and excessive force encountered with a flip of the octave switch. While it doesn’t do a solid job of retaining lows in itself, the parallel blend occurring with the overdrive before output brings the bottom end back in. Rocking out with this pedal gave me a few of those ‘rock god’ moments that really hit you in the gut. This kind of visceral joy doesn’t come around for me too often, jaded and scarred as I am, so when they do I get really excited.

This is a pedal that transitions from low gain to face melter at the click of a switch, and can be configured anywhere in between. I often feel that versatile pedals fail to provide anything unique or touch ‘awesome’ the way more specialized pedals do, but Battering Ram accomplishes it. I think either side by itself would fail to inspire, but combined as a single pedal with it’s unique blending arrangement create something quite interesting.

As always, if you have any questions, leave a comment or let me know

Note: A rating of 5 = acceptable and should considered a ‘good’ basic score

Sound Category: Sparkle, Full Range
Versatility: 9
Sound: 8
Value: 7
Overall: 8

4 Comments

  1. WOW! I WANT! That thing is awesome, and I really like the versatility. Price tag isn’t bad either.

    Comment by Kugelspot — May 31, 2009 @ 11:45 pm

  2. thanks for a few of the pick tones on the jazz.

    Comment by sutarappa — June 15, 2009 @ 4:17 pm

  3. That very last thing you played after “just for you…” sounded like Portugal the Man’s It’s Complicated Being a Wizard.

    Are you a fan?

    Comment by Gewehr — July 29, 2009 @ 10:28 am

  4. WOW! in real it sounds not just better then in the video…this thing is amazing! i play that pedal with a G&L SB-2 thru a Markbass R500 and CL108…
    nice fat overdrive sounds and a cut thru fuzztone! i did order it to switzerland with no problems…
    thanx Preston, you made a great job!

    Comment by René Haltiner — August 26, 2009 @ 2:21 am

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.