Catalinbread Teaser Stallion

Update...

After trying the Teaser Stallion live for a while and with a few more amps...While the distortion sounds good, it needs more gain range and more volume output overall.

As with any pedal, the results will vary depending on the amp. With Class A, non Master amps, like my 70's SF Champ or a Blackheart, it's fine and will boost the signal. However, the Stallion volume has to be set to maximum.

With most other amps and setups (Carvin Nomad, Peavey Classic 30, Fender TRRI, Traynor YRM-1SC, direct into PODxt or a mixing board), there is a compressed volume REDUCTION even with the Stallion at maximum volume. So playing live, you have to follow the Stallion with another booster pedal to keep from disappearing from the mix.

I guess this is fine if you want low volume distortion...or when playing clean you want to back off the level for that "low intensity solo."

...still working...

...and they still haven't replied to my questions...

This isn't exclusively a distortion pedal. The oscillation is great, but for nearly $200 I think the distortion would be improved with a few minor component changes (and I WILL be making them soon).

Then again, people will still pay ~$800 for green pedals with less range and even greater volume drop...

It's straightforward: distortion, feedback, power, toggle, etc...Getting a feel for how the feedback responds takes a minute...If you're clumsy or wear corrective shoes, you'll have problems with the switches. I bought the standard, small version, so I'm stuck making the balloon animals during the clown set...

The only thing that could be considered difficult is deciding where to put it in your FX chain. It responds so interestingly to input changes in gain/volume that you have to experiment with all of your pedals...

I mostly use Gibson's and Epiphone's (with Gibson pickups) into tube amps (vintage and reissue Fender and a Traynor YRM-1SC).

I also use PLENTY of other effects (not ALL AT ONCE--depends on the project), mostly distortions and fuzz pedals. I have several delays; I don't use much modulation except for a Wah and a Voodoo Vibe...Pitch Shifters I use when texturing or looping.

I bought this because I got tired of screwing around with my Fuzz Factory live. To get it to oscillate and then get back a normal-ish fuzztone is not a fun chore for me when performing. Don't get me wrong, the FF is a great pedal. The Teaser DOES NOT come close to the amount of "fuzz" possibilities that you have with the ZVEX, but the Teaser offers a great USEABLE Fuzz/Distortion that the FF cannot...add to that the fact that you can activate the feedback with a switch (I'm in loooove)...I'll never get rid of the FF, but the Teaser Stallion suits my designs much more when playing.

I give it a nine because the lower gain settings aren't very impressive, but its high gain fuzz and distortion are GREAT. I would place the sound somewhere between a RAT and a Muff (without all of the annoying Muff buzz)...or probably a modified Blues Driver at higher gain settings. It doesn't clean up like a BD. As I mentioned, low gain isn't that cool, somewhat papery.

I would trust this at a gig, but I always have a backup. The build quality seems to be very impressive. I've opened up other "boutique" boxes to find things held in place with electrical tape or silicon (I know it works, but oozy silicon does not give the immediate impression of "Build Quality")...that is not the case with the Teaser Stallion. It's completely clean and solid--made to last. My only concerns are the jacks

I could see my kids trying to pry it out of my hands after they check me into Assisted Living...

I don't know about this, yet. I sent them an e-mail recently to get some recommendations, but they haven't replied to it. I've heard good things about them, but I haven't heard FROM them (yet).

I've been playing 15 years, own a basement's worth of equipment, build pedals, fix gear...I play several instruments with several different projects ranging from extremely FX heavy experimental music to simple garage rock (only a couple of pedals). I can find always find a spot for the Teaser...well actually the Stallion, but it's nice to have the capability to oscillate should the need arise.

My only gripe is the range of distortion...I was going to mark it down for the price, but considering you'd pay have to pay ~$50 more for most boutique fuzz pedals or ~$100 for a generic mass produced distortions, the Teaser Stallion is a GREAT buy.

* How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?
pretty easy, unless your pretty stupid...

* How about Editing patches?
again pretty easy, having two switches make it much easier than say a pedal like the fuzzfactory, you can have normal sounds, and then with another click chaos.

* How is the manual for it (if there is one)?
pretty good, but not really needed, especially with such good customer support

* Do you know the firmware revision number? Has your unit been upgraded?
i have no idea what this means. and no


feel i should add that the only frustrating thing is that sometimes the settings do not allow for the best sounds from each channel, and so a comprimise is needed.

* Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they?
i dont want to sound like other people. it sounds good though.

* Are certain effects (distortion, chorus, ...) very good? Very bad?
the distortion side of this is absolutely great, not enough praise for this, could easily be a great pedal with just this. the chaos i see as more an extra, and again very cool.

* What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with?
LP or tele through other FX into JTM45

* Is it noisy? On what settings?
surprisingly quiet but of course there is some noise becuase of what the pedal does. nothing to worry about though.

* Are the effects weak or do they always sound great?
always sounds great. the pedal can be used for so many different things this is hard to answer, myself, i use it for a slightly modern distortion great for hard rhythms and lead. then the chaos side i use mostly for decaying chords, hearing a chord being torn apart and turning into feedback oscillation is great!

* What amp are you using it with?
JTM45

* Can you depend on it?
yes i would/do happily depend on this

* Would you use it on a gig without a backup?
this isnt my obnly distortion and so i dont need a backup.
everything in my rig can be used as a backup for something else if needed. easier that way.

* If you've dealt with the company, how helpful/friendly were they?
Nick is on HCFX a lot and is easy to talk to. great guy, very friendly and helpful.
* Ever get an upgrade, or try and get it repaired?
no and no, great as it is.

* What style of music do you play? Is this a good match?
i play nearly any style required, but mostly rock with blues and jazz influences, a lot of psychedillic style jam outs. but will happily play classical or cheesy pop or death metal. its all music.

* How long have you been playing? What other gear do you own?
ive been playing about 6 yrs. other pedals include: liquid sunshine, SCOD, semaphore, TU2, holy grail, DD6, crybaby and the guitars and amps mentioned.

* If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else?
probably would buy the same thing. it pretty darn good. but may look into an E13 type effect, but then maybe ill have both? not sure yet

* what do you love about it? What do you hate? What is your favorite feature?
i love the sounds and the simple controls (I hate having too many controls to easily use) i love the two switches to change between cool and crazy, unlike the fazzfactory which is one or the other and pretty hard to keep stable and sounding good.

* Did you compare it to other products? Which ones? Why did you choose this one?
i got this one because his other pedals are top notch and i needed something like this. i chose it mainly for its great distortion the chaos side i saw as just an extra.

* Anything you wish it had?
not really. maybe an expression pedal jack to change the pitch of oscillation.

* Does it help you make music, or does it get in the way?
neither.

* Anything else you'd like to share?
just go buy one!

this is a fairly straightforward pedal with two channels.Channel one offers subtle overdive to blistering gain think pro co rat but better.Channel two offer a feedback capability allowing you to create musical choas.You can control this in varying ways.Toggle the pickup selecter allows you to pitch up and down the volume and tone have a similar effect.The sounds on channel 2 are remenisant of an old monophonic analog synth.

im using an ibanez axs 32 guitar going through the teaser stallion connected to mid fi glitch computer and eh big muff.Amp wise im running it through line 6 spider amp.The through bypass works well with no audible tone sucking.Sound quality is great nice warm analog tone.Inside the wiring is very neat and tidy.

i can only imagine this pedal is sturdy judging by the wiring and construction it should last longer than most 'production'pedals.Id gig without a backup.

ive never dealt with the company directly,but i order'd the pedal through tonefactor they ran out of stock and nicholas sent one directly from seattle to ireland.Now thats service

im into experimental music sonic youth mars volta godspeed kinski etc Im sorta into synth type pedals and pedals that offer something different.If it were stolen id hunt it down.I love channel two musical choas fun for hours.

This pedal is very easy to use. Four knobs and two switches. The knobs control the following functions. Feedback, Volume, Tone, and Drive. There are two channels on this pedal. Channel 1 is your overdrive and Channel 2 is your chaos. There's an LED for each channel's function. The pedal is true bypass and there's a power jack as well.

I'll start with channel 1. Channel 1 will give you everything from subtle drive tones to all out raging. The controls are very responsive. This yields a lot of different tones. In fact, I'm currently using this channel to achieve a "broken speaker lof-fi" type of sound. I turn the feedback and drive to 0. The volume sits around 9 o'clock and the tone is around 1 o'clock. Even with it set like this, I can kick in channel 2 for some really musical sounding chaos. Speaking of channel 2, the oscilating feedback loop is a great idea for a pedal. Play with this channel and add some processing after the pedal for some unreal and unpredictable tones. Excellent! Also, I make sure my tuner is after the Teaser Stallion so I can actually tune the feedback note to the desired pitch. This makes my chaos completely useable and musical because I know what target pitch I'm working from.

Excellent craftsmanship. The interior work is super clean. Switches and jacks are tight and solid. The LED's are super bright green and easy to see from any angle. This pedal has proven very reliable and yes, I would and do gig without a backup.

Nicholas is awesome to deal with. He did this pedal custom for me back in 2004 and had no problems making it to my exterior specs. I wanted an unfinished exterior look and he was more than willing to comply. Turnaround time was about a week. At the same time, I ordered a Super Chili Picoso. Both pedals showed up in about a week and there have been no operational issues with either. Catalinbread is awesome!

Catalinbread makes unique pedals that should appeal to players looking for something different. The Teaser packs so much tone and versatility into it's small chasis that it's a hard pedal to beat. Do yourself a favor and listen to some of the sound clips on Catalinbread's site. I'm very pleased with my Teaser Stallion. Also, you must put it first in your chain if you want to have control over the feedback with your guitar. This is very important and something I would imagine all players would desire. Have fun with this one!

It's very easy to get a nice creamy distortion to fuzz tone from the pedal. Just play around with the tone and the distortion knobs. Engaing the distortion mode only require to step on the right button, but to go into Channel 2(also know as Chaos Mode Channel), u need to engage both button. SO if suddenly wanna go to this mode from clean, it may take 1 sec to engage both buttons. Okay, maybe I'm slow. :) The manual is exactly the same as the one on the webpage, easy to understand.

As I had said above, it is very easy to get a good and nice distortion from this pedal. I compare it to RAT, RAT2, and found that this pedal sounded a bit more warmer and less edgy than both of them. I'm not saying that RAT are not good, but maybe it's not the sound I'm looking for. I'm sure RAT got their place in different genres of music. Interesting part of this pedal is of course the feedback channel, which I personally find that, beside making noise(which is good for ending some rock songs), it has no use for other thing. Quite difficult to hear the distortion if the feedback channel is engaged. But I think it comes as a bonus and I use it sparingly. And yes, it's a true by pass, so it's not noisy at all. Great! By the way, I'm using PRS Tremonti, Marshall AVT 100, Small Clone, Teese RMC 2 Wah.

Feel sturdy and quite heavy for such a small pedal. Think it will last me for quite some time, and I will use it without a backup. Only problem is that the battery wire is quite long and when u put in the battery, it's quite cramp inside and had a bit of difficulty closing it firmly.

Never deal with Nicholas(who made the pedal himself), bo couldn't comment on that. But the chap that sell/recommend me this pedal is a nice chap.

Overall, I think it's a very nice distortion pedal, with cool colour and neatly built. Except for the battery thing, I think this handmade pedal deserves a 10.

Very simple operation. There are 2 footswitches. On the right is the on/off, and on the left is the feedback (self oscillation). If you have only the right switch engaged, you can get an overdrive or full on distortion sound. Once you kick on the left switch, you enter the realms of chaos.

4 knobs: feedback (which is only active on the "chaos" channel), volume, tone, and distortion. Very easy to get a nice overdrive or distortion tone in the regular mode. Simple enough controls.

What's difficult is the crazy stuff when you kick on the left switch. It pretty much just starts feeding back. You can turn down the feedback, gain, and volume knobs, but you're still gonna get a lot of feedback. You can cut through by attacking the strings a bit harder, but the note will fall away quickly into feedback. Now if you don't want that, don't buy this pedal. It's meant to be noisy.

Probably the funnest part is using your volume knob, tone knob, and pickup selecter to change the pitch of the feedback. Lots of good times.

I have a massive board and this is first in the chain. It's true that if you don't have it close to your guitar in the chain, you really won't be able to use the volume and tone knobs on your guitar to control the feedback pitch.

The overdrive and distortion sounds are awesome. Nice and warm with a good spectrum on the tone knob. I actually wasn't even interested in those aspects of the pedal before I bought it. I wanted a noise maker. But now I'm considering using it as overdrive instead of my amp's. or maybe with it. Or maybe with my distortion channel. All of it sounds good!

The key is really to use the feedback aspect of this pedal before some other effects. Using the Digitech Whammy with the foot while turnign the guitar knobs with fingers can get really wakky. Delay of course adds the outerspace fun. And a fuzz box is exciting!

Oh, don't forget to try it with the Line6 FM4. Plethora of possibilites there!

Basically, this is the type of gadget that is bringing me closer and closer to giving up guitar and becoming a pedal player.

I'll give it a 9 because it adds a tiny bit of hum. Nothing my Noise Suppresser can't handle of course.

seems pretty sturdy. nice and small too.

Well, I haven't communicated with him at all, but I know he does frequent the Effects Forum. I imagine he's like a lot of the other independent guys around here: easy to contact and willing to communicate. But that's just a guess

Very useful, great sound quality, I am happy!

This is not a pedal for the novice. There are a lot of great songs in there but you have to play with it to get them all out. Fortunately there is now a users manual, so that is fixed. As a standard distortion, 3 knobs to play with, tone, distortion, and volume. That is straight forward. When you bring in the feedback loop, then you have a lot more tweaking to do. There are many killer sounds here, self-oscillation, ring modulation, etc. but it will take time to get them.

Very quiet when not playing (in distortion only mode). The distortion is big, plenty of bottom, no boosted mids, tone control really controls the brightness. When you add the feedback, you can get a lot of cool sounds, would be cool to run from an expression pedal, but still a lot of tweakable fun.

Amps, Laney Klipp, Fender Twin Reverb, Fender brownface Pro. Guitars mostly Fenders.

Looks rock solid. I think you could throw it at a heckling fan and pick it back up and use it. I would be comforatble gigging without a backup, not much to move in there. I have had no problems with it.

Haven't needed support, but the manufacturer replies to e-mails, and hangs on the HC boards on occasion.

I play a lot in the noise spectrum, and this pedal is great for adding more colors to my palette. I have played for about 20 years, have lots of distortion pedals and this one is unique among them. I would get another if this one was stolen, it is too cool and useful to not have around once you figure it all out. I wish it could hook up with an expression pedal so that you could have foot control for the feedback or the tone (these both interact with the signal).

Really easy to use ...step on it ...dial 4 knobs to taste and rock...
it does have two foot switches....which creates thermein kaos...use a volume pedal and you get treated to some great sounds.

Les Paul into this pedal gets your some solid tones that you could use for modern music or ol' classic rock ..which I happen to play. It is worth the price of addmission just for the distortion folks..it is very good. Then add the Kaos stuff and you have a delightful pedal that will give you hours upon hours of playing fun. It handles gig volume just fine and practice volume very nicley. I used a TMB on the clean side to slam it with and the results were amazing...smooth distortion that can go over to very hard cutting distortion ...guitar volume controls work with this one.

Looks like it will hold up just fine.

If you like distortions, thermsynth sounds, total Kaos at will and having a solid distortion channel underneath it all...this will make you smile....it is a cool pedal to listen to and look at...real fun and nobody will understand how you get those other sounds....fun factor=15, gigging all the time and hope you are too...if not get off in your studio or bedroom with this one.

Spend some time with it , and it becomes very easy to get amazing sounds .

I'am a gigging guitarist , i play Fender Teles , Strats , Gibson Les Pauls.....Marshall...Fender tube amps , this pedal works great with them all .

I have gigged it , great parts...great build .

The builder is a very nice guy...he answered all my emails and believe me...i won't buy a pedal unless it's the highest quality and i can gig with it . If you want a great distortion pedal , plus another wild but usable effect in the same pedal...and want something very cool to make you stand out from the crowd...this is it.

I'am looking forward to other pedals by this maker .