Aphek Peanut Butter Distortion

Super easy to use!!! 3 dials - Output (Volume Level), Filter (A very cool 6-way tone selector) and Crunch (Overdrive Saturation). 2 footswitches - Drive (turns it on) and Mean (boost). Probably the fastest I have ever been able to dial in a desired sound and tone on an overdrive pedal - sweet.

The most transparent, natural valve overdrive pedal I have ever used. If what you want is a pedal to just push your valves into a natural overdriven crunch whilst retaining the sound and tone of your guitar, stop looking and get a Peanut Butter Model T - it's what you're after. I run a 62 reissue Strat (Texas Specials pups) and Custom Zebrawood Telecaster (USA Vintage pups) and it's the first overdrive pedal that I've found that retains the clarity and nuances of the original guitar tone. The added `mean' switch to boost the volume and an ever so slight but just right increase in gain and sustain for solos just nails it.

Extremely sturdy construction and top quality footswitches. All parts are really superbly put together - I'd have no concerns about its reliability.

Greg is very contactable via his e-mail address. I'm actually bummed that I picked this up second hand as I had contacted Greg to purchase a new one and he was super helpful. My unit came up on eBay the same week at a bargain price so I grabbed it, but I'll tell you what - the price of these is worth every cent if you're after a transparent driver for a vintage drive/valve amp combo - pretty peerless compared to what else is out there claiming to do the same. I'll definitely be purchasing a Sunday Driver from him just for something slightly different and to make up for not getting the Model T direct.

Been playing for 17 years and musically focus on blues and classic rock - Stones, the Crowes, Kings of Leon etc. This is such a great overdrive to get that studio quality sound of a valve amp breaking up and getting down and dirty (without the ear bleed). Just love it. If anything happened to the pedal I'd replace it that day.

this pedal is somewhat easy to use , but both controls interact together , so it can be a bit tricky

my setup is many many strat guitars ..and mostly combo amps suck as bogner ,DR.z victoria and carr . compressor thru overdirve,distortion chorus delay delay as far as pedals go and i change it depending on the gig i have , this pedal is not any noisier than any boost / overdrive pedal out there . while this pedal can work well for a boost it does colour your tone further more there is not enough juice for my taste that this pedal can give, you must have another onerdrive pedal so this pedal will push it .otherwise it is a bit useless to me by itself .and the dynamics is not all that great , my OCD does 3 things in 1 it can be used as a boost ,overdirve, and all in your face nice distortion ( nope i am not related to fulltone ,infact i hate dealing with mike fuller but this is about the only pedal i like from his line of pedals )so can i get the sound of my favorate artist ..hmmm there is no such thing .you have to have a deffrent setup each time if you want to get the sound of your favorate ARTISTS . i am my own favorite artist . so i wont be keeping this pedal ,infact i wont be using it at all simply becasue it does not serve the purpose i am looking for and its not what the maker claim for it to be .. good with a nother overdrive .stand alone NOOO works well with other effects . there is colouration and some noise .

it is will built but wont know simply because i wont be using it anymore and i hardly used it enough to judge .

nevr delt with him and most likely will never do , i tried the peanut butter ,i dont like it therefor i wont be buying anything else from this guy .

i play mostly blues and 80's rock .i have been playing for 21 years ,i have almost checked out every pedal that exist out there . this pedal does not do it for me .it is like almost every boost pedal out there ( and God do we have enough boost pedals out there !! )i would never replace this if it was stolen .there is nothing distinctive about it anyway i compared it to a lot of other boost /overdrive pedals .sorry i will stick with my ibanez TS-9 and OCD . let me tell you about a killer boost pedal that was made by DOD in the 80's it is called the FX-10 check it out ckeck the reviews ,you will thank me that is another killer pedal that i use .yah i wish it had more personality LOL and did not sound like almost everything out there . all i can say keep your ears and eys open .you will nevr know when you will find that amaazing pedal .. so far in the boost overdrive department i found 2 DOD FX-10 and CORON overdrive II . 9 killer killer overdrive from yesteryears japan made company . this coron is the only overdrive that would replace my OCD . keep playing keep making love and do them both HARD ...

Very simple to use. Nice instruction sheet with it too.

I own an original Peanut Butter, which has been my only live pedal for the last few years. I was a bit nervous about this, as so many companies ruin a good product while trying to improve it. This is definitely not the case here. It sounds the same as my original one, just with more tonal options. I especially like the boost. Very smmoth and liquid sounding, without increasing the volume much.

Well, my other PB has been fine, so I have no reason to think this won't be the same.

I asked Greg, the manufacturer some questions before I bought this and the other one and he was always very helpfull.

I play rock and this is perfect. I've been playing for around 15 years. I'd definitely replace it if it was stollen. The PBs have become the core of my sound. Nothing else sounds as natural or transparent.

There are two knobs: "Less/More" which controls volume and "Smooth/Crunchy" which to My ears appears to control the tone of the overdrive. You wont have to muck around with it for too long at all to figure it out.

My only critisism (hence the 9/10) is that as good as they look, the knobs are easy to knock out of position if You get a bit excited when You step on it (which I usually do!). But it would be pretty easy to change the knobs if You had the same problem. Apart from this, no complaints!

I use: Custom Classic Strat, Boss OD-2, Boss GT5 (in bypassable effects loop) and the Peanut Butter into a Rite Amp (rare South Australian built Tube Amp from the 60's/70's, sounds a bit like a Fender Twin but without reverb, master volume etc)

Brilliant!!! I have the OD-2 set for that just breaking up sound running into the Peanut Butter where I have the volume (Less/More) set for just a slight boost to the signal and the Smooth/Crunchy control cranked all the way up. I find that with this control, the smooth sound is a little bit muddy for Me, but I LOVE it crunchy (just like on My toast!!!). On it's own it sounds very bluesy and warm, and when I turn the OD-2 on aswell, it starts to sparkle, just starting to head into distortion territory. But the whole time, I CAN STILL HEAR EVERY NOTE!!! This thing is perfect for cascading with other pedals. Oh, and let's not forget True Bypass!

It's a solid metal box. I haven't had any issues with it yet except My own stupidity! (see below)

Silly Me used a power supply that I really shouldn't have used (it was old and dodgy!) and managed to blow it up in the first few minutes!!! Sent it back to the manufacterer and about a week later got it back working perfectly. If that doesn't deserve a 10 for Customer Support, I don't what does!

I have been playing for about nine years and I play in an alternative rock/pop band ( I know that sounds like a contradiction!) Think: Garbage, The Cardigans, Little Birdy etc.
This pedal is perfect for Me as it can be quite heay without taking the tone of My guitar away.
All the other pedals I looked at that I liked as much were double the price! i tried out My friends Hotcake and found that the Hotcake was better at lower settings, but was a bit too muddy when I turned it up. The Ultimate would be to have a Hotcake and the Peanut butter, but funds won't allow that yet so I'll have to settle for the OD-2 for a little while longer.
I haven't written a review on any product before as most of the gear I own I don't believe needs it (ie. i don't see the point of writing a review telling everyone how good My Custom Classic Strat is!), but I wrote this one so anybody interested in this pedal discovers that it trully is a boutique quality pedal for the same price as a cheaper quality mass produced pedal.

Simple to use; a level knob, and a "crunch" knob. Turning up the crunch will make it a little bit louder, but that's to be expected in a circuit which doesn't appear (at least to my eyes) to have a lot of sophisticated buffering, or automatic gain control on the output. Of course, more junk in the signal path is almost certain to suck out some tone (bad idea).

I got my Peanut Butter to use as an onboard preamp for a custom guitar I'm building. So far, I've only used it about 3-4 hours before disassembling guitar for finishing. But, it seems that it's pretty easy to get an almost-clean overdrive to a pretty good mild fuzz going, and the whole spectrum sounded pretty good to me.

The circuit board, pots, and a battery clip are being put into a custom made mahogany body w/ Dimarzio Tone Zone bridge P/U, and a no-name single coil at the neck (for the present time), bolt on Jackson maple neck w/ rosewood fretboard, and a Floyd Rose trem.

I have used this with a small solid state practice amp, my daughter's 60W Behringer bass amp (12" speaker), and a tube preamp (uses 12AX7's and/or 12AU7's for 'bluesier' sound) w/ adjustable cathode bias & gain on ea. stage. Putting 12AX7's into both sockets on the preamp, and then turning up the gain is pretty "crunchy" to begin with - adding some Peanut Butter puts it over the top! Although I haven't had anywhere enough time to fully explore all the nuances of this effect, I've found that it can function as a pretty good "clean" overdrive by simply turning the "crunch" all the way down, and turning the pickups down a little bit, and then setting the output level of the PB up high. I also used it feeding into a tube screamer pedal, then the tube preamp - but that was so much gain it was ridiculous. But kind of cool.

I had some noise (60 HZ RF) problems, but remember, I'd taken this circuit W/O A METAL CASE, and stuck it into a guitar cavity which had not had any RF shielding done at that point, and played it through absolutely sick amounts of gain. I found just moving near AC power cords made significant difference. Since I'm shielding the cavity while finishing the body, I expect it will be pretty quiet.

Looks rock solid to me; all the solder connections appear good. My onboard preamp will probably be the least of my problems. Component quality looks okay. But, I haven't had enough experience to really comment on reliability yet.

Greg was a super nice guy to deal with, and totally helpful in getting me instructions for installation. I haven't had a problem, or wanted an upgrade. However, based on the amount of time and effort (which was beyond my expectation) spent on instructions & etc. for me, I have the feeling that Greg's the kind of guy who will take care of a customer.

I've only been playing for about a year, and have started working on guitars about a month after I started playing.

I mostly play blues, and "power chord" rock. The tones I'm looking for range from B.B. King on the clean side, to Billy Gibbons, Angus Young, and Smashing Pumpkins at the other end. The Peanut Butter seems to have a setting that'll help any of those tones.

If it was stolen, I'd get another one. I'm already that stoked on it.

Dead esay two knobs...one labeled more/less this controls the output volume...the other one labeled smooth/crunchy controls the gain, but somehow treble increase when turned clockwise...this is also true for most overdrive pedal...I like to call this opening up the sound.

I use Laney LC-50 fender/vox hybrid IMHO...marshall JCM 900 100 watts half stack...using the pedal with any of the amps really improved the tone, even when using od channel on my jcm 900 where previously I found it to be useless and fizzy...with the peanut butter it's now organic and responsive, rounded tone...the best and most transparent low gain overdrive pedal I've tried....eventhough gain is not massive this thing sustain like Soeharto (Indonesian ex-president--stayed in the presidency chair for 32 years!!!)...I used it in a jam the other day playing through my Laney with mexican 60's reissue strat...I hit this one note and it just stayed there like crazy....it's like that one sustained note in Jimi Hendrix's 'Machine gun'....I got goosebump from that...never managed to do that again though...one magic moment...it really is transparent...no frequency loss like in ther overdrives...

seem to be pretty strong...dont think I can rely on the paintwork though....but who cares?nobody is going to peep into ur pedal board and even if someone do nobody'll care for the appearance of ur pedal...I'd like my pedal to be beat up and working thanks

returned all my email...good bloke...very nice to deal with...thanks Greg

Does two excellent job...low gain overdrive and boost...if I say it can be used as a tone-shaper would it make sense?It just turned any lame amp to excellent and good amp to perfect...this one is a keeper...One concern though...it has got more ground noise than any pedal I own/owned...one more thing...run it with battery...it just sound a lot better and "dirtier"...

Hi. Greg from Aphek here, the manufacturer of the Peanut Butter Pedals. I just wanted to clear up the things claimed by Anonymous at 03/28/2005 16:21, in the previous post.

Assuming that it wasn't posted by another manufacturer, trying to discredit me, I know who wrote that. How do I know? Because he is the only guy I ever refused a refund to. If this was not the case, I would have some negative feedback on Ebay, as about one in ten pedals gets returned under the 10 day trial offered. You can check my rating. My Ebay user name is pedalguybass.

Why didn't he give me negative feedback? Because you only have 90 days to post feedback and it was well after the 90 days, that he wanted some money!

I wasn't rude to him and I have all the correspondence to prove it.

I won't bother addressing his claims about the pedal, as you just have to read the other reviews here to see that no one else has the same opinion.

Thanks for reading and a special thanks to all who have posted reviews.

Greg Dixon
Aphek

while this pedal has only 2 knobs it is very tricky tto use , both knobs interact with each other , so once you set one knob right the other wont work once you try to set the other knob then the first one gets missed up very bad design

my set up is 2 carr rambler amps and one roland acoustic amp ,my guitars are mostly fender strats japan or mexico as i find them superior to the ones in the u.s ,all kind and every pedal you can think of . i have been playing for about 21 years now , this pedal like i said very hard to set it up and yes very noisy at almost any setting , as for the effects i dont know what this guy is smoking who makes this pedal its called P.B . distortion but to me it is more like a boost and a horrible one very fuzzy , has nothing to do with distortion ,sorry ..like i said amps are carr rambler and roland for acoustic , you cannot get any good sound from this garbage simply becasue the design is bad it colors every peedal in the chain and makes almost any pedal after it in the chain sound horrible . there is many pedals out there in the market that would sound far better than this junk . trust me save your money and buy a boss or ibanez , keeley java boost and his modded Rats sound great .

i am not sure about how reliable this thing is , becasue i sold it right away ............

he promisses on his auction on e bay a money back garantee , but after i bought it he wont take the pedal back he wont refund the money and he is very rude on his e mailes , trust me you are better of dealing with keeley and analogman .

i play mostly blues and rock i love 80's music that is what i grew up with , been playing for 21 years . if it were stolen i would thank the guy who stole it that is how much i hated this pedal , all i can say is save your money and get a real distortion pedal or a keeley java boost or beno boost from analogman . this pedal almost made me hate my guitar LOL .

I love the simplicity of the design - two knobs.
"More/Less" knob controls output. Set it for unity or boost and control the volume from the guitar.
"Smooth/Crunchy" knob controls tone and small changes in overdrive. This is subtle, but usuable is a musical way THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE sweep!
The reviewer below mentions Barber pedals as sounding "tubey" and preferring them over the Peanut Butter. I feel exactly the opposite. I have owned the Barber pedals mentioned in that review and prefer less "squash and compression".
The manual is simple and complete, written as a musician and not someone from the tech dept.

This is a unique pedal. It works well cascaded with other ODs, but provides very mild overdrive on it's own. I really think it succeeds with it's claim that it helps a tube amp sound overdriven. I play through two tube amps and notice that it performs differently for each.
I don't believe there is a transparent overdrive, but this pedal provides minimal coloration. It imparts very little of it's own sound, preserving the guitar tone to a great degree.
I do agree with the previous reviewer that there is a "solid state quality" to the note attack. This sound is very dependant on the supplied voltage. I have found that by sagging the voltage on my Voodoo Lab Pedal Power, the attack softens and the overdrive increases slightly. I don't use batteries, but was told that using a basic carbon battery will produce the same result.

Build quality is top notch. Based on my contact with the builder, I wouldn't hesitate to gig without a backup.

I bought this pedal used. It had been taken apart and reassembled improperly, causing a grounding problem. Greg is the designer and builder and didn't hesitate to have me send it to him to take a look. He brought it back to spec in the most professional and efficient way possible. It's obvious he is completely committed to providing a quality product and keeping the customer happy.

I love overdrives. They provide infinite variations on a familiar theme. Where most cover similar ground, the Peanut Butter takes a different approach by being something of a "minimalist". It leaves my tone relatively untouched while adding an edge. It's overdrive sounds stand on their own or can be cascaded with other boxes for high gain.

Very easy to use pedal.

Not a bad pedal, but for the money, I like the Barber Pedals (LTD and Direct Drive SS)much better. This pedal has a very solid state quality that I pick up. The Barber pedals have a natural and slight squash and compression that feels "tubey". I will agree that the Peanut Butter does have a more transparent sound, but to me the "feel" is equally or a just a hair more important to me, hence my rating.

Built well, cool graphics.

Nice people. Jeff was very helpful and refunded my money even after the "review" period was over.

This is a nice pedal and definately better than your typical catalog or music store mass produced junk. For the money though, I really like my Barber pedals. They fit me just perfect. The LTD ($100)for super smooth sounds and the DDSS ($120) for the screaming stuff. Check out Barberelectronics.com.