ElectroniX PunchDrive "Amfi" Distortion

I bought this on a whim looking for a mid/high gain distortion box that would fit nicely between a VoodooLab Sparkle Drive and a ZVex Box of Metal. It's got three knobs, a toggle, and a footswitch so it's not terribly hard to operate in a literal sense, however it's remarkably picky and takes a while to dial in. This is not a "set it and forget it" pedal, it acts differently with every tonal adjustment you make both before and after it in the signal chain but it's not so terribly difficult to work with that you won't be able to get some decent tones out of it. There is no manual for the pedal and the pedal is evidently the third incarnation of this particular effect.

At the moment I'm using an ESP LTD EC-256 as my main guitar. The amp is a Mesa/Boogie Mark 1 Reissue head and a Genz Benz G-Flex 2x12 cabinet. The pedalboard consists of (in order): Rocktron Hex; Korg DT-10; VoodooLab Sparkle Drive; ElectroniX PunchDrive Amfi; ZVex Box of Metal; Tech21 Boost R.V.B.

May I go ahead and put on the record that this is, without question, the quietest distortion box I've ever messed with, and messing with distortion boxes is one of my all-time favorite things to do. With every knob dimed and the toggle on the "lead" setting, it's still quieter than modest settings on most other boxes I've played around with. Lots of love to ElectroniX for this.

The pedal itself is quite versatile as a tone shaping tool with plenty of adjustment and a nifty little toggle switch to change modes between "crunch" and "lead". The "lead" mode is hotter and a good bit louder with better note articulation than the "crunch" mode. I really haven't found much use for the "crunch" mode, to be perfectly honest, as it seems that the "lead" mode does everything just a little bit better.

The pedal really doesn't like the "Punch" knob turned less than halfway as it can start to sound a bit choppy and kind of dull. In fact the tone of the pedal improves exponentially the higher you turn this knob. Unfortunately the distortion also increases dramatically so if you're looking for a light distortion (or even a well rounded mid gain distortion) then look elsewhere. There is a "Bright" knob that works well as a tone shaping tool (similar to the presence knob on many amps) but with a bit more high frequency control, it's very sensitive and you'll be adjusting it very often. The "Level" knob doesn't seem to affect the tone of the pedal at all, only the output level.

This pedal really wants to sound like a cranked Marshall stack when used run through a clean amp. In that regard it mostly fails, however it does have a great tone that is all it's own. It doesn't push an awful lot of either the lows or the highs and comes out sounding like a lo-fi effect in front of a JCM800. I find the ideal way to use this pedal is to back off of the "Punch" knob a little bit and use my Sparkle Drive in front of it to compensate. With an OD up front it sounds more natural and does a much better job of sounding like cranked stack. In fact I never use this pedal by itself anymore since I discovered it sounds so good with the OD up front. By itself the pedal is very good though.

600 years after the third world war ends, the survivors of humanity will dig this pedal out of the rubble, still in perfect operating condition.

No experience dealing with ElectroniX other than the actual purchase.

I play a lot of hard rock. I need a lot of versatility with my distorted tones so I keep the amp clean and layer various distortion boxes to get what I need. This one fits in very nicely with the rest of my setup and has done exactly what I purchased it for. It's a small pedal and takes a standard 9vdc adapter so working it in was no problem at all. It's versatile enough for my needs and a lot more versatile than many other distortion boxes. It's kind of like an MI Audio Crunch Box, but more lo-fi sounding and with less noise.

It's certainly not a pedal for the masses, but I'd get another one if something happened to it. The price is outstanding for a good distortion box, especially a handmade one (built to order, actually) with true bypass. It gets a 10 from me.