Barber Electronics Tone Pump

Very easy to find good usable overdrive tones. The usual 3 knobs but has a second boost footswitch. This is not just another TS-808/TS9 clone. It seems to have it's own voice.

After 18 years or so, I can't find another pedal as good as a TS-9 for that particular tone. Of course there are good clones, the Jeckyl and Hyde being the best bang for the buck. The TONE PUMP is the best companion I've found for my TS9, for an alternate tone. I love the old TS9 for SRV type vibes but once and a while I want more and or different. The Tone Pump is not as transparent, when used for a semi clean boost as the Klon pedal. It seems to cause some loss of low end but at performance levels at gigs, it's not real noticable. I mostly use the boosted mode as my TS9 seems to cover the lower gain territory better, at least to my old ears. One thing that really needs to be cleared up is the term: "true bypass" The Tone Pump HAS true bypass. I've seen reviews for other pedals where the author has no concept of the term. The only way to have true bypass is to use a double pole, double throw footswitch with no LED. Or use a 3 pole double throw switch. The extra pole switches the LED off and on. These switches are very hard to find and are very expensive. Fulltone and the Tone Pump uses this type switch. The Tone Pump switches very quietly and I really appreciate the effort that Dave Barber put into engineering not only a great sounding pedal but one that doesn't alter your bypassed tone. I've given up trying to build my own pedals, when you see workmanship like this, why bother. The Klon pedal is a very well made pedal but it is a one trick pony and costs hundred bucks more than the Tone Pump. The Fulldrive is a very well made pedal but does'nt sound as good to me as a good Tube Screamer and the second mode sucks. The Tone Pump has it's own voice and territory and it deserves to be in one of those "shootout" reviews in Guitar Player magazine. Be prepared to wait 6 weeks or so for delivery. That is the only minus for buying boutique type pedals but it is well made and by God it was made in the USA, it wasn't slapped together by Commie slave labor.

I can not forsee any problems, its made to last.

No one pedal can be all things to all people, Lord knows I've tried everything out there and owned a lot of them. Distortion/Overdrive pedals sound diffent to everyone. Opinions are like, well you know the rest. I've been playing since 1965. I currently play in a 3 piece Blues band and I could get by nicely with just this one pedal but I would miss my modded TS9 and my Fat Box overdrive. Okay, I admit it, I am a hopeless pedal junkie.

This box is very easy to use. It has three control knobs for dialing in your tone, two of which are more pronounced in their affect on you signal. The volume control performs just as the name suggests and will drive/boost your gain to a considerable degree as you turn the knob clockwise and has a pronounced effect throughout its range (7 O'clock to 5 O'clock). The tone control is not as responsive as the volume in that its most pronounced effect is noted between about 3 O'clock and 5 O'clock where the treble/mids really brighten up (but not to an objectionable degree). The "Pump" control brings out the "grind" or "overdrive" effect and is just barely noticeable at 7 O'clock and "incineratingly" present at 5 O'clock. The knobs are fairly easy to adjust with your feet if you have to. The footswitches (2) are a light touch affair and different from the "clunkier" so-and-so brand that many stompbox manufacturers use.

I am using this pedal with a Top Hat T18-TB head and 2x12 closed-back Top Hat cab with Celestion Greenbacks. My main guitar is an ES 125 TCD. Believe me, I have mother___ng tone at my disposal with this combination, it's just that I have to play at earsplitting levels to get it!! (very satisfying though, at a base, gut level) I also have a variety of pedal effects on a custom made board and the Tone Pump is early in the signal chain. The unit is quiet. Switching is quiet too. The effect is just awesome for emulating a great variety of overdriven tube amp tones both at high, performance volumes and especially at lower, more reasonable playing-at-home type levels. This is what I particularly like about the device. You can really dial in an overdriven type of tone without having to listen to your eardrums distort (mine tend to do that these days). I have no problem getting a great rhythm, subtle, crunchy-on-the-top type of tone or a screaming, creamy, "Texas" or "British" or "Aussie" (if you will) type of lead sound from this little box. When I combine the Pump with my vintage Rat distortion, I'm swirling in a cesspool of mind-blowing tone.

I don't gig. It functions fine so far (a month).

Dave Barber shines in the PR region as far as I can tell. He answered my e-mails promptly. He was pleasant and gracious on the phone the two times I called him and was willing to answer my questions completely and to my satisfaction. He is on the up-and-up to my best estimation and makes good on his promises.

I play R&R in a "classic rock" vein (60's, 70's & 80's mostly) with a little R&B thrown in for color and have been doing it for the better part of 30 years as a "wanna-be" guitarist. At this point, I still don't gig, and really don't know the first thing about playing out in a live situation, so I can't comment on how this unit performs from that perspective. I imagine that if this thing were stolen by some idiot burglar, I'd replace it; but only after I'd tried the "Burn Unit" from Barber Electronics first! I really dig the fact that this item helps me sound like the recordings I try to emulate - all the way from Free, Humble Pie, Jethro Tull, to Bryan Adams and anyone else you can think of. I have never even used a TS808 or anything other than my Rat, (which is kind of harsh) so I can't make a comparison to help in that area and I had my heart set on a Centaur from the glowing reviews it has garnered, but I went with this thing on the merit of a few tasty and enthusiastic reviews on the net and I'm damn glad. Here's my only beef: When I got this unit, it was cosmetically fine and seemed to work well, but a few minutes of tweaking revealed that the control knobs were too close to each other. The volume and tone knobs connected to one another at certain settings so that they actually acted like gears to the point of being inoperable due to friction. I changed the three knobs around to no avail and ended up having to take one of them to the grinder to reduce its circumfrence. That took care of it and I've been rocking ever since. Buy this product!

Right out of the box great tone. Tweaking the knobs actually does something for a change as well! The tone knob gives you a good variance of color through the range.
You have 2 buttons, an on/bypass, and an additional lead (boosted) channel (not unlike a Full Drive2, but more on this later), and 3 knobs: Volume, Tone, and 'Pump.'

In terms of sound quality I would direct this at the 808 and 'elusive blues tone' fans. If you're a Boss Metal Zoner, or fuzz fiend, you may want to look elsewhere. Anyhow, gear-wise I'm a Fender into Tweed fan. That being said, this pedal is the top of the food chain in my opinion. I have never been more impressed with a pedal.
You can dial it in for just a smidge of gain, or ease it into a real singing blues tone, with great transparency of your overall signal. It is the first pedal that I haven't wanted to add another pedal with. Activating the lead channel, you get a slight volume boost, and it seems to be much warmer, but not buzzy or distortion-y, just a great lead tone. The volume boost is right where it should be on this channel which is very cool. You know how you have 2 or more overdrives, and spend all that time trying to find the good balance between the them, and futz around at higher volumes all over again, and end up looking like a jerk with it way off for your lead parts, etc? This may be the answer. When you switch it back and forth between the 2, it seems to be right where you want it.
It does bring out the 60-cycle hum of the single coils, but to me, that says it's bringing the whole signal, and doing its job.
Switching is dead silent, as expected, and the ranges throughout the settings are terrific with no wierd spots. You could even dial this pedal to have no real boost or overdrive, just a darkening of the tone if you wanted, or a clean boost. Very flexible.

Well, I don't know them personally, but apparently they know their stuff. They know Hi-Fi audio equipment, and seem to have over-engineered something as seemingly insignificant as a guitar pedal. Anyone that know the in's and out's of Dumble rigs, and know the PRS folks and other industry folks personally, have to have it together.
I would be absolutely amazed if someting ever went wrong with this pedal.

I heard tale of them, and had a heck of a time finding them on the net. I sent them an e-mail, and they responded fairly quickly. Anyhow, I decided to give them a buzz and get some more information. He spent about an hour on the phone with me, and would have easiliy spent longer if it was warranted. You know right off hand, he knows his stuff, knows where great tone is, how to find it, and how to build a quality product. Heck of a nice guy to. I really appreciated the conversation, and learned quite a bit as well. There is no doubt he would stand behind his product.

This is my 'desert island' pedal. I have been looking for this tone, and really didn't expect it to be this good (especially at the price). I had no doubt I would love it when I ordered it, but I have this tone bouncing around in my skull, and never thought I would find it.
In comparsion, I have a TS-808, a Klon Centaur, Way Huge Red Llama, TS-9, Bartolini Tube-it, and I think 11 other overdrives and fuzzes. I was hoping the Fulltone Full Drive2 was going to be the answer, but I sold it! The Fulltone products are excellent, well built, terrifically engineered, and fill a great market need with a quality range of stomp boxes. Don't get me wrong, but the Tone Pump is what the Full Drive2 should sound like - in my opinion (with no offense intended).
I couldn't recommend a pedal more, and from what I hear, he is coming out with a pedal that is supposed to replicate the tone of a Dumble. Yikes!
Anyhow, I would check him out at his website: http://www.bigbangaudio.com/tonepump/
and the 'Tonefrenzy' website has sound clips and a good review: http://www.tonefrenzy.com/barber_electronics_tone_pump.htm

Quite self-explanitory (vol.,tone,gain) no manual but it sounds good despite its setting. the best "overdrive" pedal i've heard.

I've been using this pedal exclusively for about a year. Mostly I play a custom built tele or a Fender custom shop '60 strat thru a '68 super reverb or a '66 deluxe reverb. the tone pump is always with me. It's VERY transparent. The only downfall I've found with it is because there are no buffers on the input and output it dosen't work as well with certain other pedals (ones that ruin your signal when their off anyhow) It works best with other true bypass effects.

I've used this pedal as much or more than anyone. (I had the first prototype for months before they were availible) and I have been gigging 4 to 5 nights a week with it for over a year (without a backup) and have had no problems

As of now they are hand built by one person, so you can actually speak directly to the guy who knows it best.

I have been playing music for nearly 20 years and have always made my living with it. I have an original band called MAJESTY TWELVE based out of Annapolis MD. I also have played in countless cover bands playing everything from Hendrix and Jeff Beck, XTC and the Beatles, Prince and Tower of Power, Elvis Costello and Jeff Buckley, and of course more of the 20 minute guitar soloing I IV V gigs than I care to remember. I have played ,if not owned every effect, amp and guitar out there. nothing is perfect for everything ,but for a tube screamer style overdrive , I've heard nothing as better than this. There are others as good (not better) for about 60-100 dollars more.

This pedal is very straight forward: 3 knobs - Level, tone, gain and a 2nd stage boost for even higher gain settings. Dave builds these out of his house along w/ great tube amp work and some recording work, this makes production sporadic. My box is #3 - no manual just a thorough conversation w/ Dave both in person and over the phone, but none really needed. It's set-up is classic except for the 2nd gain stage. Primarily runs on 9v battery but he will modify it for use w/ good power source (Voodoo Lab Pedal Power, etc. NO WALL WARTS! If ne knows you're gonna run it w/ typical cheapo wall wart, he won't do the mod. due to the noise) He's a tone freak!

This is the best sounding, most tranparent overdrive pedal I've used, and I've used a lot of 'em. All the good stuff, true by-pass switching, etc. Very quiet. This pedal, like the Klon Centaur, does not alter the sound of your guitar, it just pushes the amp harder. It's simply more of what your guitar sounds like. W/ tone set flat just dial in the amount of dirt you want and there you are. The tone control is subtle, doesn't have a huge effect but more like a tweak of your tone. Set level and gain to taste. I rarely venture into the 2nd stage as the first stage fits what I play perfectly. (Classic rock, blues, funk,r&b).
I'm using this w/ '65 Super Reverb or '66 Deluxe. Guitars are primarly PRS Swamp Ash Special, PRS McCarty w/ P90s or a Strat. It lives right after full-tone clyde wah on the pedal board. It is quiet, unless on 2nd stage w/ gain pushed pretty hard, even then it's not real bad.
It would be hard imagining not being able to get almost any over-driven or distorted tone out of this unless, perhaps you are the heaviest dude on earth! (I will admit to not having explored the 2nd gain stage all that much)

This pedal is not that old. I've had it for 6 - 7 months. I gig 6 - 12 nights / month and have been using solid for 7 months. So far so good, never had a problem. I do have a TS-9 and a Sans Amp GT2 in the "junk box" that goes w/ us to gigs - only prudent! The only reason I give it an 8 is that it's still new and I have box #3.

I have dealt w/ Dave as he is my amp tech. He's pretty good about responding and calling back but I've had no need to have it serviced

Overall this pedal is awesome. Been playing 30+ years...I'm a tone hound - the search never really ends. I am satisfied to the point that I have put this aspect of my tone and gear in the back of my mind, that must mean I'm happy w/ what I have, just like when you find "that" guitar! If my pedal board was lost or stolen, it would be the first thing I'd replace as I consider it to be the main elelment in the chain. (all the pedals are high end Full-tone Clyde, TC Chorus, Voodoo Micro-vibe, etc.) My search for good, cleanly voiced pedals is relentless so I rank the Tone Pump WAY up there.