Barber Electronics Direct Drive SS

My first overdrive! Well, not really. Actually the first pedal I ever bought was probably a Tubeworks Tubedriver to replace the "distortion" channel on my old Crate amp. It sounded warmer with more clarity, but could sound like a fuzz maxed out. Then I upgraded to a Tubeworks Tubeman (MKI) which I still have and love. The overdrive is BLUES mode sets the standard for overdrives: thick, warm and grainy with loads of output, but responsive enough to clean up at lower gain and volume settings. Unfortunately, it's bulky and uses a funny power supply which like the rest of the unit can no longer be replaced. Thus I'm auditioning backups. The Barber Tonepress is another essential tool on my pedalboard, so I wanted to try their overdrives first.

This is the older Super Sport without the racing stripes and extra trim pots inside -- just three. These are set and forget, and I'm glad they're on the inside. Too many controls on the front panel of a pedal is counter-intuitive and dangerous (e.g. Tubeman). Besides, getting under the hood with my screwdriver is fun.

The manual is very useful for understanding what all the controls do. Since I bothered to read it, I give it a ten for ease of use. Even if you don't read it, you wouldn't get a bad sound out of this thing ever.

As soon as I stomped on this thing, I was impressed by the warm, juicy, barking tone. I could definitely hear my G&L Legacy's voice and the new Vintage Vibe Pickups I recently put in, as well as the character of my Mesa/Boogie Studio .22. As promised, it was responsive to picking and volume control changes. There were good sounds at all spots on the dials. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the clean boost sound I need. The closest I could get to clean was rolling down the guitar's volume with the gain at less than 1/4.

I tried it with some other effects like the Tonepress, Tubeman and Echo Park. It was very compatible with all of them. I'd say this pedal is great for blues, rock and country but I mostly play jazz and R&B so this has more gain than I need. The gain is so much that I couldn't gig with it. It's really a great pedal, but I probably should have gotten a Barber LTD!

I wanted to try it at 18V to see if I could get a cleaner sound, but I didn't have an 18V power supply. So I tried a 12VAC power supply. The power supply burned out, but the Super Sport was fine!

Barber Pedals are really well crafted inside, and even if it were structurally compromised, it would be easy for any tech or hack to find replacement parts and fix it.

Spoke to David Barber on the phone about a different do-dad. What a cool and generous guy. His concept is very high without being pretentious or confusing, and hearing him talk about it really insightful. It may help you get the most of out of your gear.

Very easy to find a good sound, then another, then another, then you open up the back and go crazy! The trimpots inside offer more custom tone adjustments. The manual is just a piece of paper but all you need is your ears. Just plug it in and turn it on!

Les Paul through a few different Marshalls. No noise when it's on and the bypass works beautifully when it's off. The volume control on this pedal can also be used to get excellent sounds from a half-stack at lower volumes.

It's built like a tank. I dont have a backup but I'd like to, just because i like it so much.

I've heard mostly good things about Barber, i'm sure they deal with a few fruitcakes every now and then.

I love this pedal, i would definately get another if it was stolen, if i could find one, they're discontinued. I bought it after someone recommended it and i'm glad i did, this is a killer OD!

This is an easy unit to get a good sound from. MY problem was getting it under control in MY rig, but I think I figured out how best to use it with my set up. The manual was important for me, but without it most users should have very useful tones withing a few seconds of plugging in.

The setup: various modded strats, teles, and A Hamer Artist into either a Mesa Mark III or a Rivera R-55 with a JBL loaded Acoustic extension cab. The pedal chain ran like so: guitars into Analong Man Mini BiComp>Protone Thruster>Teese RMC1>DDSS>Direct Drive Standard. The loop contains a DOD FX-17 for overall volume attenuation, a Boss DD-20 delay, and a J Everman Pot pedal to control my volume for solos.

The Direct Drives were purchased used a few weeks ago. I won both in an online auction for about $150.00 and decided to use them both rather than resell one for a profit. They are replacing a Fulldrive II that I was never consistantly pleased with. I couldn't get a sound on the first stage overdrive that cut through but sounded natural to my ears without compromising the boost channel, and vice versa. The solution was to seperate my "pop" overdrive from my "rock" overdrives once again, and to not expect them both to come from a two stage pedal. The Fuller is a magnificent pedal, though, a definite keeper.

My problem was that I initially set the SS up to be my full on, balls out overdrive, and it was so very sensative compared to every other OD pedal I've ever used that I was getting squals and microphonic feedback form my guitars. A lot of this was taken care of by judicious setting of the interior pots and a rethinking of how I use the Analog Man pedal and the Protone. The major part of my solution though was to reassign this to the status of the "pop" overdrive, choosing a "country rock" sample setting and taking advantage of the wide range of sounds to really make the slightly overdriven settings sing. I now use the Analog Man mostly for spanky country stuff and don't run the Protone all the time as a fattener pedal. The DDSS fattens things up by itself and with a careful dialling back of the guitar's volume cleans up enough for almost anything.

The SS really excels at low to moderate gain stuff. When engaged and with the guitar at full volume, even backing the level to 0 leaves a definite rasp. With a country rock setting and an American strat in positions 2 and 4, bar standards like "Heat Wave" or "Some Kind of Wonderful" sing beautifully. Turning the guitar's volume down to 7 or so on a Tele gives you wonderful chicken picking tones. Middle pickup on the the Hamer Artist loaded with Seth Lovers delivered a gorgeous clear but infinite sustain for Santana tunes like "Game of Love". And it's all controllable for me now.

Very clear and quiet, although it will amplify whatever is fed into it (like compressor or boost pedal noise levels... heh...). Used by itself very uiet. At higher gain settings it's considerabley noisier than the DD Standard.

Built very solidly, and I'm careful with pedals. Since I have the two units either could cover adequately for the other if it had to.

Dave Barder was kind enough to email me manuals very quickly. Members of a Barber-centered newsgrou provided me with additional information when I was in a time pinch. Very good, easily consistent with most boutique manufacturers.

I play variety music in Rockford Illinois. I've played over 30 years and in the last 5 have tried a LOT of overdrive pedals trying to get a more mature tone. I suspect that the Direct Drive is a very solid step toward that, if not the ultimate destination. This is a very solid and tweakable overdrive.

I had one of the first couple hundred DDs back in '01 or so, after owning a 4 knob Burn Unit, and really liked the product and Dave Barber's notion of customer service. So when the opportunity came to grab a couple of these at a terrific price, it was a no brainer. I sold earlier Barber pedals because the grass appeared a little greener elsewhere, but once I looked back from a little experience realized that the Barber pedals are generally keepers, whichever one they are. The original DDs are still available, and still at a stunning price point, and you can't go wrong with these. Buy a couple, watch for them on eBay. You won't regret it.

The Direct Drive SS is the modified version of the original Direct Drive, with internal trim pots for harmonic content (excellent feature), bass and prescence. While these additional controls add versatility, their value is somewhat diminished by the necessity of removing the backplate to access them; I nevertheless understand why it was necessary to design the box this way and this is a very minor quible. The standard external volume, tone and drive controls are as intuitive here as they are on any comparable device. The manual (actually one sheet of paper) is as succinct as you could want; the recommended settings seem to deliver as advertized (with my rig, at least) without the necessity of a lot of extra experimentation. The only reason this category doesn't get a 10 is because of the internal trim pots.

The rig in which I'm deploying this pedal is as follows:
Music Man Axis Sport or PRS CE22 into Boss TU-2 > Fulltone Clyde > Aphex Punch Factory > Direct Drive SS > Boss CE-5 > EH Memory Man then into a Koch Twintone 1 x 12 Combo. The Twintone is a fine amp and wonderfully portable for club gigging, but their are certain things it just wont deliver in comparison to some of the big head/cabinet rigs I've used. Thus I purchased the DD SS with the intention of using it to enhance the harmonic content and prescence of the Koch's own lead channel at lower stage volumes. With the internal pots set as recommended for what the manual calls "California Designer Tones", and the amplifier's lead channel set for low gain and neutral EQ, I got some pleasing but over-compressed and unresponsive tones. Thinking that the pedal was not going to perform as desired, I switched the amp to the clean channel just for a reference, fully expecting to get the buzzy and inorganic response that characterizes most of the distortion boxes I've tried running through a clean channel. Suddenly the pedal/amp came to life, filling the room with an organic, responsive and (dare I use the word?) refined medium gain lead tone. This was some really eye-opening tone, much better than expected. At this point I began experimenting with different settings of the volume, tone and drive knobs, and was surprised to find that almost no combination of settings were less than pleasing or (that elusive quality) musical. The biggest surprise came when I began A/Bing the DD SS through the clean channel against the Koch's own unenhanced lead channel, and increasingly found myself gravitating towards the smooth and organic tone I was getting through the DD SS (mind you the Koch is a darned good little amp). Now, I must acknowledge that I haven't tried all the high end overdrive and distortion pedals out there, but after years of gigging and obsessing over my tone, I think I've arrived at the point of knowing great tone when I hear it, and I really don't see how an overdrive box could get much better than this. In saying this, please note that I'm not even figuring the DD SS's comparatively low price into the equation.

I have no basis for commenting on the unit's reliability as I've not had opportunity to gig with it yet. Nevertheless, the pots, jacks and innards appear as tidy and solid as those of any comparable device I've encountered.

Once again, no basis for comment.

I'm 41 now and have been playing since I was 17. I've been playing in bands running the stylistic gamut from Springsteen/Eagles-like Americana to Dixie Dregs-style prog rock to Southern rock to Hippie-freak-jam-chaos-in-the-key-of-S to Iron Maiden/Judas Priest-style old school metal. You can chastize me all you want for it, but the players I most enjoy listening to and have spent the most time trying to emulate are great technical rock players like Steve Morse, Eric Johnson, Jimmy Hering, Al Dimeola, Greg Howe, ... you get the idea. I'm not suggesting that I've reached that level, but I certainly aspire to it. I've spent as much time as the next guy obsessing over my tone, and in the process buying and subsequently trading or selling untold thousands of dollars worth of gear. It is a sort of madness or derangement, but I see no hope of recovery, no chance of reform. Thank God I'm employed. But I digress. The whole point of this diatribe is as follows: though I've read many a product review on this website, and own or have owned uncounted thousands of dollars worth of guitars and amp rigs, it is only rarely that I encounter a piece of gear that's sufficiently exceptional to inspire me to make sure its on the radar screens of my fellow obsessives out there. The Barber Electronics Direct Drive SS is surely one of those rarities. And in addition to being a first-rate overdrive, it's also much less pricey than other "boutique" boxes of comparable quality.