EMMA RF-1 ReezaFRATzitz

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...

Great range of OD/distorted tones available! Easy to dial in a good tone. The Bias knob is kind of subtle - don't expect a huge change in tone. I think it affects the feel of the pedal. All the way to the right it has a faster, harder attack. the pedal takes on a more spongy "tube sag" feel with the bias knob to the left. It reminds me of the full power - "tweed" power switch on my mesa Boogie MKIV.

Sounds very tube-like. It has a more modern than vintage tone to me. I've tried several high gain pedals recently and this is the keeper. As a bonus, the lower gain tones are also very good which I've found is usually not the case with a pedal. You usually only get a good low gain or a good high gain tone. The tone control is also pretty cool. Around 4-6 o'clock it sounds pretty transparent and up to 7-8 o'clock it adds nice presence. I think it gets on the "too bright" side all the way to the right. EVH tone to my ears - plus other tones in the lower gain area that sound great. The kind of product that makes you play better. I know that sounds stupid to some people but I've found it to be true with a few pieces of gear. Harmonics jump off the fretboard and it's one of the most quiet pedals I've ever tried. High quality stuff here.

Seems very solid.

N/A

Great high gain tones! Very amp-like. I've had a Distortion Pro and have a Varidrive, Soulbender, Distortion Booster, GT2, Keeley Rat and several other OD/distortion pedals and the Reezafratzitz is a new fave.

Pretty basic except for the BIAS control wich brings this pedal into a leaque of its own. It takes no time to figure this wonder out.

This Pedal is awesome. I don't even use the distorted channel in my amp anymore, just the clean channel and the RezaFratzitz

Had no problems with this one whatsoever. It's sturdy and rock solid.

Had no problems with it. no need for support.

I play everything, I've been playing for a lifetime and the pedal just need a tweak to fit any style. It responds as an amp and doesn't cover up my style or sound. It's a bit weird that this pedal sounds so much better than any tubedriven pedal I've tried. I've used so many overdrives and distortions but this one beats em all. If it were stolen I'd buy two, one for use and one for backup locked in an armoured safe.

Sure, easy to use.

Well, I was a long time searching for a distortion pedal. I wanted a tonload of gain (so I could back it off if I wanted to), I wanted the tone of my guitar to survive passing the pedal (so no cutting off bass), I wanted something with pickattack (so no fuzzy inarticulate mess) and I wanted it to have nice (in stead of harsh) harmonics.
Well, I was a long time searching for the ultimate distortion pedal. I wanted a ton load of gain (so I could back it off if I wanted to), I wanted the tone of my guitar to survive passing the pedal (so no cutting off bass), I wanted something with pick attack (so no fuzzy inarticulate mess) and I wanted it to have nice (in stead of harsh) harmonics.

You might think it is easy to find such a thing, but I had some troubles. First off al, there are three ways to go in the pedal world; you can go for the mass-produced Boss-kind-off-pedals, you can go modded or you can go boutique. The first category is a bare acre. But handmade distortion pedals are few, the boutiques seem to concentrate on overdrive- and fuzz pedals. I tried the Fulltone DP-1 but that just didn't have the gain, it's way to easy. Instead of distortion it's more like an overdrive, it?s nice but it doesn?t provide enough gain. So maybe a modded pedal, I tried a Keeley DS-1 SEM. Perhaps it's in the pu's that I use (Lace sensor silver), but it didn't have a ton load of gain and when I increased the gain it produced nasty upper harmonics.

Then I saw the Reezafratzitz in the window off a local guitar shop proclaiming it to be the best distortion pedal in the world. I tried it and was impressed; it has all of the features mentioned above. Does it do anything else? No, but I don't care for this is, finally, a decent distortion pedal.

What it all boils down to is that this pedal sounds amazing, but that shouldn't be a surprise regarding the fact that it lives up to the features mentioned above.

It looks sturdy enough but time will tell.

Don't know and I?d rather not find out.

Use this in combination with a RMC-1 Wah and an overdrive (either a Banzai Fireball or a Maxon OD-820)in front of it and a Boss CH-1 and an Ibanez AD99 analogue delay after it. Play rock of al kinds and this covers a lot of ground. The gain is set on one o'clock and that enough for a thick rocksound. The bias is on eleven o'clock but I'm still experimenting with that feature.

It has the standard distortion/OD controls Level, tone and Gain. So realy easy. Only the bias control needs a little time to work-out, but if you do, it'll do things no other dist/od pedal does.

I use a '73 Marshall Superlead head, wich is a very basic but extremely TONEfull amp, with a 4x12 greenback loaded speakercab. Together with Fender Strat and Les Paul type guitars. I play alot of types of rock and blues music, so i needed an OD/dist. that would cover all, and my main goal is TONE.I'm a big fan of real tube tone. I bought this pedal in 5 minutes after a guy in the store showed it to me, and i tried it out. caus it HAS TONE!! ALot of it. from soft edgy crujch for blues (with a strat it's great!) to supersaturated distortion and solo/lead sounds. And here the bias control does magic. From agressive marshall type sounds, to smooth singing vox-sounds. But the low gain crunch and medium gain dist. sounds are magical. Also it has very very little noise, even on higain. My '73 Marshall now sounds like a '73 Marshall that is overdriven, or as a boutique super higain amp! It sounds like an expensive tube pre-amp!! And it satisfies all my od/dist needs, and that's alot, caus i play in 2 coverbands. Soundwise i rate this little stoompbox very high!

Never had problems so far, but i haven't had it for a long time yet. I checked it out on the in- and outside, and this thing is very solidly built, with very good components, so i don't expect any problems. I would trust this little box on stage without a backup

never dealt with them yet

If you're looking for a real professional overdrive/distortion with real tone, and even real tube-like dynamics, harmonics and tone, this is it. I'm sure this will become my permanent od/dist in my setup for the next 100 years or so. I own Les PAul's and strats and the pedal reacts perfectly to both. it's very reactive to your playing style, and to the volume control of the guitars. I've tried hundreds of dist/od pedals, incl. tubeloaded ones, but for me this is it. Just try to find one and try it for yourself.