Barber Electronics Small Fry Burn Unit

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.

This pedal can get complicated in trying to get the gammit of tones. Ofcourse you can just plug in and play.

I really tried to love this pedal. I spent hours obtaining all the different tonal possibilities. It was fairly versatile but in an a/b test with my Keeley Blues driver-2 Phat mod the small fry just sounded flat. I was very disappointed. I play live alot and this pedal wasn't organic enough to replace any of my Keeley pedals. It might work good for recording. I don't know how to pin it down but it lacked a certain pizzazz. Now if you are a Barber fan this pedal aint bad. It can get alot of different OD sounds, its clean, and quiet.

Did not keep it long enough

Don't know

I'll give it an 8. I usally match sound quality with this category, but this is a well built unit with qaulity components. I wouldn't replace it if lost, I would move on looking for that elusive sound

This is another pedal that, at first blush, seems fairly easy to use. It does sport more than the Volume, Tone, and Drive knobs the myriad TS clones offer, so it???s not a snap for the brain dead, but if you know the difference between a G6 and a Dsus, you can run this pedal.

There are four knobs and one mini-switch on the outside of the box: Volume, Tone, Dynamics, Burn.
Volume is just that - the output level of the effect. If you mess with the other knobs, you???ll likely need to adjust this frequently. The Volume also has substantial range and could be used to push the front end of a tube amp.
Tone is also obvious. Although it is more subtle than many pedal effect tone knobs, its range of adjustment is sufficient for most needs.
Dynamics is very cool and I???ll get into it more.
Lastly, Burn which is Barber???s name for Drive. Note: the Burn never gets completely clean, so if you for some weird reason want to use this strictly as a clean boost, it ain???t gonna happen.

The Dynamics knob is the control that sets this pedal apart. It really does regulate the dynamic response of the pedal, as well as effecting the brightness/clarity/airiness of the tone. It seems to function similarly to the ???Attitude??? knob on a THD UniValve or BiValve - which regulates voltages in the tube that drives the output valve(s). Of course, if you???re unfamiliar with THD products, that tells you nothing.

Let's think of tube distortion as having two characteristics:
1) how much the signal waveform is clipped - that???s the Burn knob, and
2) how much the frequency waveforms are compressed, both in amplitude (relative loudness) and frequency range (more compression = fewer highs, more mids - again relative to one another) - that???s the Dynamics knob. Turned up - clockwise - it gives lots of dynamic response. Pick a little harder and the note is substantially louder. Pick softer and the note volume drops. Turn the Dynamics knob down and volume is effected less by picking force, which means you???ll hear other differences more. There is also a corresponding change in tonal coloration. I think of it as an old tweed Bassman cranked - dynamics as well as frequency response are very compressed - vs. blackface Twin about half open - very crisp, tight and cutting. Points between full counterclockwise and full clockwise have lots of variance and are entirely useable.

Then there???s the mini-switch. To the left - smooth and focused, to the right - jagged and open, in the middle - uh, in the middle. Barber describes them as original Burn Unit sound, Pre-amp distortion and Power amp distortion. One could argue whether that???s entirely accurate but you do get three subtly different, and again, useable sounds.

But then - inside the box are, from left to right ???note shape???, bass, mid-range, and presence trim pots. The bass, mid-range and presence work pretty much as would similarly labeled knobs on an amp. No surprises but entirely functional. Adjust these, for example, to get the pedal to fit with your clean amp setting so you???re not fiddling with knobs every time you stomp on it.

The ???note shape??? however, is unusual. To my ears it seems to effect the attack and upper mid-range bloom. Cranked one way your pick attack is more ragged and raucous and immediate, cranked the other way it???s smoother and tight. I???d like to have this parameter externally adjustable, but I???ve other pedals that can do ragged so I set it smooth and tight.

This is a fine sounding box. Additionally, while most distortion pedals have either 1) one or two sounds and no matter how much you turn the knobs, those sounds stay pretty much the same, or 2) a number of different sounds but only one or two that you can actually use, the Barber Small Fry gives you at least four different, distinctive sounds and enough adjustability to bring out various characteristics as you wish. Most importantly, though, they all sound great. Where ever you set the controls, you???ll find interesting tones with complexity and depth. Compared to my other distortion boxes - of which I have far too many - the Barber Small Fry sounds more ???alive??? and interesting. Essentially every distortion box I???ve ever used has had an upper-midrange ???artifact???, a fizziness up around 6-7 kHz that I find very annoying. While the Small Fry does have a little of this, one can dial it out without neutering the rest of your tone. Wonderful!

No box is perfect. This one does make some noise. The more Burn, the more noise. No more that most. Far less than many. More than my Route 66, way less than my Big Muff, maybe just a little less than my Jacques Mercer Box. When you???re playing, the noise floor drops way down, so it???s only between songs that it???s an issue at all. I will likely put a noise gate after it in time but I can live with it for a while.

Barber certainly has the reputation for exceptional reliability. The build quality is superb! Metal jacks, no gloppy solder joints, sturdily mounted pc board; but any electronic component can decide to crap out at any time. I don???t have the cash to carry a back-up of all my equipment, but I do have contingency plans should a piece of equipment fail.

I???ve never dealt with Barber. They have an excellent reputation. I get my pedals from pedalGeek.com and they have outstanding customer support. Damn fine selection, too.

I am very pleased with this pedal. It comes very close to the ???magic sound??? in my mind. It provides a number of very usable, interesting distortions. It has remarkably good note definition even at fairly high gain levels. When cranked, you can still hear tonal differences as you change settings on your guitar. I'd recommend it for blues, roots and classic rook, modern country, even fairly heavy rock. Probably not for nu-metal, it sounds too good for that.

The Small Fry seems to play well with the Visual Sound Rt 66 and H2O, the Line 6 Verbzilla and Aphex Guitar Exciter on my pedal board and cooperates beautifully with my THD UniValve in every setting I've tried. It does not do so well with the Dan Electro Trip L Wah. If they don???t learn to get along, I???ll replace the wah, not the Small Fry. All in all, it???s a keper.

Pretty easy to use. Internal trimmers inside. I messed with them for awhile but just wound up using them at unity.
Tone, Dynamics,(which is like a sweeping midrange far as I can tell) and "burn" which is amount of gain.

Also a toggle switch which is supposed to give you different output voicings I believe. It's almost overkill IMO with how much tweakability this pedal has. But others may appreciate this more than I.

I use this in front of a Carr Imperial, which is a very smooth,focused, Fenderish voiced one channel clean. It accepts pedals wonderfully, the Small Fry being no exception. I consider this a distortion pedal for the amount of gain it gives you, and that it IS NOT another TS clone. It will do some grinding Marshally midrangey OD-type tones, but I don't consider that its forte. If your more into that, I would suggest a Barber Direct Drive.

In the manual, it gives you a Dumble-type setting,(10k collectors amp is what it's worded as). This is my favorite, and I don't move it from this setting. This gives a wonderfully smooth,liquidy lead tone that I haven't been able to quite get from any other distortion pedal. I rund a OCD in front with the gain way low, and it works well with that as well if I want to add some shimmer. I also use a Barber Tone Press in front of both, and that REALLY kicks up the sustain and the searing lead factor. This setting works great for rhythm as well.

looks solid. It looks cool too. Funky Sparkly red. The logo kinda reminds me of wording you'd see on dishwashing detergent or something, but I'm weird like that.

I emailed Dave Barber with a question I had about the Tone Press once. He got back to me in no time. The guy's a pedal-building saint.

I've been playing since I was a wee lad, I've had a ton of pedals, and I have to say this one's a keeper. It might be a bit overdone with the tweak factor, but thats just me.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
If you prefer a loud growling Marshally sound, I'd go with the Direct Drive. If you want a tight,smooth, singing lead tone and a more focused attack for rhythms,I'd get this, and then I'd get its cousin the Tone Press. They go together like beer and pizza. Barber makes some of the very best o.d. pedals out there, for a ridiculous price considering what some bouteekers charge. I've tried most of his pedals, and I think this is his best work. I give this a 9. I give myself a 9 and 1/2 for having the wisdom to buy it.

Easy pedal to mess with, but there are lots of tweeking that a novice might get a little discouraged. I like stuff that offers lots of variety...like my Fuchs ODS. Lots of knobs, trimmers, etc. Once you get the hang of it, its a snap.

The two most intricate controls are the Dynamics knob and the mini toggle switch. the dynamics knob is almost like a negative feedback type of control. Clockwise adds attack and more clarity with a little more aggressive sound. Counterclockwise smooths out the sound and darkens it a bit...like Dumble type of amps. The mini toggle varies the type of overdrive clipping: Three settings from stock Burn unit (nice smooth harmonically rich sound) to a more aggressive preamp type of sound, to a more dynamic power tube overdrive sound that can be adjusted via the Dynamics control.

Lots of fun for all you sound tweekers out there.

Bravo Mr. Barber !!! This is one of the best, if not the best overdrive / distortion pedal under $200...and I've tried A LOT. I recently sold my Vox Big Ben real tube overdrive to pay for this and i'm not at all dissapointed. I've owned other Barber pedals (LTD, DDSS, DD, Gainster) and was not happy with the plastic "popping" sound under hard picking attack. Lots of tube screamer like pedals have this annoying sound. The Small Fry is the most realistic sounding pedal i've owned and the front panel knobs are very useful in changing the character of the pedal. From Tweed like grind to Dumble/Fuchs type overdrive. I own a Fuchs so I can attest to the comparison. Not super noisey, but I only use up to 50% gain at the most. Note: its does color your sound a bit but its in a good way. Not super transparent, but my guitars sound damn good through this pedal.

All barber stuff is built well, no worries...so far.

As mentioned, I've gone through so many pedals its not even funny. This is the most tube like solid state device I've ever owned. Great tube like feel and character. I wish it was a little more transparent sounding but we can't have everything. I was using a Xotic BB preamp up to this point and I'm not sure whether or not I'll keep it now. The BB sounds more synthetic to my ears with a bit of that popping sound that isn't present with the Small Fry. Its still a cool pedal if you want that tube screamer type of sound (fuzzy type sound) with a lot less mids and more bass. The Xotic sounds like the best tube screamer type of sound whereas the Small Fry is like the best tube amp style of sound.

I have mixed feelings about internal tone pots. When you have time to mess with them you typically are not in a situation where you can really tell how the sound is going to blend with a real world band setting. Having said that it is nice to have the option. I'm sure a lot of people never touch them. This pedal is a nice size and has a good layout. I think it's a little unlikely that the mini toggle switch will get bumped but it's so small that it's hard to tell where it's set if you are standing on stage looking down at it. I have no real complaints with the ease of use of this pedal.

This thing just plain sounds right to me. Extremely transparent tonally. When I switch this on at a gig it just sounds like I turned the amp up. Nothing else changes. I love Tube Screamers but when you turn them on it sounds like you are switching amps usually. I think this is a good "more" pedal.

I'm sure just from looking at it and from owning other pedals from Barber that this pedal is far above normal in this catagory.

Nice and not too big.

I have to say this is my favorite overdrive pedal now. I'm using it for Blues in Texas. This pedal, an upgraded reissue Deluxe Reverb with a Tonkerlite in it and a Reverend Slingshot with P90's is a lot of fun. It suggests that 50 Marshall that you heard in 1972 with the Mullard EL34's that were burnt in to the point where the amp wasn't that loud but had a great crunch to it. A good bit of that is the Tonkerlite though I think. Thank you.

You can get usable sounds right out of the box with minimal knob turning. However this is a fairly complex pedal in terms of the variety of overdrive sounds it can produce so it's worth the time taken to read the simple one page manual.
Controls are: volume, tone, dynamics, and burn. The first two are obvious, last two dynamics-(adds/takes away compression), burn- (adjusts drive intensity) and are very sensitive and interact with each other to vary loose/tight feel to notes. I was amazed at the violin type sustain (think EJ) you can get with the dynamics=11:00 and burn=1:00 but still retain the character of the note and sound of the guitar.
Even with the dynamics knob set off (max compression)notes are not squashed or subdued although some volume loss is evident.
With this control dimed notes pop more like a non-master volume amp cranked. In fact the manual has suggested settings for Black Face, Tweed, Marshall, and Dumble amp sounds. Through my setup these settings sound pretty close.
There's also a 3 way mini toggle switch that selects 1)Burn Unit-left (I've never played through one but there's an excellent video demo of one at www.musictoyz.com) 2) pre amp overdrive-center, 3) power amp type overdrive. While not drastic in changing the tone, this switch
adds to the character of your sound and helps make the Small Fry one of the most versatile pedals available. In addition there are 4 trim pots inside for note shape, bass, mids, presence, for further tweaking. I haven't tried adjusting these as I'm pretty happy with how the pedal sounds as is.

I use an ES 335 Dot Neck throjugh either a Rivera Chubster 40 or Boogie Mark IIB. Other pedals are: Boss Compressor, Voodoo Labs Micro Vibe, Fulltone FD2, TC Electronics Chorus, Boss DD5. I also have a Barber DD and DDSS. The Small Fry has more nuances than the Fulldrive, less mid range, more clarity than the DD and more variety in low-mid overdrive sounds than the DD and DDSS. It's hard to say which application is best for the Small Fry because it does low gain so well, can be crunchy, warm or silky smooth high gain as well. Sounds great in any configuration.
I haven't used it on a gig yet so that will be the true test.
My favorite guitar tones come from people like Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson, Hendrix, Mayall & Cream era Clapton, Scott Henderson, Mahavishnu era John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, and on.
The Small Fry can cover these better than any other peadal I've tried.
I can attest to this because I live close to MusicToyz retail store and get to play all the excellent boutique products he carries.

If it is anything like the other Barber pedals I own there shouldn't be any reliability issues as it's solid and built like a tank inside and out.

Never had to deal with Mr Barber but he will personally answer your questions from posts I've see on other forums.

I play blues, jazz, fusion, and classic rock. The Small Fry works great for all these. Would definately replace if lost or stolen.
For price vs. performance this pedal is a bargain. I especially like it because it doesn't over power the character of my guitar and matches well with my amps. It's great for developing your own signature sound!