Rothwell Switchblade

A 3-knob distortion. I think that all the readers of this rewiev should bee familiar with this kind of stompbox.

I bought this little distortion for playing my 18W Marshall at home. I take the lower of the two inputs of the vobratochannel. The volume of the amp is on 1 the tone is on 9,2. With my LP standard and the switshblade between amp and guitar I get nearly the same sound as if the amp would be set on 10 of the normal channel. So it is absolut perfect for me, since the switchblede reacts very well when changing the guitars volume or tone pots. A great vintage distortion without disturbing the neighbours.

Seems to be well build, but I can??t say anything about reliability because I bought it just a few days ago.

Never dealt with them.

For my need it is perfect, but I could imagine that a lot of guitar players would like a little bit more of distortion. It is not a modern high gain device. What you get is a 60s or early 70s distortion at its best with a great boost, so if you got any distortion from your amp you??ll reach high gain easyly.

About 6 months ago I was in the market for a new distortion pedal, I was trying to get a 'mid atlantic' tone, somewhere between Orange and Boogie, I was already chuffed to bits with my Laney LC30 (MkII), which both my Gibson Les paul DC and Eggle LA PRO II sounded great through at the 'UK' end of the scale and went some way to the USA sound but I felt it needed an extra push to get it all the way to California!

I looked at the Blackstar but opted for the Switchblade. Straight out of the box It added the factor I was looking for. The 3 pot controls, Volume, Tone and Gain I set at mid sweep through a clean channel on the Laney, Plugged in the DC and was immediately impressed by the quality of the distortion. Digging the pick right in provoked a pleasing harmonic ring that suggested a much larger amp being driven. I backed off the gain and got a slightly overdriven vibe that responded well to chords played hard. The Volume control seemed to push the amp well, and apparently it could be used as a sort of clean boost if the gain is pretty much off. On this point, it is worth noting that the output from the Switchblade is high, Rothwell recommend in the instructions that care is taken not to overload the input of any other pedals following the SB. The tone I set at just beyond mid-sweep and pretty much left it there. At this point I switched to channel 2 and found the sound I was really looking for. With an already overdriven valve sound (Vol 4, Drive 5,Bass 8 Mid 6,treb 7) the pedal really kicked off,Vol up to about 2 o'clock, gain 11 o'clock and tone about 2 o'clock. It was not a 100w triple rectifier on 11, but it was heading in roughly that direction, Aggressive picking gave a decent growl to power chords that, even through my 30 watt combo, sounded meaty and californian. Close miked with an SM57 the sound that went to tape was fab.

As I have described, the sound is certainly modern, but when mixed with classic valve overdrive there are quite a few variations available, Certainly the effect is much milder when driven by the single coils of the Eggle, but turning the gain full tilt,even with this guitar, it still becomes very saturated and naturally the noise level increases, personally,I found this sound less useable, but for that infinite power ballad lead break sustain, it could be just the ticket. Note definition in power chords is still sort of there. However the pedal works best for me and there is no noise, when the gain is between 1/4 and mid sweep and volume around the just over mid mark.

Feels well made, not an awful lot to go wrong.

Never needed, but When I emailed to see if they had any other pedals
such as chorus etc, the response was friendly and informative.

Been playing about 30 years and still delusional about rock stardom, mostly self penned rock toons that veer alarmingly between foo fighters and puddle of mudd at one end to barenaked ladies and Bruce Hornsby at the other. The 3 piece I play in is more at home recording in our self built studio than on a pub stage, but you know, if I was to get out there again and this pedal got lifted, I'd be outside the shop at 9.00am the next morning to get another.