Barber Electronics LTD

As soon as I plugged my guitar into it and played a few notes I knew there and then this was a pedal to keep. Simple and effective does what it's supposed to do. I attempted to open it up to check out it's innards and mess with the adjustabel pots, but felt I had no use for them yet and just kept with the stock tone. The internal pots are very usefull though.

Amazing sound quality. Even with the overdrive knob on full, chords are clear and articulate. String attack is very sensitive. Single lead notes are smooth and creamy sounding with enough bite to stand out in a full band situation. This pedal will compliment any good tube amp, guitar and many styles of playing hands down.

This pedal seems durable enough to stand up to most rugged circumstances and has a 5 year warranty. I personally don't abuse my gear so it should last a long while.
Just don't spill beer on it.

I am sure if I have any problem with this pedal down the road there would be no issues of getting it repaired by the company in a professional and timely manner.

I play rock music. This pedal is great for my style. If it were lost or stolen I would get another.
I pair up the Barber LTD with a Maxon 0D9 on my pedal board and use Maxon as a "over-the-top" boost distortion to get more grind and feedback. The LTD is perfect for more subtle guitar lines and to get just a bit of overdrive attack when needing a dynamic build into heavy parts of a song.
This is an exceptional pedal.
If you get the Barber LTD you won't be disapointed.

Simple three knob pedal- volume/tone/gain. This is a low gain pedal. Its easy to get a good sound from this at any volume. Really smooth. However, being a low gain pedal it is sensitive to the volume of the amp, so the settings in the bedroom are way off in a live volume (reference only to tube amps).

Setup is Tele/Strat/335 >Keeley dunlop Wah>Toadworks MrSquishy> Barber LTD (replaced a Keeley Boss BD2 Phat)> Jennings boost>Vodkamods MXR phaser> Johnson Chorus (yep, thats right- $5 and it's killer)> Ibanez AD9> Traynor YJC80 modded w/tubes and Celestions V30's with a Boogie 2x12 extension cab. <P>
Pedal is like any gain pedal- Hissy when maxed out- but this is a low gain pedal so it shouldn't be maxed out...

Tone is completely relevant to your rig. This takes your tone and saturates it. My rig will saturate the tubes, but it sounds like a wet fart. The LTD takes the clean dripping harmonics and just flavors it- very appropriately.

The MFG says 12o'clock on the tone knob is neutral- I've found that to be a hair brighter than neutral- but no problem.

Seems solid. Boutique stuff usually is- aside from the DPDT switches. With as much as these boutique things costs- they damn well better be giggable- or usable to chock the wheels of my truck, shim my bed, and double as drink coaster! So far so good.

No experience with them. That's good!

I play a little bit of everything. My rig "naked" does the fender bassman clean and the Marshall JCM800 on the dirty side sans gizmo. For a really tight blues/country/southern Gospel/southern rock tone it needed some help. Barber LTD was the solution. I have quit looking - seriously. I found it. I've been playing for close to 20 years. I play right and left handed- due to an injury- so i've played crap and i've played the fantastic. If it were stolen, it would be thony piece of gear that I knowI could and would replace immediatly. All the oher stuff took years of searching to find that "special" piece.

the one and only bitch is they put the power jack on the side of the damn box. I use Onespot power supplies and the cords are almost too short.

If you need a tweener pedal- this is worth every penny.

Just speachless about how you can get with such chip pedal such great sound.

Everything at 12 'o clock and ready to rock. Twin already has 3 chanels so i have plenty of combination. Effect sounds just perfect for SRV style you can get very nice sound, more transparant than Tube screamer.I 've used Fender Twin amp with Fender standard strat with Van Zandt true vintage pickups
I can get easyly the sound of many artists but what for me most important was is that i could get very good sound of my idol- Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Yes , sure i can. As matter fact next week we have studio recording, and i'm gonna use just LTD between guitar and amp and nothing more.
I 'm sure that i don't need any kind of backup with this pedal .

This one is brand new and i hope that i won't have problems with it

I play blues, nothing else but blues especially Texas blues. This is perfect match for my setup, very valuable pedal on my pedal board.
For other effects i use Vox wah pedal , Tube screamer deluxe, Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere MK II and Boss TU 2 tuning pedal.
If it were stolen i would call the same shop right away to order two more ( one as booster and one as drive pedal) and of course i would kill this one that stole my pedal ( :-) joke of course )but i think that i realy would'nt like that. The pedal is amazing, it sounds great, it's ligthweighty, what more can i say.
I've tried Fulltone's drive, Alberta,Red snapper, allready have Tube screamer but this one is perfect match for my setup. Other pedals are not bad at all don't get me wrong but for my playstyle ,my kind of blues is this THE BEST.
Barber LTD is great pedal . This is not selling provocation it's just true.

I spent about a 1/2 hour dialing in the internal trim-pots & monkeying with the knobs & after wasting thousands of dollars on pedals over the years, THIS PEDAL RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is a LOW-Gain pedal, but really has enough gain for anyone that has some overdrive already in their rhythm mix. CLEAR TRANSPARENT TONE!!!!
I use this with a Peavey Butcher (the best sounding JCM 800 on earth) & a Classic 30 w/EL84's. This pedal could also be used to dirty up a JTM or Bassman. Anything that needs some Crunch. It's almost like the old grey DOD 250 preamp BUT BETTER! This is the best $120 I've ever spent on gear. You can dial in your tone quick & easy & get the tone you want. You don't have to settle for Crap pedals. If you want Thin Lizzy - AC/DC tone this is it.

Ask me in a couple years!

Talked to them a couple times & seem like they'll take care their customers.

For Hard Rock / Punk Rock this is the pedal. I've been playing forever & the past 5 years I've gone thru at least 20 Overdrive pedals. You can be 100% happy with your Overdrive/Solo pedal. It sounds good with my Tele, Les Paul & 335. A Reverend Drivetrain 2 is almost as Transparent as the Barber LTD - But, not quite. I will ride off into the sunset with this LTD & Drivetrain 2, the rest is going on Ebay. Don't waste your hard earned cash on Modded Boss, DOD or Ibanez pedals. If you mod a pedal with tone issues you'll still have some tone issues.
Do some testing at your local guitar shop & stop wasting your money!

3 knobs, 1 switch, 2 trim pots.
I dont know if i like the idea of the trim pots. I do like the idea of having the extra flexibility, but i dont like fiddling with the innards of the pedal all the time, i would rather they were mounted on the top somehow...... but that's me being picky.
Other than that, this is pretty simple, though the tone control is pretty unusual and offers a lot of different sounds.

I added this in my pedal chain, in place of a Danelectro FAB overdrive which i had bought to use as a pedal for mildly distorted rythms and lead lines which would have a bit of grit but not too much. The FAB is actually a pretty nice little unit though a bit too flat, and the volume is hard to balance.
I popped this in, and at first i was unsure, it seemed a bit different from what i was expecting. It really is a low gain device, i was so used to overdrive/distortion pedals which really cranked up to thick distortion that this seemed a bit too soft at first.
HOWEVER..... 10 minutes into playing around with it, i really started to hear what it was doing, and how responsive it was. The next thing i knew it was 3 hours later, and i was still playing with this pedal.... wow.........

It is a nice strong little unit.
Seems sturdy, good solid switch and controls, should last forever :)

This is a wonderful little overdrive pedal.
It is very musical, very harmonic, very responsive and very exciting to play with.
It's one of those pedals that make you want to play more.
It really is true that the more you pay the better you get, especially with companies like Barber who put so much time and effort into these things.
The LTD is perfect for getting those wonderful 70's style warm but crystal clear guitar tones that the likes of Dave Gilmour, Beck and even SRV had.
I am really impressed by how much it responds to the guitars volume and tone controls, and how clean it is in the pedal chain. Mine has a neat little green led.
I will not be replacing this one, i would buy it again in a shot.


Buy it..... Love it.... :)

Very easy, Just set all knobs half way, 12 o'clock then worh from the there, i found it very easy, much easier then most boss pedals.

Great it works very well for mild overdrive such as in blues and pop music, also i found the clean overdrive brilliant for adding sparkle and presence to your sound such as in Metallica Nothing else matters this is great to just leave on and let ring with a chorus pedal

But i mainly use this pedal to help bring out my distortion, contery to popular believes this pedal is great for metal, when ever i'm playing a song thast all distortion, i leave this on my settings are
Volume 11 o'clock - Tone 12 O'clock - Drive 12 o'clock

These settings are great for helping pitch harmonics ring out perfectly and helps with notes sustain especially if you have to use a noise gate in you're chain like me

N/A but Barber are renound for being great

A brilliant pedal for all the reasons i listed in the Sound quility box

I was the last reviewer so let me give this pedal a follow up.

Let me start by saying that I was wrong about the LP and humbucker equipped gtrs in general - the LTD is remarkable with all my gtrs, Strats, Teles, and LPs, plus various frankenstein gtrs, too.

I am even more impressed with this pedal today than when I did the last review.

It is a very 'clear' sounding overdrive pedal. How can this be? I don't have the answer to this question. Also, I said before, I am a very big fan of the 808 and have a very good sounding one. This having been said, in the short time since my last review, if given a choice for one or the other, hands down I would take the LTD.

It has such great cut, and yet it makes the gtr sing. Also, contrary to my last review, easily, the humbuckers sing more readily than the single coil equipped Strats, but it took a while for me to figure this out. Idiota.

It has to be an amp/pedal/gtr/player combination, of course, to get good tone, but this pedal is something else.

If I had to say such a thing, I would say that with the 808 and a Strat - given the right amp, amp volume, and a relatively bright sounding Strat - you couldn't go wrong. Still, taking the same amp, the same volume, the same bright sounding Strat, and the LTD, you would have something similar but a little different. Still good sustaing tone, but just clearer somehow.

OK, I guess you need to play one to see what I mean.

This pedal will last, I am convinced of it. However, after such a short time, this is still an opinion.

Still no desire to contact this company - except maybe to tell them they did a great job with this pedal.

OK, the easy part. Buy this pedal if you like a very natural sounding overdriven amp with singing sustain and great bloom. This pedal is unique and remarkable.

In simple terms, it sounds and behaves like a 'cleaned up' 808. IF you ever played an 808 and thought it was too nasily or too dark, this pedal is the end of the rainbow.

Mine is the black unit, FWIW. Straight ahead control features, three knobs like an 808.

Well, hang with me here. I think this is really great for a Strat, but I did give it a go with my LP. Both gtrs have Fralin pups. My real deal 808 works better for my LP, which actually seems kind of strange when you think about it, the 808 being a bit honky and my LP being the same.

But this is what I hear over here, I can't explain it. I ran only one amp with it, my modded SR with two Jensen C10Qs and two CTS 10s. It is fairly 'real deal' BF, but running EL34s which are less midrange than 6L6s.

Oddly enough, I had tried another LTD before, a friend's, and actually enjoyed it more with Class A circuits. But today I bought one and tried it with my SR. I was knocked out by it with my Strat.

I also run a Mojovibe, and FWIW, the LTD sounds way better in front of it than the 808. Go figure.

Well, as to the subject at hand, this pedal is very quiet. The build is totally first rate, with high quality poly caps and carbon comp resistors. It is a work of art, actually. Where you really notice the difference between it and the 808 sonically, is above the 12th fret. It has a great clarity to it that the 808 does not have, singing the notes like an opera soprano. Sweet stuff.

I just received it today, not idea. I can tell you it has less moving parts/circuitry than my 808 which keeps on working. I'm not worried about it.

Never talked or emailed the company. Frankly, I hope I meet the designer someday to tell him first hand what a great job he has done here. I really wasn't looking for another distortion pedal, I was very happy with the 808.

This is a unique and great pedal. I have a few amps, seven, and they all offer up a piece of the sonic pie. I have yet to run it down using the other amps as yet, but I did try my friend's briefly on a few of them a month ago. Hey, I started today with the SR because it is my main gig amp, and I also thought I would be disappointed. Well, I wasn't. The other amps are: tweed Champ, tweed Deluxe, tweed Super, tweed Bassman, 59 Silvertone Medalist, BJr, and my SR. I honestly think this pedal will make me a better gtr player. Why? Because it doesn't color the gtr as much as my 808. It will help me cut but keep my gtr tone in the open. Nuff said.

I won't lose the 808, no, but I won't lose this LTD either. The other distortion pedals I have played don't even compare and I have tried many. This was a total surprise, if my friend hadn't brought one over I would have completely missed it. Thank God for friends, I guess, eh?

Mine?s the new Silver LTD. Very straight forward drive stomper. Once you have the internal trims set to your liking inside, you just have the usual three knob layout of most overdrive boxes. The tone control works slightly differently than usual overdrives but in a very good way?for a start it actually does something constructive?from the twelve o?clock position (flat EQ) - turning it clockwise cuts bass and adds treble and turning it anti-clockwise cuts treble and adds bottom end ? very useful. The internal trims are very powerful tone shapers and you need to be careful to set them to match your guitar and amp at full and proper gigging volumes, then close it up and enjoy the ride.

I?ve said it before in a review for the direct drive and the same holds for this one?these barber pedals work like part of your amp and not at all like a pedal?sounds like an extra channel, retaining the character and feel of the original amp and guitar combination just adding power, articulation and break-up.

Now my working rig goes like this, ?72 Thinline Telecaster (Wide range humbuckers) and a ?69 Thinline Telecaster (Single coils), Crybaby Wah, Boss TU-2 Tuner, Silver LTD, Direct Drive, Ibanez TS-9, Marshall Vibratrem (Tremolo), Boss DD-3 delay, Electro Harmonix Holy Grail (Reverb) into Vox AC30tb.

As you would expect from any quality overdrive device, it is very, very responsive to your attack and is hugely dynamic?from lush cleans to a snarling growl just by your own attack on the guitar ? fantastic for rhythmic phrasing along with vocals.

I used to use a Boss BD-2 for this ?amp just breaking up? sound but always felt robbed of sustain and real tube amp like clipping. Using the old technique of shoehorning a higher gain device like the BD-2 or TS-9 to the first third or so of its drive range only works to a degree because at that drive range you wont get enough sustain and the pedal doesn?t dish up its full tone until the gain is at about half or so, and by then you are gone past the drive level you wanted. Plus the BD-2?s clipping was awful anyway ? it had great volume, decent tone but really shitty drive clipping?fizzy bastard!!!

This little beauty has the clean to dirty tube transition all wrapped up across the entire range of its drive pot and thus allows you to pin point accurately the exact break-up and feel point that you have been hearing in your head for years but just couldn?t quite find unless you cranked your old Class A, non master volume tube amp to volume levels that even the drummer gives out about!!!

Built like a tank. Strong durable case like the Direct Drive and insides like a beautifully oiled Rolls Royce. Plus that Silver Hammertone paint job looks great beside the Direct Drive. Don?t foresee any problems and I know David Barber will look after me if I need him to sort anything out. The pedal is as solid as a house though?wont need him. (Famous last words!!!)

Like I said, David Barber is very good to deal with customers and their queries. He has answered a lot of my questions and queries with rapid responses. I know he offers to fix any problems or mod pedals if you call upon him. Very good customer support. You can talk to him by posting on www.tpngear.com/forum if you have queries.

By far the best OD device for a low gain application. Brings a good tube amp to its knees. Very natural and organic sound of tubes just starting to jangle into drive territory and a little beyond. The only thing that pips this unit is when I turn up my Vox AC30tb to just over three quarters, now that?s the sound of my dreams but at that volume I am completely drowning out my bandmates and damaging my ears, plus there is no way any sound engineer will handle that kind of sonic mayhem from the backline on stage.
This pedal however gets me far closer to that feel and sound than any other stomper I have ever tried or ever heard used?fantastic!!!
Now the issue ?Classic or Silver LTD?, well the Silver LTD has a slightly more scooped EQ (very slightly), so if your amp has enough character in the midrange like my Vox AC30tb then the Silver is the way to go, but if your amp EQ is very scooped already then the Classic black LTD may be a better option to add some slight midrange to your EQ to keep your head above the water in a band situation. Overall, these Barber pedals are easily top of the pile.

This pedal was very simple to use. With just three knobs, anyone could get a good tone out of it.

I do recommend buying another overdrive to work in conjunction with this pedal though. I use a TS-808 re-issue along with the LTD. I have a fulltone wah in the front and an MXR 10 Band EQ in the back.

I play on a variety of strats and a les paul with an early '70s Fender Bassman 50.

My setup isn't that noisy but there is a slight hum proabably from using two overdrives together.

I can get a good Kenny Wayne Shepherd/Walter Trout/SRV/Gibbons Type Tone.

I do have to put this down, IF YOUR'RE A STRAT PLAYER BUY MOJO PICKS OFF EBAY!!! They increase sustain, add more clarity to your sound, and are completely bitchin' for lead work.

I bought this pedal off ebay, so I've never dealt the builder.

This pedal is an Overdrive, not too much distortion but enough to add grit to your sound. Every Blues player should have this pedal, it adds sustain, gives you a great base tone to work from, and a must have pedal.

If it were lost or stolen, I would definently buy again, direct from barber electronics this time.