Barber Electronics Small Fry Burn Unit

I am surprised that I haven't reviewed this pedal until now. My wife bought this for me for Christmas '08, and I SENT IT BACK! The reason was because I own an old single-channel Burn Unit, and it sounded similiar. I agonized over what to exchange it for, but found myself missing some of the awesome tone that I had found. Be advised, although the Small Fry can hit those Burn Unit tones, it can also go places that the Burn Unit cannot go. It clearly has more gain on tap, and with the toggle switch, it capable of some very complex, rich tones that go places the old BU simply cannot go.
Back to the review- it is very easy to get a good tone out of it. Like many Barber pedals, the problem will be figuring out which awesome setting to leave the pedal- this is no kidding.

Sound qaulity is amazing. I run a few quality pedals into a clean tube amp, and am very pleased with my tone. The tone I 're-ordered' this pedal for is a example called 'Blackface' that has Burn half-way up, and Dynamics at zero. It is extremely satisfying. Oddly enough, I almost always have the pedal set on the 'Dumble' tone (burn maxed, dynamics min). This has become my main lead tone. It has a singing, rich quality that gets me into a tone that I have sought for years. This same setting also yields a very rich 'heavy' tone suitable for rock rythym. The pedal is very quiet, adding almost no hiss to the signal, even when maxed out.

I can't imagine my rig without it. I rely heavily on this pedal. It is my fourth Barber pedal, and I can depend on all of them. Even my old Burn Unit, which has been stepped on probably thousands of times still works perfectly.

Dave has responded personally to emails. I have to give his Company a 'ten' for support.

I have a couple demo's on YouTube at betz7777 if you want to hear this pedal using the 'Dumble' setting with some nice reverb and delay.
Yes, there are probably a thousand overdrives on the market, but most are simply junk. Barber makes top-notch equipment AT A REASONABLE PRICE. His stuff clearly competes with the 'boutique' stuff that costs four times as much.
If you can't tell, I love Barber pedals, and the Small Fry is among my favorite.

Take your time to work with the internal pots. There is quite a range of tone available. The internal pots seem to set the range of the external tone knob.

This thing sounds GREAT. Very smooth and creamy. The dynamic control is a compressor. It goes from very open to very fat. If you want that tube screamer sound go somewhere else. Since every other pedal seems to want to sound like a tube screamer you will have plenty to select from. That overpowering mid is not here. This has internal pots to set the range of the tone control giving loads of options. You can set the tone range to give the best tone with your guitars and amps. A pedal with a single tone control is extremely limited. This thing is very versatile. I can't say enough good things about this pedal. Gave it a 9 because unlike others who rate a 10 and go on to tell you why it is not perfect I have not tried every pedal so I'm sure there may be something that is a little better BUT I don't think I can find anything better.

Very high quality build. Perfect soldering top notch everything

Have never called

SRV, Hendrix. Just getting the buzz words out of the way. Have bought and sold tons of equipment BBE MXR Maxon Boss Digitech ToneBone. This pedal has the best sound I have ever played. Since sound is personal preference you may not feel the same. I hate the mid hump from most pedals. If you dont like it either you can dial it out with internal pots. Most pedals sound harsh to me this one doesnt. It is creamy and smoooooth

Great sounds out of the box. The one page direction sheet/manual is sufficient. Wouldn't recommend using the 4 "hidden" tweek controls unless you do it at 100% gig volume or you might be unhappily surprised. NO NEED TO USE THEM, box sounds quite nice with the control on the outside of the box.

Using with Mesa Boogie Mark I or Rivera Clubster 45. Use a PRS Santana III and a Music Man Silhouette Special. It does get a little "hissy" after 11-12 on the gain, as most pedals do. It sounds like "more" of your amp rather than a total different sound. I use it to get the sounds of Santana and Robben Ford. For the Robben Ford, the Zendrive is somewhat better, but it doesn't do Santana that well, and the Small Fry does.

I took it apart and it is built to seemingly military grade specs, like a TANK! Absolutely I use w/o a backup. This baby is made to jam, and jam and jam.

Never had to call or contact them. I'm sure they stand behind this puppy, why not? It's 100% heavy duty and works better than stated!

I play Santana in one band and blues (Ford, SRV, Thackery, Clapton, Allman) in another band. This is THE pedal to have for all of those. Been playing 40+ yrs. I would replace it, no doubt. Nothing to hate and alot to like with this pedal, especially for the 1/2 the price of the Zendrive (which I also own). It's opens up the amp your using rather than burying the tone. Why spend $2000 on a Mesa Boogie then buy a $99 distortion pedal that doesn't enhance anything and covers up everything?

This pedal is pretty amazing. Like the Zendrive you can hear all notes when you play a chord.... Nothing is hidden. Everything is transparent. So if you're a sloppy player, maybe this pedal (or the Zendrive) is NOT for you. It showcases mistakes and sloppy playing.

Despite this pedal's great versatility, its not difficult to use at all. It does take a while to explore the various possibilities, but so far its excellent to use. Very lightweight, takes 9 or 18v adapters, very cute red sparkle.

I've been playing this like every day for about a month now, and its hands down my favorite OD pedal ever. I've had a lot - a Keeley Rat2 3-way mod, Maxon D&SII, Zoom HL-01, Guyatone FZ2, Tech 21 GT2, Boss MZ-2, DOD Corrosion, Boss BD-2, Boss OD-3. I have less need for massive gain these days though, and I wanted a pedal that could 'do-it-all' and all that. A lot of the pedals I've mentioned are great, esp. the GT2, OD-3 and the Rat, but they all kind of lacked definition, except for the GT2, which wasn't tweakable enough for my taste. Anyhow, I think I've found what I was looking for with this pedal. Its described as a 'medium gain' pedal - and it does have lots of sweet spots where you get a fuzzy growl with total note definition still intact. The "$10,000 tube amp" setting does a great heavy gain sound in the direction of more beautiful, as opposed to more harsh or heavy, distortion. Very smooth and responsive. This pedal can sound almost totally clean though, as well. That's pretty much all I was looking for. It sounds great on recordings, I'm excited to try it live.

Will depend on and gig without a backup. This thing is very well made, I have no worries.

So far very responsive to the one question I've asked them (which was about whether it can be run at 18v)

I say this pedal's a winner, it is full of good sounds, and has serious range. It can go from a sparkly jangle to a thick smooth distortion. It can be a boost, it can do fuzz. The dynamics control is great and allows you to easily control sustain without altering the volume too much, since you still have the tone, gain and volume knobs to tweak. The 3-way toggle switch really gives a nice set of options as well. The 'burn unit' setting is more raw, with more high-end and more gain; the 'vintage' setting is more mellow, and the 'power-amp tube' setting is more smooth and more distorted. Within that, you can raise and lower the volume, gain, compression and tone all to your satisfaction. For me its great, because I wanted to turn a 3-pedal section on my board into a one pedal section, and this is better than I had hoped to find. It has all the right sounds for me, I play indie-ish dance rock & melancholy pop and just plain strange noises, as well as more ambient and trancey stuff. This will definitely be a helpful tool for most all of that.

The tiniest bit harder to use than the average distortion/OD pedal, because you have a 3-way toggle switch which becomes particularly interactive with the Dynamics knob on the R (power amp tube mode) setting. It is, on the whole, very easy to use.

This is my new baby. My new all-in-one OD/distortion pedal. Oh, I've had so many, but for now I'm going to stick with this Small fry guy thing. A massive array of tones are available through the pedal. You have a 3-way toggle, the 4 knobs for Volume, Tone, Dynamics (compression) and Burn (OD/distortion - which I keep saying because this pedal is quite able to do both, to a degree), adapter which easily accepts yr average regular power supply, and which can also operate at 18v. Barber plays this feature up on the Direct Drive and the LTD, but not this pedal, for some reason. But I wrote to them, and Dave Barber says so, so I plan to do so, once I can.

I used the Small Fry amidst a large chain of pedals - Digitech EX-7 ->TC Electronic Classic Sustain & EQ ->Small Fry -> Maxon CS-01 -> Maxon FL-01 -> MXR 6-band EQ -> Boss DD-20 Delay -> Boss RC-2 -> BBE Sonic Stomp -> MXR Boost/Line Driver -> Epiphone Valve Jr, using a Washburn WI66 Pro w/ Seymour Duncan PUs. Blah blah. Hee hee. It does make some noise, but what the **** ever. The range of tones is, again, huge. It does clean up a bit and get more transparent on lower gain settings with the volume and tone up, the dynamics however you want it, and the burn low, you can get a sweet, slight fuzz. The "$10,000 Tube Amp" setting is pretty priceless (burn all the way up, dynamics all the way down) - it produces a beautiful, thick & creamy distortion that doesn't feed back unless something else is making it do so. All kinds of settings in between as well. I haven't owned this very long, but I just finished a 2 hour or so session of playing with it, and I feel all happy!

The last OD I had been using was a Boss OD-3. I got a mod kit for it, but it stopped working immediately when I opened it up (some kind of ground issue which isn't immediately visible, for some reason, apparently) so that has become a project pedal for me. When it was working, I loved that pedal, and in some ways, it is very similar to this one. Similar emphasis in the EQ, except that the OD-3 doesn't have the Small Fry's ability to adjust the amount of compression (the OD-3 has a fair amount). The OD-3 is more transparent though, on the whole, although I was pleased that the Small Fry did get much more transparent with the burn down lower.

I don't care about emulating my 'favorite artists', I love 'em, but **** 'em. I am looking to get the best equipment to make my own songs sound like I want them to. In that sense, this pedal is perfect for me, because it seems able to produce every kind of tone I'm looking for on one setting or another. It's a really well-crafted, all-purpose OD/Distortion.

Uber.

So far, great. Minimal, but its always a good sign when a company answers random emails rapidly.

This is described as a "medium gain" pedal, which is pretty apt. Its more distorted settings sound very nice though, and it can be a boost with a hint of growl. I put this thing after my TC Classic Sustainer pedal, and they do this great thing together - turning on the TC as a 'boost' adds massive fuzz to the Small Fry! Interesting, since it works in a slightly varied way, depending on the Dynamics control. But it definitely went from mild OD to fuzzzzz just by driving the Small Fry with the TC. I suspect this thing is full of all kinds of surprises, and I can't wait to figure them all out. I haven't even mentioned or played with the internal trim pots yet - there are 4 of them. I've just loved it as-is so far, but some day when I'm extra bored I will play with them.

The Small Fry is a quality piece of equipment, and despite being of the highest quality - is a good value even at its brand new price of $150. I got a near-new one for slightly less, and I'm very, very happy.

The outside Knobs are easy to use. The inside knobs require taking off the back and leaving it off for an hour or so to dial it in. If your going to use it in a band situation, you better do the back removed adjustments at band volume.

The pedal has it's own sound and is good. This my second time around with this pedal, I struggled with it before, sold it, and gave it a second try a year or so later. The reason I'm writing this is because I didn't give it a really sparkling review that it deserves. The difference is a better rig. I added an ext cab(2x12)loaded with webers to my Mesa Lonestar 2x12 6L6's and the SF sound fantastic through it. I think this pedal sounded just so-so before and on my smaller combo amp Traynor YC-40. I has great tone, very amp like and smooth. It's a "Desert island pedal". Going from clean boost to high gain with comp adjustment and internal trim knobs. This may be the most tweakable pedal in it's price range available. The secret weapon of this pedal is the internal trim called "note shape". It can really fatten things up and give some thump to the bass frequency. My bass player was amazed at the tone of this pedal and the ability to roll back the vol. to get a really smooth blues groove. It's definitely a stage volume pedal. It sounds great at bedroom levels, but gets sweeter at stage level.

If ever there was a true 10 this is it! Barber builds the best quality pedals period!

Great customer support. I sent an LTD to him(David Barber)and called him to fix something on it that worked ok. He checked it out a couple times and concluded it was fine. No charge! Just shipping.

This is a re-review of this pedal I had sold. Glad I bought it again! It just needed more speakers and better ones at that. Would definitely replace if stolen. I play rock, blues, progressive and a little country. Playin for 37 years. It does help me to make music and create as well. This pedal as I stated before is a "Desert island pedal" capable of the whole enchilata! It did replace my LTD/mod sadly enough. But I aint sellin that pedal either.

4 knobs; volumne, tone, dynamics and burn. Toggle switch. Easy to get good tone. User's manual? Don't need one. Can run on Boss-like standard AC adapter-plug.

The sound from this pedal is awesome. Good tonal range from mild to medium gain and everything inbetween. Just the right amount for my music. I considered Barber's DD pedal, but was too over the top OD to me. You can really work the tone with the dynamic and burn knobs. There is some added noise-hiss when you push the burn knob past the 10 o'clock position, but no issue once you start playing. No issue to me since this is a OD pedal. I A-B'ed this pedal against my Keeley modded Boss BD-2 pedal. This pedal is more versatile sounding over the Keeley pedal. Not that the Keeley modded pedal is bad, I just prefer this one over the Keeley now. However, the Keeley is noticeably quieter.

This pedal is very well made. While the BD-2 is solid, this one is hand made with high quality components unlike the mass produced Boss pedals. However, in all fairness I haven't had a problem with any Boss pedal or any of my other pedals for that matter. I expect it hold up just fine.

I haven't used their customer supoort and never expect to, but I have only heard very good things about Barber's customer support if I need to contact them. I wouldn't even attempt to contact Boss' support. If the Boss pedal went south it would end up in the trash or as a door stop or as a case for a home made pedal.

I am extremely pleased with this pedal. I play a variety of rock, classic rock, and blues music. This pedal suits this music well. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a well priced, well built, and great sounding OD pedal. While I still like the Keeley, this one is a keeper on my board. One thing I do perfer with this pedal is when you apply AC adapter power to it it doesn't engaged by default whereas when I apply power to the modded BD-2 pedal it would be engaged by default. I found this to be an annoyance with the Keeley modded BD-2 pedal. I wish I had discovered this pedal before I got the Keeley because now I don't see any reason to keep the Keeley modded BD-2 now. Oh well, live, learn, and listen... Play on.

Well, there are four knobs to adjust - Volume, Tone, Dynamics and Burn - and a three-way-toggle switch. Actually it is very easy to get a good sound out of it, but if you want to use all the flexibilities or wanna get a special sound, you have to work on it a bit. Inside are three trim-potis for Note shape, Bass, Midrange and presence. I didn't have to deal with them.

The sound-quality is amazing. I could get every sound out of it that I wanted. It is the most flexible overdrive/distortion pedal I owned. You can slightly boost your amp, give chords a bit more bite or you can have wallbangig chords and creamy high gain leads. It never sounds muddy - all tones are with definition. Thanks to the flexibility you can adjust it to various amps and guitars/pickups.
Unlike the other user below I don't think, it sounds less warm than a Keeley modded Bluesdriver - I own this pedal as well, but came up to use the Small Fry instead of the BD2, cause it is so flexible and can deliver more gain. I cant hear any noise whils using it.
I'm using this pedal with a Marshall 6101 or a Fender Super Amp together with Reverb, Delay, Chorus or Vibe.

I haven't had any problem yet - I think, it is built like a tank - just like the other Barber-Pedals I have or have had!

I had some email-contact with Dave Barber and recieved answers in very short time!

I play Blues and Rock/Hard Rock. I have other Overdrives as well (Barber Direct Drive, Keeley BD2, Analogman Maxon OD9 and some more)which are definately very good pedals as well. But as I wrote before -I came up using the Small Fry only right now, cause it gives me all the sounds I want in an excellent quality.

I give it a 9 as opposed to the others who posted less. Here's why: You have knobs that are pretty easy to understand without the manual. And i found it hard to make it sound bad by tweaking those. 4 knobs and a 3-way toggle switch. how hard is that?

I suppose most of the people here are referring to the internal trim pots when they are rating the ease of use. C'mon! You don't need to tweak them. I'm willing to bet if it didn't exist a lot of people will rate this higher. But it shouldn't be the case. You need to think about these trim pots as a USER-FRIENDLY-DIY-MOD! No need to have it modded by other folks just to tailor it to your setup. I guess you have to shift you perception of these internal pots.

I've tired several stompboxes, Ibanez Ts7,Ts5,Ts808, Boss Od2,Sd1,Sd2,Ds1's, several other drive pedals. nothing ever came close to my favorite amps distortion. But i didn't expect them to be anyway. I've learned to accept this lack of harmonic content as normal when using stompboxes(including tube driven stomps mind you).
But after getting this my perception changed. While it still won't sound as alive as my amp's lead channel, it's the best approximation i could get and as rich harmonically!

Also a lot of pedals sound good at low volume but when cranked to gig volumes almost all of them start to sound artificial and robotic. the small fry does the exact opposite. It'll already sound great when you try it out at home but wait till you gig with it! I just couldn't believe how natural the distortion this box creates! and the sustain!!
It's a mid gain pedal so don't expect a Metal sound out of it. but for blues, pop, hard rock, funk,etc, this has the MOJO!

If i need more gain i'll save up and get a direct drive. I was actually choosing which one to get first but chose the small fry because i feel it covers more ground at it takes single coils better.

can't really say as i've only had it for a month or so.

Emailed David Barber several times and i got a reply everytime.

I play mostly Rock music. Mostly Classic Rock, Blues, Funk, Hard Rock. Rarely do i do metal if at all.

I got the small fry over the direct drive because it responds to single coils better. SRV is just a tap of a foot away. As well as Eric Johnson, Richie Kotzen,Frank Gambale, Greg Howe,etc.
If i'm gonna go for the EVH, AC/DC, sound i'll be needing the Direct Drive.

I've been playing for 10 years or so. I've gone through several stompboxes (drive pedals). some of them i listed above. this pedal alone replaced three pedals in my pedalboard( the CS3, SD1, and SD2).

I love how this let's your guitar tone come through. I could even hear the difference when i change pickup positions a lot more compared to the other pedals i've tried. It acts like an amp that it responds to the volume control of your guitar. I even use the tone control now with this box!! When you back off the tone you get a nice Eric johnson type of one. Do this with an SD1 or an SD2 and you get a tub of mud for tone.

i love the dynamics knob. It responds to your pick attack. It forces you to clean up your technique. Consequently, since little nuances can already be heard through this, it's easier to feel your playing.
So for blues, this will be more than able to fill your needs.

Out of the box, the Small Fry sounds quite good, pretty easy to tweak with the controls on the face plate. The real good stuff happens when you open it up and actually dial in the tone YOU want with the internal trim pots. It takes some time to do this, but well worth it. The Dynamics control on the top is probably the more unique quality of the SF. It basically adjusts the amount of compression you get in the overdrive tone. Very cool. Note shape is also great (internal trim pot).

I have to give it a 10. Very likely Dave can come with something better at a later date, but this pedal will still be on my board. It's very dynamic, handles low, medium, and fairly high gain sounds extremely well. My reference for "gain" is more old school, from low (Allman Bros), med (Robben Ford), to fair amount of gain (Alan Holdsworth). The players are a reference for tone comparison, obviously my/your tone mileage will vary. A nu-metal type high gain I haven't tried to achieve with the Small Fry. Ain't my thing, probably never will be.

For speakers, I'm using either a Celestion V30, G12H30, or an Eminence Texas Heat. Amps are a Barber Echelon, Valvetech Custom 30W el34 head, and a Silvertone 1482 (rebuilt and modded). Pickups and WCR and Lollar. Guitars are LP, 335, and strat types.

Built to take road abuse, to be sure. If the pedal gets hammered unexpectedly(knob broken off or some such mishap), it is easily repaired due to construction method. Way to go! I own several Barber pedals, and nary a problem with any of them.

Great customer support. One of the best companies in the "boutique" pedal business to deal with. I've done some mods to a couple of Barber pedals, and there's always an answer available.

I play R&B, funk, classic rock, latin rock, jazz, and blues. My main references for tone (mentioned above) are Dicky Betts, Robben Ford, Frankie Gambale, Alan Holdsworth, and a few others in those camps.

It's been said the Small Fry is the single channel version of the Burn Unit EQ. It definitely starts at the BUEQ vibe, and takes off from there. In terms of tone, it will go some places the BUEQ won't. It seems the SF has a bit more gain on tap, and the additional trimpots allow more fine tuning than the BUEQ. The BUEQ is also an awesome pedal (I have one), they just fit into different niches in my rigs.

Yea, I'd get another Small Fry if this one were lost or stolen. Extremely versatile pedal, fits my style and playing perfectly. There will always be another overdrive on the market in the hopes that "This is the One, this will achieve tonal nirvana". I might even try one. However, the Small Fry will be on my pedal board for a long time.