IndyGuitarist Pinnacle 2

I would give this pedal an 8 for ease of use. It has a volume, gain, tone, contour knobs, and a bright switch. The tone knob and contour knob are very interactive. In addition the bright switch adds quite a bit of brightness in some settings and less in others. However, I only would give a ten in this category for pedals that tend to be one trick ponies. That is set the tone near the middle, gain, and volume, like a tubescreamer. This pedal is capable of so many different sounds that require a bit more tweaking. When I really had a chance to spend sometime with this pedal, I found it extremely easy to find a broad range of useful sounds. However, you'll need to spend some time with it to find your favorite settings quickly. This isn't a flaw, it's just the nature of something that is versatile.
If you set the tone at 12:00 the tone is neutral and therefore the contour essentially does nothing. In other words the contour knob effects how the pedal boosts or cuts. This is what gives the pedal so much versatility. In addition, the pedal has a boost switch which does less of a volume boost and more of a gain boost. When it's off the pedal functions more like an overdrive, when it's on if functions more like a distortion. That being said, you can get some pretty heavy sounds from the overdrive side with the gain maxed.
As for ergonomics, this pedal is easy to switch on an off. I've always prefered boss style on and off for their ease, but this pedal isn't tremendously thick, so it's easier to turn on and off than most other pedals with metal switches. After all, it's the mechanical metal switch (3pdt's to be exact) that allow the pedal to be true bypass.
In summary, you'll need to spend some time with it to find your favorite sounds, but if you set the knobs at 12:00 you'll have a great all around sound until you have some time to spend.

I use a Fender American Lonestar strat (2 single coils one Semour Pearly gates humbucker in the bridge.) I also use a Gibson Les Paul. My main amp is a Carvin 100xb tube amp with a 2x12 vintage thirty closed back cabinet. I use this pedal on the amp's clean channel, primarily by itself, but sometimes with delay or reverb. I also use this pedal with a vox 15-watt solid state pathfinder with an 8-inch speaker, which is my practice amp.

When I first got this thing, I plugged in my strat and set all the knobs at 12:00 and adjusted only the volume to balance with my clean, since I got it just before a concert. I usually wouldn't do something this risky. Nevertheless, it sounded amazing in its neutral settings.

First: how it sounds with my strat: Plenty of creamy strat sounds in distortion and OD modes. With my bridge humbucker, this thing gets into metal territory with the gain up in distortion mode. The amount of useful overdrive sounds is incredible. You can get a good soft break up and classic rock sorts of sounds to push a tube amp. Dialing in the tone and contour knobs provide all sorts of different sounds. It's like having tons of different pedals in one. The same thing can be said for the distortion mode. It allows my strat to still sound like a strat. Nevertheless, it also has an amazing amount of natural compression and the notes ring out forever like a les paul would, you don't need to have a compressor with this pedal on.
Now for the Les Paul: I particularly like the way it works with the bridge pickup. Lots of chunk and enough gain for metal. I did find more settings on my strat that I liked than the Les Paul, but that's not a problem at all. What's important is that I found several settings that sound absolutely amazing with my Les Paul. At first, I wasn't thrilled with what it did with the neck humbucker. However, once I played around with it for a bit I discovered that I was able to get amazing fuzz tones. I generally don't go for the fuzz sound, but this pedal can do this well too if that's your thing.

I also ran this thing through the paces with my practice amp. Still sounds warm and has tons of versatility.
In short, this pedal sounds amazing with single coils and humbuckers. It has plenty of bass, but not too much and can do so many things well, not just the brown sound that it is known for. The great sound clips that the builder, Brian Wampler has on his site are just the beginning of what this pedal is capable of. The bright switch gives this pedal even more versatility. It was designed to make the pedal function better with dark sounding amps when turned on. It serves this purpose well, Personally, I found a totally different pallet of settings available using the switch on and off. Some combo's of the tone, contour, and gain sounded great with the switch one way while others sounded great with them the other way. Experimentation is key.
I've owed at least 15 different dist/od boxes in my life and used countless others. I've never been this impressed with a pedal before. Some pedals can do a lot of things decently, while others can do one thing really well. This pedal does a lot of things really well. It's way warmer than any pedal that I've used. I'm tempted to buy another for my board just so I can have more sounds available in concert without changing settings. This pedal would be great for getting many different sounds while recording. I never give anything a ten but this thing gets it. It makes both my strat and les paul sound better than anything else I've ever used them with- including tube amps, and I've owned a lot of nice gear over the years. It also gets tons of great useful sounds from soft clip to high gain.

I have and do gig without a backup. Brian is an expert builder and takes pride in his work. It seems built like a tank with sturdy knobs, jacks, and switches. I haven't had any problems and don't anticipate any.

I've gotten help from indyguitarist, which is Brian Wampler on several occasions. I also own all 3 of his Ebooks on effect building and modifications. He has quickly replied to several emails that I have had regarding questions about how to do modifications. I have no doubt he would give first rate service if I ever needed him to fix this qualify pedal.

I play all sorts of music. This is the best od/ dist pedal that I have ever owned. It makes both of my guitars sound better than they ever have. It sounds amazing even with my practice amp. It can get such an amazing variety of excellent sound. I've been playing music my whole life and guitar for the past 15 years. I've owned tons of pedals and experimented with many more and this pedal blows them all away hands down. If you were to buy only one pedal, this would be the one to buy. It's so tweakable and versatile that I don't see how anyone could ever get tired of it. If you play any type of rock, metal, classic rock, even blues, you can get great sounds with this pedal.

Note, the dist/od switch isn't the best solo boost, since it doesn't boost the volume enough and isn't adjustable. However, this switch wasn't made for this purpose. It tends to simply increase the gain into more of a distortion setting, which does tend to boost the volume a bit. The switch is useful for what it was made for: to give the player an overdrive and distortion in one pedal that can be switched between in concert with close to the same volume.

Very versatile lots of different sounds available. Countour and tone knob take a little time to get used because they are very interactive and can change tone dramatically.

When I first got this pedal I was using a epi les paul studio and while I thought it was alot better then my SD-1 i was a little dissapointed. Last week I bought a fender USA Vintage 52 reissue tele man was that a change using that into the pinnacle into a behringer AB100 switcher (seems to improve tone making it tighter) into a Fender Pro Junior. This pedal rocked with tone, gain and contour on 3 o clock and bright switch off on both od and dist modes it had tons of sustain and I was amazed that i was playing a tele.
Today i tried it through both my fender pro junior and a 60s AC30 on the normal channel. I put the contour and gain on full, bright switch on and tone at 12 o clock. Man I got a great classic metal (early metallica) sound, who would of though u could get a good metal tone out of a vintage tele (single coils) into a vox and tweed based fender. I then put the countour at 3 0 clock and got a great nirvana rythmn tone like a BOSS DS-1 but 10000 times better.
This pedal is very transperant if you have a so-so guitar this pedal wont make it sound like a $10000 but put in it a good rig and it will make everyone else rig looks shit.
I only give it a 9 because it wont turn my 10' combo into a valve stack (no transistor pedal will) but i have yet to hear anything better at any price mind at this price level (cheaper then pedals that arent half as good)

The case seems to be very strong. The first day i had it, it started playing up and the rythmn channel didnt work but i replugged it in and its worked fine ever since.

Brian is very helpful and I have had no problems with him

Very good, transperant but versatile pedal. GREAT BUy, highly recommended

Very easy to use. plug it in and move a few nobs. Lots of sounds. from vox to marshall to tubescreamer and a cool nasaly telephone sound all cool. They recomend some settings in the manual that work well.

This thing can rock. You can have a nice light distortion with the overdrive and kick on the dist. side for great crunch and lead. This last weekend I used the hell out of it with a Peavey delta blues amp. The amp is awesome for classic rock and great clean but we also do some heavier stuff like alice in chains and metallica along with some classic rock and some country. The pedal was great for the heavier side of things and the classic rock stuff. with the gain cranked and the distortion side on it would get a little noisy but its a distortion pedal. It could be controlled easily with dropping your guitar volume knob real quick just a hair or if you had some sort of noise suppressor. But look out, you just might like what you can get out of this thing better than your amps distortion.

Looks really well built. Everything is solid. Although its tuff to say because I've only had it a little while, I'm sure it will last as long as any pedal out there and probably longer.

their awesome. I believe every email I've sent I've gotten a response back.

I've been playing for about 8 years now or so and I use to use a tubescreamer and a metal zone pedal for heavier stuff, then I saw indyguitarist website and the pinnacle 2 and listened to clips and it sounded great and the idea of a dist. and o/d all in one would be awesome and save some stomp room for me. Also you get seven days no questions asked if you don't like it send it back. But it's a keeper and it's looking like the other two pedals may be going. Or maybe I'll keep them and just set all the pedals at diff sounds. We'll see but either way this is the best distortion/overdrive pedal I've heard and used.

it is easy to use. tone contour drive level and bright switch on/off and boost. tone is mids and highs contour is mids and low. choice of paint or etched aluminum. paint is ok. but not super. no battery only 9vdc input. so you must have a pedal board or wall wart. the tone contour and bright switch are very sensitive but easy to use and interact well with one another. most players may prefer the bright switch off. as it can be peircing.

distortion goes from a light overdrive sound to a heavy distortion until you kick in the boost. sounds like a reverend drive train II or maybe an 808/tube screamer but fuller in the mids and lows but not excessive. turn on the bright switch and your in ibanez or boss teritory only fuller sound. nothing synthetic very rich and harmonic. would recomend it over a boss,maxon or ibanez. its on when it is on so no touch sensitivty play hard all you want it will not increase the drive however rolling back your volume does greatly effect both the tone and drive. very cool. now engage the boost and you get more gain and its good gain. does not compress much just adds more drive i like to max the drive with the boost on and wala instant sound garden
like from bad motor finger and before. reminds me of my fav grunge bands however you can hear all the notes great note seperation. very soldano meets jcm900/800. you can coax some mid scooped sounds but be warned you will not go beyond into metallica teritory or nu metal. this pedal is best described as heavy rock and crunch. i play through a heath kit 6v6 amp into a 2x12 greenback 3/4 box and into a fender blues junior in to the same cab. this pedal does not tax your ear s on the contrary the longer you play the better is sounds. dont know why it just does. i may recomend an eq pedal after the pinnacle II for all control freaks and at the very least you should play into a tube pre amp or tube amp. you will want to crank this pedal! it wont get a ten but a nine pont five would be more accurate.

very nice build switches are silent and the lights are bright

great web sight. would like to mod this pedal's treble switch to a three position switch for light treble bosst to current value. i think its an option if not there are books for sale by indy guitarist on there web page on how to perform mods and build your own pedals. there web page seems sincere and reasonable.

i like metal rock college indy blues and jazz ive been a bassit for 15 years and guitarist for three. by the way this pedal sounds good with bass as well very natural bass distortion very cool. if lost i would buy another maybe custom order with some specific mods i really like the price. i love the variety of sounds i can get with this pedal it does a great telephone lo-fi sound with the contour all the way down by the way. its very natural tube saturation ish. nothing i really hate about the pedal i a m happy with the money i spent even when my wife saw the receipt. $99.00 used alot for us. the distortion is inspiring. I bought this pedal after hearing the reveiwer below play it. didnt even need to try it myself i knew it was a good buy. as soon as he put it back on the shelf after comparing it to several other brands and walked out only to keep his pennacle II secure in his case i bougtht it. he had an etched version. i have not regreted it yet.

Pretty easy to get good sounds out of this pedal. There is two tone shaping controls on it which are very usable

Now this is my second pedal from Brian. The first was the Overdose Distortion pedal. I liked the Overdose so much I had to get this pedal too. This pedal is less scooped sounding and is more flexible than the Overdose. If I had to choose, I'd choose this pedal for my style. I do mostly Blues/Rock based stuff. If I were to do heavy metal or nu-metal stuff, I'd choose the Overdose. The sound of this pedal is second to none, full, yet transparent. Gives me the gain and sustain without changing the foundation of my tone. Sounds like a high quality head. My amp has no internal distortion. (Divided by 13 with T. Anderson Drop tops) This pedal was the answer for me. Thanks Brian!

I don't forsee any problems. It's built well.

Brian has never failed to answer one of my e-mails. I'm sure if I had a problem, he would take care of it. Reminds me of Geoff Teese of RMC wahs...Which is a good thing. Geoff answers e-mails instantly it seems. Brian, while not quite as prompt, is very responsive.

This pedal replaced my Keeley Modded DS-1. It is quieter, sweeter, and more responsive than any overdrive/distortion I've used...and that says alot. The price is more than right too.