EMMA RF-1 ReezaFRATzitz

Pretty easy to use. As mentioned below, the bias knob takes the most getting used to. I had it left-of-center for the first week of playing with it before turning it to 3 o'clock...I instantly liked this better. The bias knob is subtle, but when your ear catches the difference, it is nice to have. The rest of the controls are normal for distortion pedals and provide a wide range of sounds.

I use a Music Man Sub-1 with Jon Moore custom pups (check his reviews out in the pickup section...AWESOME!!!) > Boss Super Chorus > ReezaFratZitz > Keeley modded Boss Tremolo > Keeley modded Sparkle Drive > Line 6 DL-4 > Fender Hot Rod DeVille 4 x 10.

This pedal sounds so good. Best distortion box I've ever played. It is my primary distortion for the heavy stuff I play with my band. I disagree with the folks who say this pedal can't cover Metallica-style dirt. When we end a song with an open drop-D, it levels the trees around the house. Chords sound alive and smooth and yet so gnarly at the same time. Tack on some delay or reverb or...well...pretty much any other effect and it sounds great. It plays with others very well ;O)

If you are tired of effing around with distortion boxes and being disappointed, give this one serious consideration. Distortion tones you can scoop up and eat.

Totally solid construction. I have little doubt it will live up to EMMA's reputation for indestructible, high-quality boxes.

Haven't dealt with them. Don't think I will ever have to though.

I play garage rock with many ecclectic genres tossed in. Surf rock, 50's crooner pop, punk, blues, etc. I've been playing around 14 years now. This is a creamy, hard-hitting, versatile, delicious pedal. What more can I say? How about buy it...?

This pedal is incredibly responsive to pick attack/guitar volume. I leave the tone control at 12o'clock, put the bias at 4o'clock (for nice fast attack) and put the gain control at 3o'clock. Live I can get many different sounds out of it by altering my guitars volume, and my playing style. Ease of use is about as good as you can get.

I play a modified american strat, with a coil-tapped 'lil 59 humbucker in the bridge, into a vintage Twin (silverface)
This pedal is almost silent with this setup. I bought this when my old jeckyll and hyde pedal broke, because it sounded simply incredible. It also sounds good with my lexicon LXP-5 which I mostly use for reverb, and my boss chorus pedal. It's hard to describe exactly what this pedal sounds like but it's exactly what I've always wanted a distortion pedal to do. The sound is fat and ballsy, but not muddy at all. It cuts through the mix but isn't harsh.
Best (solid state) distortion pedal I've ever used.

This actually is my backup distortion pedal, one of the reasons I bought it is it's construction. The thing is a solid metal box with rounded edges, the knobs have a low profile and seem very solid. I can't imagine anything breaking on this pedal but I'll probably keep my old boss overdrive in my gig bag just in case.

I've never dealt with them

I play modern rhythm guitar, and more vintage style lead guitar. This pedal makes everything I do sound great. Also on my pedalboard, I have a lexicon LXP-5, maxon compressor (solo boost), and boss chorus. These effects are hooked up through a loooper 1-loop, so when I'm not using them the signal isn't effected by the LXP which has a bypass from hell.
If it were lost I'd probably buy another, I tried almost every pedal in the store last time and this is the best. It sounds a lot like the OCD but with more MOJO to my ears. Plus the bias control is great.
This is the best solid state distortion pedal I have used, and I've tried many. for $70 more than a terrible boss distortion, I consider this an excellent value.

I agree with those of the previous reviewers who don't find this pedal to be a no-brainer at all. It took quite some time to master the controls and above all to find the right spot for the pedal in the signal-chain. The controls are simple yeah, but to make it sound it's best isn't that easy. Another thing is the battery-compartment issue that lowers the points: the hassle to get to the battery and then there are four screws to lose.

Tele with Lollars > TS9 with TS808 mod > MXR phase 45 > ReezaFRATzitz > Voodo-Vibe > Ibanez Analog Delay to a RI 59' Bassman.
There are basically two sounds you can get from this thing, one highly compressed and other more open. I prefer the latter with modest gain: the distortion is very coarse-grained and there isn't excessive amount of sustain; I like to have a natural fade for the notes. If you DO want the sustain to be practically never-ending with whatever guitar, just turn the Bias off. The trade off is more sizzle and less rumble, if you get what I mean.
There's also a cool setting with zero Gain and the Bias at about halfway: clean boost with a hint of mud around the edges. That said I don't really think the Bias knob has any other options than full on or full off but then again I might be wrong...

Seems very solid. If you don't kick it around it should be undestructable, or at least as much so as anything else on the market. Don't need a backup, unless you're paranoid.

No experience.

I play roots-oriented rock, blues, funk etc. and think this is quite close to the sound I hear in my head. I've been playing for 16 years and I think I know by now what I like without neceserily needing to compare anything side by side. I DID compare this to a Fulltone OCD in the shop and liked this one better. It sounds good with the TS9 driving it's input and would probably sound nice with other boosters as well. It is very sensitive to pick-ups and everything else so you really need to find the right matches for it.
It made me sound good and I will keep it untill I find something that does the job better. Not that I'm looking anymore, though.

Takes a while to dial this pedal in. No manual is needed, just a good ear. This pedal loves single coils, and has the most useable range for Tele's and Strat's . You need to dial back the gain about a quarter turn for humbuckers, or plug into the number 2 input of a Fender amp.

I'm using this with a Fender '52 reissue Tele, a Les Paul with alnico humbuckers, and a Victoria 35310 (Tweed Fender Bandmaster). I dropped a Fulltone Distortion Pro for this pedal. I felt this pedal captures tube sag better than the Fulltone. It also makes the bass control on my amp come alive. That said, I still keep the bass between 3 and 4, as most Fender amps should never have the bass above 5. The Bandmaster sounds more focused and dampened, like a 4x12 cab. This pedal sounds nice at low volumes, where the Fulltone starts sounding good when the amp is driven. The Distortion Pro is a great pedal, but this is a hair cooler.

The class A and B knob is what makes this pedal. Class A is harmonically saturated. I tend to turn up the treble on my amp in this mode. Class B is more open and defined in the top end. Both sound great, and having a choice makes this pedal versatile. This pedal can go from fairly clean to smokin'. More gain than most classic rockers need. I generally use it from 9:00 to 12:00 ( When my neighbors go to sleep) Beyond 12:00 is the more modern Marshall/ Boogie territory.

Too early to tell.

No experience. I've heard good things.

I play just about everything. I don't play death/speed metal. I've owned: the TS9, the Turbo Tube Screamer, the Fulltone Fulldrive 2, Soulbender, and Distortion Pro, the Budda Phatman, the Meas V-Twin, the Way Huge Swollen Pickle, and the B.K. Butler designed Chandler Tube Driver. I've dumped them all, except the Way Huge 'cause it's Way Cool. As far as creamy tube amp overdrive/distortion, this unit is the best I've found. The only other pedal I wish I'd kept is the Fulltone Soulbender, though it's not really in the same class as this pedal.

I've owned most of the great amps of all time and know what they sound like cranked (Tweed Bassmans, Blackface Twins and Deluxe Reverbs, Matchless, etc.). No pedal captures it exactly, but the point is to get as close as possible at reasonable volume levels. This pedal can make a big amp sound great a low volume levels. On the flip side, I had my Bandmaster on 11 the other day, and I was listening from about 40 feet away. Amazing crunch tone on it's own. Turning on this pedal set to low gain, the Bandmaster sounded much bigger.

I find it easy to get a good sound, but there are lots of different sounds. The controls are subtle yet interact well to give a wide range of sounds. The fact that there are many different sounds which need experimentation means the pedal scores 8 instead of 10. This is definitely not a criticism.

I use mostly a variety of strats through a Fender Blues Jr and a Pro Jr together, as well as a Peavey classic 30 and a JCM900. I have a ton of other pedals - my chain is as follows: Crybaby > Boss CS3 compressor > TS808 > Reezafratzitz > Boogie V Twin > DD2 > Boss Chorus Ensemble.
The pedal is dead quiet, although I am using it for lower gain sounds and the V Twin for high gain. The EMMA could easily handle high gain, but I like being able to switch between both live.
The EMMA is a really organic sound, like SRV or Doyle Bramhall. I also love the way it cleans up so well when I back off the guitar volume, unlike the V Twin which is too muddy when I back the guitar vol pot off.
Very rarely have I heard a pedal which can do low and high gain so convincingly.

Only had it a couple of months. I've gigged it a few times with no problems, but other than that I've no experience.
As I said I have the Tubescreamer and the V Twin so if something went wrong with any piece of equipment I could make do with the others.
Therefore I give the pedal a 10 in faith!

I play blues, rock and pop and I've found this pedal an absolute gem. The gain spends most of its time below 9 0'clock, but there is so much on tap if I ever need it, which is cool.

I'm a pedal junky so I might be tempted to go for another brand if this was stolen, but I cannot imagine a better sound for the money so I figure I'd end up with another EMMA. I tried several HAO and Blackstone pedals in Charlie Chandlers and was frustrated with them. When I said this to Charlie, he said - try out the Reezafratzitz - it really sounds like a stack on 10. Straight away the sound was a killer.

So here's my review.I dont think that the reezaa is a easy one. Being a hard strummer, it gives to much gain. Give it a slight strum and it's beats any screamer or od. You have to give attention
to the bias control. So ease of use is only a 7. (You really have to learn to use this stomb box). IT'S NOT REALLY A STOMB BOX FOR NOVICES.

I like it. It has some softness and is't transparent, though it distort very esaly. (Sorry my spelling).

So far no problem.

I can only give it a 9. because of the things mentioned above.

It is an overdrive/distortion pedal with 4 knobs...how hard could it be? The only thing most players won't be used to is the bias control, but your ears will tell you where that needs to be set, just like anything else.

As others have said, it is that bias control that puts this pedal in a class by itself. It is almost like being able to change tubes (or even amps) by merely turning a knob...genius!

OMG (Oh, My God)! It doesn't get any better than this. I have never heard a pedal that has such cool sonic character of its own, yet maintains the sonic character of your instrument...my Gibson 335 sounds like the best damn 335 ever made, and my American Strat sounds like the best Strat ever.

I haven't tried it with my old Super yet (waiting on tubes), but I've been using it with my VHT Pittbull head through vintage Fender 10's mounted in two sand-filled, Mitchell bass-reflex cabinets (yeah, kind of weird cabinets for guitar, but I like strong, low-end presence in my guitar sound).

This pedal can give you pretty much any sound you want, except for the Slipknot, Godsmack category. Anything else you'd want is there and really easy to find - from SRV to Clapton to Brian May to EVH. In fact, every millimeter or so of adjustment of any knob is a whole new, very cool tone.

Since that VHT has 4 switchable gain settings, I thought I might not even need a distortion pedal...now I don't think I'll ever turn it off.

Surprisingly, it is not true bypass like my Zinky pedal, but it has some sort of capacitor storage - when you unplug it during use, the sound fades gradually...still, there is no noticeable loss when bypassed. So don't let any "true-bypass-snobbery" get in the way...this pedal sounds better than anything I've used or even heard!

Seems very well-built. It is in a sturdy, almost square metal box, like the Menatone stuff. I've only had it for about a week, so it had better be reliable so far!

It has a small, simple circuit board visible when you access the battery, and it also has this enclosed, black molded area which is probably where the all the good stuff is (they may have done this to hide their magic). If something were to fail inside there, it would not be repairable, but easily replaceable.

I would trust it under any condition, but I always have bring backups of everything, including guitars and amps.

Never had to contact them...probably never will.

I play a wide variety of blues, rock, R&B, "pop", jazz, melodic metal, and country...cover and original...live and session work (including work with multi-platinum artists). I have been at it since I was 7, making it 36 years now. This pedal is the perfect match to my variety of styles.

I have some old vintage pedals that I've owned since the 70's, numerous Boss boxes from the 80's, plus some newer boutique stompers like Zinky, George Dennis, Holowon, and Cat's Eye. All those pedals are cool and have some good sounds, but none as good (or as many) as the EMMA.

The biggest problem is that any movement of any knob gives a whole different sound, which can be a great thing, but it also means you may want to mark it to get back to certain sounds you want. In fact, it has tempted me to get a few of them so I can switch to other great sounds more quickly, though I generally prefer the bias toward the right...seems to give a real round, American "tubey" effect...more tubey that my Hafler tube pre-amp! Biasing left is more British sounding.

If it were stolen I would want to hunt them down and beat them senseless, but being non-violent, I would just buy another one.

Even if your as dumb as a sack of hammers, you can operate this pedal.
dead simple. The bias control, just tweek till it tastes good.
The hardest thing about this pedal is pronouncing it.

I'm running this into a non master vol. silverface pro reverb. Strats, single coil and double fat. Hey Folks, this is the most quite distortion pedal ever. period. What really impressed me was the versitility. With silgle coils you can get that just over the edge breakup,( ala vince gill, or keith urban) go to humbuckers and a little more gain and your in early zz top ( brown sugar) mode. A little more gain and a twist on the bias , ez Ac/dc , all the way to Hoobastank grind , if thats what ya need. But this pedal is more than just varying stages of gain. Its interactive, just like a good tube amp should be, very touch sensitive, back off your guitar vol. and it sounds like a JTM 45 plexi, just backed off a tad. And The harder you hit it the more it grinds. Beautiful harmonics.
Getting sounds as good as my buddies Hot Cat 30, not identical, but close enough without me spending $3500 for a bad cat. Plus I still have the pro reverbs wonderful clean sound, 2x12's, tube driven spring reverb and tremelo.
I love this pedal.

On the inside it has the big goop brick around the electronics so it might be kinda tuff to get worked on, I best fill out my warrentee card. overall it looks very solid. Pretty thick PCB and nice heavy duty inputs. It should last awhile.

never dealt with the company so Im not sure but for the price I could always get another one if it breaks.

After going through tons of distortion boxes I think this Emma has cured my g.a.s. In the last few years Ive had, ( matchless hotbox, badcat 2tone, zinky true grit, way huge red llama clone, zvex super hard on, reverend drive train, about 4 modded tube screamers, boss ds-1, mxr+, fulldrive, and a few others. ) Out of all these the zinky, llama, and hard on, were the best sounding. The llama sounds a little thin in the bass department compared to the Emma. The Reezafratzitz also has more complexity to it, more organic sounding.
With this pedal It sounds like I'm taking a bluesbreaker, orange, soldano, and a bad cat to the gig, but at the end of the night I only have to load my old pro reverb.
Ive been around the block and through the barn. You Youngsters take it from a old pro.
If you are in need for a good distortion box. Try this pedal. for the money you wont find a better one.

It has four controls: LEVEL, TONE, BIAS, GAIN. As other users have already explained the BIAS control is what really makes this unit happen. You do have to be careful though, because even very small movements on the controls yield big differences in tone and drive. In any case, with four controls out which only one is "new", how hard can it be? I'll give it a 9 because I had to spend time learning what the BIAS does... actually I still find myself learning.

I think it's safe to say that this is by far the best overdrive/distortion pedal I have heard. It's not that I have heard a whole lot of different pedals, but I think I've heard the important ones, such as the Tubescreamer, the Maxon remake of the TS, various Fulltone OD's and just about every sensible - that means you can count out all the METAL this and that boxes - BOSS overdrive pedal and the ReezaFRATzitz beats them all hands down. It's as if it's in a whole other category.
I run the ReezaFRATzitz through two Fender Riviera-era tube amps, and I can go from a schweeeet, mellow blues OD to an insane lean-mean-war-machine-over-the-top-Distortion that I wouldn't even know how to use.

Bottomline: Deep down the ReezaFRATzitz appearantly thinks it's a rackmountable tube-preamp; it both sounds and acts like one.

It's a stompbox made from metal. It's hand-wired. It has one of those switches that's been around for ages. It'll last as long as I will. I'm not sure how to kill without the use of some serious power tools or a sledgehammer... and now why would I want to do that?

With EMMA being a Danish product and me being a Dane from Denmark I can go shake the makers hand if I want. Only yesterday I sent him an email with a few questions and his reply came the next morning. These things are handbuilt, so I guess you can expect that in case you do contact them they will know what you are talking about.

I play instrumental, fusion, progressive, rock, some blues all by my lonesome and I can use this for anything, not because I dont have any other overdrive (cuz I do) but because it really is very versatile. If you play an electric guitar and you play anything but country, get the ReezaFRATzitz... in spite of the name!

This is just plug and play! No work! It has Level, Gain, Tone and Bias. The first three are well known of course... What Bias excactly does??? Just try it, both ways sound good!! Close it for more compresses sound and open it.... well yeah that opens up the sound, not dramatically but more subtle.

I run a G&L S-500 or a Fender Tele Custom through a '66 Fender Bandmaster stack. I play mostly clean and choose this amp for its great clean tones!! I'm a sucker for tone... when this amp is nicely warmed up and you crank it a little...or little pushed by a boost pedal.. ooohhhh yeah baby.. the real thing!!

But the crunchy tones as mentioned above a quite easy to obtain, just an old tube fender amp and some volume.. but as a broadly musically oriented guitarplayer you sometimes gonna need real GAIN next to your nice SVR sounds!! And that's were the pain begins... because now you have to place some tonesucker pedal in front of it that's gonna eat up your warm tube sound!!!

I think that 99% of al the distortion and overdrive pedals are nice and very useable....................... by means no one in the audience is gonne say "Yeah really nice band.. but too bad that the guitar player kicked in his Boss overdrive in stead of a SuperPricyBoutique pedal..." No one cares, but as a thrue sucker for tone I tried plenty of pedals and was never satisfied... UNTILL NOW!! The Emma ReesaFRATzitz (it's all in a name) is the 1%!!!!! it has a TUBE QUALITY TONE that I have never heard from any other brand!!!! When you dail in highs the tone becomes not just trebbly causing your bassplayer an earbleeder!! No the sound just opens up and stays musically usefull up to the max!! And no mud in the bass or whatsoever!! No "who just put a knive in my speaker" flubby basssounds! Just pumping low stings with loads of attack even when gain is at max!!!! Just perfect!!! Try it and you're sold!! Defenitely the best od/dist box ever!!!

Built like a brick! Foresee no harm!

Not tried yet...