Okay folks, the Free The Tone SOV-2 arrived 2 days ago. First thing I recognized was the made with love packaging. Fine work here, plus there was a battery included already. You do not find that very often.
The pedal itself is a battery eating monster, because the voltage is pushed to 15v inside the unit - however that works - you definitely want to use that pedal with an adapter. The build quality is top notch, I would say it's slightly above the general Fulltone quality, somehow the pedal just feels better in my hand and the knobs are more sensitive.
The first thing that bothered me was that the pedal is not as transparent as I hoped for it to be. I've sold my TS-9 to figure that this red beast is not as midrangy as a TS style pedal, but it is middy in another way. Second thing is I chose this one over the FTT Red Jasper (Low Gain), because I wanted to substitude my Fulltone OCD and believed the SOV-2 had enough gain - well....it quite doesn't. I always have my TC Spark mini Booster on (godly pedal, extremely transparent) kicking in the SOV-2 gives me a very meaty and organic sound, but if I play legato lines something is lacking. The OCD connects the notes better BUT it sounds lifeless compared to the SOV-2. Okay, lifeless is maybe totally exaggerated, as the OCD is a cool pedal too, but the SOV-2 is really taking your guitar tone and working with this basic tone, so you can not compare the two pedals nor the SOV-2 to a TS style pedal. The SOV-2 does the best job when the gain is below the noon position - exactly the way I can almost make no use of the pedal, as my TC gives me already enough hair on the notes.
Do I sound disappointed? Well I must be fair. From an objective point of view, this is truly the best pedal I have ever checked, it's tonal quality and headroom are great plus it is very very musical. For low gain solos it's just WOW, for rhythm playing it lacks some transparency. I will take some time over the weekend to try it with different settings and then I will reconsider. My stomach tells me that it adds even more quality to my sound, but I have to use it the right way. Still the OCD is on my board - guys the OCD saved me so many times over the past 5 years.....
Wanted to record a clip today - at home - but the battery said goodbye and I ran out of batteries so here is a clip of a guy that uses the same setup I use - the sounds presented sound 1:1 like it does in front of my Two Rock. Maybe you wanna leave a comment on the sound or drop an idea of how to use it (definitely not only as a boost! Too expensive for this purpose ;-)). I will record something on my own over the weekend, hopefully.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_dSnJs6ZUA
