Bad Cat XTreme Tone

Using this pedal is quite simple. One quick read through the manual and you'll know what you're doing. Getting good sound out of it was pretty easy and only required a few minutes of tweaking to really find the sweet spot. Had no problems matching the output to my clean level.

This preamp is the Answer. I use it as my primary distortion unit before my AC30 which I'm running clean. The first channel is smooth and thick with can be run clean or with significant smooth breakup. The second channel is HUGE! Creamy distortion and sustain for days. Sounds like the best sounding BadCat Amp samples you've ever heard. Beautiful harmonics and overtones. Really a great great sound. True Bypass, 2 12ax7 tubes running at full plate voltage.

Also, the pedal introduces almost no noise whatsoever. I will say this: If you want a bluesy, more classic sound, go for the 2 Tone by BadCat. The XTreme Tone has a more modern sound.

This thing is a tank. Hand wired internals in a 14 gauge steel housing. Also, if a tube dies, you can fix it in the field. I had a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube but they use tubes that are not readily available and when they break, you have to send it to them to have it repaired. That alone makes the BadCat worth the additional cost.

I don't expect to have any problems, but BadCat is a great company. You can call them up whenever you need, but should you need a repair, any qualified tech can do the work for you. I'll give this a ten because it's easy to repair or replace a tube.

I play Christian Rock and worship music. I really like David Crowder Band as well as UnderOath and Emery, but also bluesy stuff like John Mayer. This pedal can get any sort of distorted tone you need with any level of saturation. This is my new secret weapon and the cornerstone of my rig. It's expensive, but you get what you pay for.

It's easy to use, but you do have to tweak it as there are a variety of class A type of tones here. The manual is a one-sheeter that is pretty self-explanatory. The bass and treble have a nice width, the Edge goes from round to biting in it's attack and then the Level adds intensifies the gain, the gain goes from nil to a sweet sweet distortion sound. The unit has 2 Channels but I prefer the red channel, I back off the guitar volume for a nice crunchy rhythm sound and full up for solos.

I use a Vibroverb built by a friend, it has a 15" SRO speaker from the 70's which sounds great. I have tried other 15's and this is the sweetest and fullest sounding. I play a Tele (with Lollar Pickups) most of the time. The amp, the Tele, and this pedal sound wonderful together. Rich, singing Tele sounds. Nice crunch, rich overdrive if you want it. I have had other pedals:Tonebone Hot British, Tonebone Classic, Mesa Bottle Rocket, all 3 are nice sounding pedals, but for a strong overdrive this is the best I've ever used.

I've owned it 3 months and it has been fine. I've put some new old stock tubes in it with great results, though the ones that come with it (I think they were JJ's) more than do the job.

nothing thus far

I play a little of everything. Those mostly rock, blues and country licks, a little avant-garde....eclecticism. I've played professionally on and off for 27 years, have had a gazillion pedals, but only use this one when playing. I keep gadgets to a minimum as the amp always sounds best with less in the chain. I prefer tube overdrives to anything with chips. This pedal is great sounding and I highly recommend it if you like a Bad Cat, Matchless sound. The harmonics jump out! You'll find yourself telling your wife you need to run upstairs for something and come back down an hour later because you walked by your gear and decided to go for a ride. I would replace it in a heartbeat as it surpasses anything I've used prior.

Sure it's plug in and play - no problem. Points were taken off for how long it takes to get used to how this reacts to different sounds and that the BadCat website has given wrong directions of use which made me forget about using this for over six months (in my opinion). What I mean by the wrong directions is that the website states that the only pot that is not used for the yellow gain stage is the Gain. The EQ of my pedal sounds completely different for both gain 'channels'. There is no noticable difference with the EQ on the yellow stage from that of my amp's output. But the red stage has a clear EQ difference. This has really opened up my options once I discovered it. It has made the pedal usable to me. Hence, this leads me to believe that it's not just the Gain pot that isn't used for the yellow 'channel'.

Reasonably good. Nothing beats a dedicated preamp stage but it's very good for what it is. I wish I could compare it to a Hotbox (Matchless) but a Supercharger GTO (Soldano) is all I can do, It stands up to be counted with it and only taste would give one an edge over the other - both sound very different. I have tried other lesser brands - ie: less credible - and personally it was a waste of time and I'm glad I didn't waste my money. Having said that, if you can afford a little extra for an amp that will do the job that you're buying the pedal for then any stomp box of this nature is a waste of money.
Having two channels is a pro. It is slightly messy throughout the frequency spectrum but hey, most pedals of this nature are a lot worse. The X-teme Tone has a lot of bottom end (in fact I feel like I'm on the verge of Brown Out half the time I'm using it). It has a loose gain which is good for rock and most alternative styles. Last but not least is that the Bad Cat is quiet - not completely quiet or as quiet as it could be but I'm willing to bet that it's as quiet as a high distortion, all-tube stomp box gets without spending quite a bit on a tech to make it as quiet as possible.

It's built like a tank and the internal layout is easy to follow and work on if need be. There's a question aon the form I'm using that asks: Would you use it on a gig w/out a backup? I assume that would depend on your financial situation and how busy you were and possibly other things. If it were the only distortion pedal you were using than I'd say you should consider having another around no matter how reliable it is (shit happens). Plus, it's a tube device, and things are only as reliable as their weakest link. When all is said and done, it is made X-tremely well.

N/A

I might buy another one of these if it went missing, it depends on whether I've got something better to do the same job or not at that time.
It's also a very good looking pedal - c'mon, you all know it matters! I wish it had an on/off switch and independent volumes for both 'channels'. I think it needs a High pass filter (Bass Cut) option, not everyone wants phat, loose bass.

I used this pedal once in a recording session, took a while to get a sound as my G&L ASAT is kind of thin. Playing through some kind of Fender head set fairly flat, I had the pedal's bass almost on full and the treble almost off, but with the edge control very high. This created a very usable tone, I guess the conrols are interactive. Having the pedal's controls set flat sounded kinda generic tone wise but with a superior dynamic response.
The track was a slide guitar part, which is not my thing normally, but between takes I got to mess around with it for my regular style of playing which was fun.

Very impressed with the dynamic response, and the amp-like sound. As another review mentioned, the noise of the switches is ridiculous, I'd be worried about the thump blowing a speaker, so I can't imagine using it live unless this problem was rectified. We were running everything fairly loud which may have been a factor.
For recording it's great, but to me pedals are most useful on gigs so Bad Cat should attend to the switching problem if they wish to set the standard they seem to be aiming for.
Other than that it is possibly the best drive pedal I've come across in twenty years of playing, however I don't think I'll be losing sleep over the fact that I can't afford to own one.

Because of the switching noise I would only use it on a gig if I was a rock star and had it A/B to a seperate amp but this is the real world. Great in the studio however.

Try to play all styles, mainly get called for jazz and related style (funk, fusion) gigs. Don't do the top 40 scene anymore, probably just as well as I couldn't be bothered dialling in somebody else's tone every second song. Own a few guitars, mainly play my ASAT and ES-175. Once upon a time was a whammy bar abuser, how times have changed...

This pedal sounds and feels like an amp, so it has to be viewed differently than a normal stompbox. I generally have the edge control around 3, the tone controls and gain control around 12, and the level all the way up.
This pedal has a lot of character. I happen to absolutely love it but if you don't like the sound or feel, no amount of EQ tweaking will help.
That said putting all the controls around 12 (except the master, this pedal can have a HUGE output boost) will make you sound and feel like you're playing through a Hot Cat, for $2000 less.

My normal effects chain is strat (w/little '59 in the bridge) into the bad cat into my amp, an old silverface twin which has a wonderful clean tone and insane amounts of headroom. With this setup I really feel and sound like I'm switching between the Twin and a Hot Cat head...which is about as good a setup as I can imagine.
This pedal is the best distortion pedal I have ever used or seen, by far. It is a distortion pedal that inspires me to play, usually for hours on end.

It's a tube pedal, so I am careful with it. It's built pretty heavy, and it's hand wired, so I doubt it will break, but I always bring my EMMA as a backup.

I bought this pedal on ebay, and sent it to the company in mid-august for an overhaul, new tubes, and silent switching.
After a month of not hearing anything, and receiving no responses to my emails, I called them. Apparently my pedal had gotten put somewhere it shouldn't have been, and forgotten about -- but they promised to get right on it.
...Another three weeks went by and I called again, angry this time. They charged $80 for this repair, and I expect faster service than this, especially since THEY lost the pedal after it got to them.
All in all my pedal was in california for almost THREE MONTHS. I received no compensation, and they refused to even pay for expedited shipping.
I urge everyone to buy this pedal for its utterly amazing sound quality, but please BUY IT USED!
I had a terrible experience dealing with the company and will never send them any repair, or buy anything directly from them again.

I play alternative rock. This pedal really brings out my technique. It feels like the nicest distorted amp you've ever used, and sounds as good.
I believe this to be the best distortion pedal on the market. It's price is pretty high but if your amp has a good clean channel, this pedal my give you an equally great (or better) distortion channel for MUCH less than a dual amp setup would cost. Sounds better than every solid state distortion I've ever heard, more harmonics, more sustain, more MOJO.
If you get a chance, try this pedal.

This is my first Bad Cat experience, so it took some time to get used to the tone control. Once I found my sound, it was very nice sounding.

Sound quality is amazing. I play a '72 tele custom through a Marshall TSL 60 watt through a Marshall 1960x cab (greenbacks). Very warm and super rich with the humbucker and very bright with the single coil. I use the humbucker a litle more than the single coil at the bridge so I had to dial in a setting more specific to that pickup. The sound from the Bad Cat is better than the Marshall overdrive, but not by much. It is definitely a lot quieter when playing is muted than my marshall lead channel. My problem is the greenbacks weren't accepting a lot of the low end so some of it sounded pretty muddy until I turned the amp down a bit. I tried turning the volume and Master down on the pedal, but kept running into an overly Bass-y muddy sound. The only thing that helped was to turn the amp down about 2 levels or so. In my band I need it turned up pretty loud though, so it wasn't working for my needs specifically.

Only had it for ane night.

Never called.

This is a great stompbox for someone with a solid state amp or lower end tube amp. After playing with all the knobs and doohickeys on my amp and this pedal, I think if you're using a Marshall with good tubes (mine are 2 week old Gold series Groove Tubes) already, it's better to use the amp's overdrive/distortion using the footswitch channel selector. My problem is that the cable on the TSL footswitch is notoriously weak and flimsy and shorts out half the time. That's why I tried this puppy out. Overall, The sound quality is incredible, but it just didn't work with my setup and the songs I need overdrive/distortion for. This isn't a pedal I would recommend keeping before trying it on your own personal setup and songs you plan on using it for. I can imagine it can make a mediocre setup sound 3-4 times as good though.

Only a stupid don't can adjust it

Excelent overdrive sound properly for blues and hard rock. It's possible to heard all notes. Fantastic. The only problem: The unit produces a "pop" sound when the channel switch is pressed. The noise is very low. I use a Gibson Nighhawk standard and Giannini Les Paul (Brazilian Made) to Classic 30.

Well, built like a tank but very bealtfull to put my fingers... I think that any tube stomp box needs attention but the chassis is very strong.

I never called.

I play pos punk like Siouxie and The Banches, Cure, Cult, Mission, Sisters of Mercy. etc. I'm playing about twelve years. The bad cat is better than my V1 and good as my guyatone TD-1. I'm very happy and if i lost my unit i will to buy other.

To get a good sound out of this pedal, you need to take the time to sit and mess around with all the controls. It takes time to find the sound you want, but once you get it, and you will, it is great.

I am using the X-treme tone through a Peavy stereo chorus 400 with a gibson les paul standard. the amp's not great but the pedal makes a big difference. Theres not really any backgrond noise the pedal itself is not noisy, but every once and a while you will get a bit of a pop sound when switching through the distortion and crunch channels. I used to play through a boss metal zone pedal and the sound quality compared to the X-treme tone is shit. The boss pedal was messy, where as the X-treme tone is a thicker sound, with more meat to it.

This is definately a reliable pedal.

Never dealt with company

Since i play rock and metal this pedal is great for it, the crunch setting is perfect for softer distorted sounds and when you really wanna bang out you can change the channel to lead. the one thing about the pedal that i dont like is the time it takes to find the right sound, you really have to play around with all the dials for a while. This pedal definately helps with making music, since it has clean, crunch and heavy distortion its all there in one package.

It's the front end of the Hot Cat which I'm very familiar with. Mark Sampson eqs work different than what most people expect, so it can be tricky. Some tips, keep the bass up and the treble and master down.

I really hate pedal ODs. Most everyone sounds like a pedal. I had a Matchless Dirtbox a while back that added some really great frequencies but was pretty useless as an OD. The Bad Cat pedals are much more useful.

I also have the 2-Tone, which is somewhat different than this. The main difference between the two high gain settings is that the 2-Tone isn't quite as tight and modern sounding. The 2-Tone is also sounds good with some amps but not all. This one sounds good with every amp I've tried.

My only complaint about this pedal is its not as articulate as I like, but as far as a pedal for your gain, I haven't found one half as good sounding.

I can't imagine much other than many a bad tube going wrong with these things. Very well built.

I own five Bad Cat productions (Hot Cat 30 1x12, Hot Cat 100 head, 2x12 cab, 2-Tone, and Xtreme Tone). Their service is really great. James has been nothing but helpful to me since day one.

If you're looking for a good two channel OD that goes from mid gain to high gain this is about the only thing worth buying that I've found.

Esay to use, pretty hard to find a bad setting
on this unit.
They are two channels, but the design won't let you get
a super clean AND a hudge lead.
If that's what you need, you may better give a try at the two-tone I think.
It's best suited to get a crunch and a lead (so if you
need a clean also, you better get happy with the one your
amp produces and use the bypass switch for that, so it's like having 3 channels).

unfortunatly, they are no power switch.

The good news first: this unit rocks !
I use a Fender Start and a Gibson ES-135.
I bought this unit to get a better sound for my
small transistor amp (Fender princeton 65) and it worked !
both crunch and lead sound fantastic, very rich distortion

now the 'not so' bad news : switching between crunch
and lead *IS* noisy. You hear a disturbing noise when doing that.
switching to bypass is even worse...
ok, that's not really a hudge problem cause when you play with
a band, you won't really notice it. or only if you play soft jazz, but who will buy something like this to play jazz however :-)
(don't get me wrong I like jazz too...)

so in matter of sounds for me it's 10...

better build than a mesa...

never called them.

I play mainly rock through this unit. play for 10 years now.
my first amp was the Marshall valvestate 8080, replaced it for a Boggie Mark IV, then goes away from that one to save my back (boogie are heavy... too much heavy) and get the fender princeton with the badcat to get a better disto. End of the story ? well... no... I was really happy with the disto but not so with the 'to bright' clean (comming from the fender) so changed again (hope for the last time) to get An ENGL thunder 50. Distortion is also awesome on the Engl so I may sell the badcat...
time will tell.

only a 8 here due to that annoying channel noise switching problem.