I finally got a chance to play around with my Cool Cat Pedals this week (Drive, Metal & Chorus).
Let me start by saying that I've been a multiFX unit kinda guy for along time. I used a Boss ME6, PODs and more recently the Zoom G series. I've never been happy with any overdrive/distortion pedals I've used (DS1, Bluesbreaker, Arion Distortion). I also never use the Drive channel on my HRDlx amp as it sounds too harsh for my tastes.
The Cool Cat Drive and Metal pedals have opened my eye's again to the joys of stomp boxes. I'm really happy with the sound I'm getting from these boxes, the combination of the Drive and Metal gives me every level of dirt I could ask for from a little boost to all out mayhem. The Drive pedal on it's own adds a beautiful natural responsive breakup to the signal. I have the Metal pedal setup to add some extra dirt, volume and bottom end to the already overdriven signal coming out of the drive pedal. This gives a glorious sustained crunch sound that works great with my Lemon Drop LP - great for bonamassa, gary moore, ACDC type tones.
The fact that I'm happy with the distortion I'm getting for these CC's in front of the amp has allowed me to move my Zoom G2 to the FX loop and just use it for delay and tuner. This makes my whole sound come alive, the amp sounds better and my guitars sound better.
The Cool Cat Chorus is a really nice sounding Chorus - I'm not a big chorus user but I love to have one ready for whenever I feel like breaking into some Def Leppard and this pedal delivers that classic 80's chorus tone perfectly.
....these pedals have rounded off a great year for gear purchases for me without having to spend big bucks. There really are some great products out there now for the budget conscious guitarist - my Vintage Lemon Drop LP, my Washburn D10S and my Cool Cats have been great purchases for 'relatively' little money - thanks to my fellow fretters who've advised, recommended and demo'd some of this gear before I pulled the trigger.
I'm taking some parental leave from work later this year so expect to see all these new toys appearing on my youtube page before too long..
