CatalinbreadDirty Little Secret Foundation Overdrive Pedal

I've been using guitar effects for over 35 years, professionally, and can tell you hands down, this is what a distortion pedal is supposed to sound like. I just got finished selling some gear I haven't used in a long time, finding that I owned some 17 overdrive/distortion pedals. This may sound a bit over the top, but is really a normal thing when you play on a lot of recording sessions - you acquire various brands, sometimes from endorsement deals, sometimes because you see a great demo and know you simply have to have that sound in your arsenal. I sold around 7 of them, but even though it was for a very good purpose ( a great new amp) I wish I could have kept at least 5 of them. The point being, they were all worthwhile pedals, and on certain songs each one would have been great. But you have to settle for two or three pedals (unless you're a touring player with endorsements out the wazoo) at most, to represent your own distorted sound(s) if you're like most working players and don't have roadies to carry your stuff for you.Funny how some pedals that have sounded indispensable at one time, have become much less so over the years, as newer, better ones usurp them. There are literally hundreds of boutique effects pedal manufacturers today. A great many of them are making excellent products and it's not easy or cheap(!) to find what stands out from the others, without doing a lot of research. So I did some homework and kept coming across the same name for the past two years - Catlinbread's "Dirty Little Secret."Catlinbread's "Dirty Little Secret" pedals, versions I II and III are all hailed as excellent dirt boxes by discriminating players with good ears. I was going to wait for version III, when a great deal arose on the web recently, and I took advantage of it, buying version II. I'm truly glad I did.Guitarists are always being told "This pedal really does sound like a Marshall amp in a box!" After a while that claim had become like background noise to me, and I quit believing that it was achievable. People pay $400 every day for a certain pedal with this motto. I nearly bought into it (!) myself, but I'm glad I didn't - especially now.And I have to be honest, I've never owned a Marshall amp, though I've played through several in Nashville studios. I don't need to emulate the sound of a Marshall amp so much as I need to have a great overdrive and/or distortion sound at the ready. And this pedal really does deliver. It can be as aggressive as a Marshall and does have a scary resemblance to a raging Marshall stack, while it's being used in an amp with a single 12" speaker at relatively low - even bedroom - volumes. When you turn your rig up loud, it's right there, and really does sound as natural - maybe more so - than any dirt pedal I've used. And it loves other distortion pedals, marries their characteristics with its own, and absolutely sings as sweetly or as raunchy as you care to be.There are some great demos of this pedal to view and hear on Youtube. Look for the ones that have 15,000 or more viewers, so you know you're watching something that a lot of people checked out. There was a demo I watched with just under 16,000 hits that was a great demo because the guy doing it didn't try to show off his hot licks. He knew that the pedal was the star, not him, and he played the guitar in a way that allowed me to hear what I needed to hear from the pedal.But the bottom line is - if you're looking for a great distortion pedal, you've found it in the Dirty Little Secret. I would recommend versions II and III, because they learned a lot since the first version and freely admit it. It's not much of a secret anymore!

I got this pedal for a unique application - as a front end preamp for my iOS/Bias Amp practice rig. Bias is great software, but I find the low to mid gain Marshall tones to be a little clangy, harsh, and scooped - in a word, it sounds "digital". I noticed that when I deactivated the preamp and tone stack modules (leaving only the sound of the power tube, transformer, and speaker/mic modules), the harsh digital tone went away. In fact, the power tube distortion in Bias is very warm and analog sounding.So I went looking for an analog front end pedal that would replicate the preamp and tone stack of a Marshall - and here was the DLSIII, seemingly custom tailored for my needs! You can certainly use it as a conventional dirt pedal in front of a clean amp, and that's what it was designed for. But I'd strongly advise that you read the (well written) manual, as it explains in great detail how the EQ controls work (highly interactive exactly like a Marshall tone stack; they are not generic active B/M/T controls like on most dirt pedals).I looked at quite a few other MIAB pedals, with the Carl Martin Plexiton Lo Gain, Xotic SL, and Ramble Marvel Drive being other top contenders. But the DLS' true Marshall tone stack is what made it my first choice - for my practice rig, I can tweak tones easily with real analog knobs as if it were an amp, and not have to fiddle much with virtual controls inside Bias. The DLS absolutely bests Bias' internal preamp sim for warmth and dynamics. I set mine for Super Bass and run it at 18v, and the amp-like warmth and response is fantastic. In this mode, it's very Cream and Kossoff-ish, but still open and dynamic (none of that dark, blanket-y, congested midrange typical of a dirt pedal). It won't really do the JTM45 glassy thing, nor does Catalinbread claim it will. It's a Super Lead/Super Bass clone, different animal than a JTM45. So if you're a Hendrix fan, think live recordings, not quite as clean and glassy as the studio records.If I had to pick a gripe, I'd say Super Lead mode is very trebly and lacks warmth. Hard to dial that out with the tone knobs. But then again, the same could be said of many Super Leads!Overall, the Ramble Marvel drive may have just a *tad* more realism with its dual input/Normal & Treble, but it lacks the B/M/T tonestack, so the DLS was the clear winner for me. Boatloads of fun playing with this pedal! Absolutely addictive.