Tonebone Hot-British Distortion

Setting all knobs 12 o?clock and all switches neutral produces already a usable sound. It?s just much more time consuming to find the sound that suits you best; you won?t get there in the first day. The big problem is the lacking equalization. No mid knob? The mid boost switch affects the frequencies around 360Hz. I mean, WTF?! Since when has 360Hz been considered as mid? It?s much easier to get scooped EQs (read: sucky) out of this box than that upper mid bite, while treble is very prone to insanely bright sizzle. I found it helps when I put the voicing switch on 'fat' (which by the way doesn?t make things fatter, only louder) and the contour knob to max, and the treble knob relatively low.

I haven?t changed the tube yet (I haven?t owned this for that long), but eventually time will come to do that. According to the manual it looks quite confusing. Now I?m not a dim-wit, I will be able to do it, but I just don?t like the idea of disintegrating the whole unit to change one lousy tube. That?s part of the usability, so ease of use -rating won?t score high with Hot British.

The sound is definitely NOT as old school as all the hype claimed. Actually quite smooth (smoother than my personal tastes would prefer) with fine-grained texture and strong compression. But on the other hand it can?t be denied it has the drought and warmth you don?t hear nowadays anymore on the trendy "metal" recordings. I hear the same feel than in sounds of American hard rock and metal albums from the early 90?s. A bit like G?nR with moderate drive settings, and with the drive cranked to max more like death metal from that era (for example Brutal Truth?s Need To Control album, although not that extreme and huge... Ok, not the best example.) The drive around 12 or 1 o?clock, and it fits well for all kinds of metal (remember Skid Row?), and why not even for black metal too, for its rather good chord definition. I just don?t like the lack of ?breath? on higher string chords; it?s tight in that way instead of loose. (Keep in mind that I have a humbucker on my guitar.) Still it?s not tiresome to ears for some reason, and the more I play it, the more I grow to like it, although it?s definitely not MY sound (the sound I hear in my head).

Absolutely the worst part is the tendency for loud buzzing noise. I have the same problem with another distortion pedal that is acclaimed as silent, so I don?t know what the problem is. On the other hand I also have an analogue distortion pedal which noise levels are extremely low. So I guess Hot British doesn?t like my crappy guitar or electricity of my house. Frankly, I expected more noise tolerance for such expensive piece of equipment. However, it seems that this problem can be solved with buying a noise gate, because whenever I make a sound from my guitar, the noise steps aside.

The manual claims that the controls are interactive and "over-compensate" each other. This must be a blatant lie, because when keeping all the other knobs at same settings, distortion characteristic is the exact same whether I put the level knob to 9 o?clock or 5 o?clock. So there?s only one kind of distortion you get from this box, you can change only the gain and equalization. For this reason I?d like to someday try out Stephenson StageHog, which has genuine interactive controls.

Soloing is for some reason not so fun with Hot British. I dunno, it just sounds somehow awkward and not pretty sounding at all. Perhaps you will enjoy the mid boost switch for retro-ish blues solos, but for me there are better soloing distortion devices handy.

Pick attack is smooth and not very accentuated, but articulate on higher strings. On lower strings the pick attack is somehow lacking... As if it had flu. Melechesh?s Sphynx album has similar kind of behaviour of distortion, in case you have heard it.

I don?t know if using an adaptor with different voltage is possible or dangerous to Hot British. The stock power supply is 15 volts, and perhaps such a high voltage causes Hot British to sound the way it does. But I don?t want to fry this box with daring voltage experimentations.

For me, Hot British does only one thing (although it does it well), and that is good all around metal and hard rock rhythm guitaring. For such, the price is ab-so-lute-ly dreadful! For <gasp> 300 euros, a pedal should produce multitude of convincing non-digital sounds for multitude of situations, mow your lawn, and make your coffee as well. I recently found a distortion pedal that kicks Hot British?s ass for far less that 1/3 of its price (RAT 2, if you insist to know). I feel tricked. Tricked into thinking that there is no substitute for a real tube distortion.

But hold on, I?m not ready to part from Hot British, at least not yet. The sound has nice warmth and clarity, and it?s actually quite inspirational and addicting to play through Hot British, resulting in lots of cool riffs. I think I will use it in my future recordings alongside with other distortions. I?m just bitter for the money I spent.

Without the voicing and mid boost switches, this pedal would not be nearly as useful. It takes a while to dial in the right sounds, much like a good tube amp.The controls are very responsive, almost too responsive. Definetly not a "plug in and play" pedal, 8 for this category.

I have tried many marshall amps, and of course listened to countless records featuring the marshall sound.Being very particular about my guitar tone, i was very skeptical as to wether other not the lonely 12ax7 was just a gimmick. First plugging in my american strat into a simple blues jr, I was surprised that even with the gain at 12 the sound still had plenty of sustain and saturation, without the lo fi compression associated with many new transistor pedals. With mid boost,delay,reverb, and a tubescreamer to fatten up the high notes i could get very close to the eric johnson violin tone on the bridge pickup. Soaring leads without getting muddy, even with my sloppy technique. I think the secret is to not dime the gain, as i was used to doing on my other distortion pedals. Next up was my 58' reissue les paul, which when used with other dist pedals was a major disappointment. With a few minor tweaks i was getting the tone i had in mind when i bought the guitar. Fat,warm,responsive,rich les paul humbucking tone found all over the live zeppelin cd "how the west was won". I was very pleased to find that the pedal could mimic the drive of an old plexi as well as the higher gain marshalls, not just another one trick pony. Coming from a guy who is very particular about his distorted tones, this is the closest ive ever come to the ultimate dirt box.

The pedals seems solid enough, but when the time comes to change the tube im in for a hassle. Reading up in the manual, the entire pedal must be taken apart to get at the tube inside.Assuimg the inner electronics are fragile, im very weary of perfoming major surgery on such a great pedal. Tube needs to be replaced every 3 years or so with regular usage, warranty from tonebone only lasts for one year.

I imagine theyre pricks.

Ive owned boss ds-1's,mt2's, Dod's, Big muffs,etc. Nothing has come close to the authentic sound of this pedal. I reccomend this to anyone needing the sound of a marshall or just high quality tube distortion. Brillant,possibly the best distortion pedal on the market today.

I admit that it took me a while to find a sound that I like, but now I do believe that I've got it! It's just that with the controls all being active the slightest move on a dial can make all the differance. I did find a lot of cool tones along the way, but I was trying to find the right sound for me and for the equiptment that I'm using it thru.

I'm using the Hot British with a swamp ash Les Paul loaded with a set of Dimarzio Virtual PAF's. (Outstanding pickups!)My amp is a Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue. (Great amp. Don't let some snobs tell you otherwise). The only change to the amp is a Hellatone 30 speaker from Avatar which is housed in a seperate open back cabinet that I built. I've read some reviews here where people have said the unit is noisey but that's not the case with mine at all. As I said it took me a while to find 'the' sound that would work for me. Part of that process involved trying differant preamp tubes. Mine came with a JJ ECC83S which is a very good tube in certain applications. But for the most part I thought it drove the gain on this pedal to extreames. This pedal is a hot-rod, make no mistake about it, and I thought it needed a bit of calming down. In my humble opinion the two tubes that I felt helped this pedal are a Groove Tubes 12AX7M and a lesser gained EH 5751. I seem to prefer the 12AX7M because to my ears it seemed to give the mids more of a 'wooden' quality which I like and it seemed to calm the gain down somewhat.
A lot of folks have said the Hot British sounds like a Marshall. Keep in mind that I've never played thru a Marshall but I have my own idea of what the Marshall sound is. To me, think Judas Priest's "Living after Midnight", AC/DC's "Back in Black" CD, EVH's tone on "Van Halen II" and Jimmy Pages tone on "How The West Was Won." In my opinion the Hot British does NOT sound anything like the artists tones I've mentioned. It's too high gained for tones like that. To me it's more along the lines of a 5150. Think of EVH's tone on "Fire in the Hole" or on "Aftershock." That's what the Hot British delivers. A very gainey, present and full kind of a sound that will peel the paint off a wall if you want it to. You can also get a decent scooped, Mesa kinda thing too but that's not my preferance.
For what I like to hear and what seems to work best with my equiptment is to have the controls on the Hot British set as follows:
Level: 2:00
High: 12:00 w/ Top End switch set to Flat
Low: 2:30
Contour: 2:30 w/ Voicing Switch set to Notch, Mid Boost set to 7dB
Drive: 11:30
Again, thru my gear I get a great sound that's thick but not too middy or muddy, low with no drone and clear without being ice-pickey. Just a really good modern rocking tone that works for me. Makes my little Deluxe sound HUGE!!

I've had the Hot British for about 2 years now and so far all's fine.

I did e-mail them one time and they never responded. Maybe my message got lost that day. but I have read that the folks at Radial are very helpful.

I'm by no means an expert when it comes to pedals because I've only tried maybe 5 others before buying the Hot British. I know there are other pedals with tubes out there and others that sound pretty good that don't require much of a learning curve compared to this one. But for my needs and for what I like to hear I'm really digging on this pedal since I've found the sound that works for me. It's definatley tailored for more of a higher-gained thing and if that's what you're looking for I would recommend giving the Hot British a try. If you're after more of a tradition Marshall sounding kinda pedal I would recommend the Classic, of which I also own. Great stuff.

The British tonebone puts any other distortion to shame. Everything else is a joke. You really need to spend time with it and have a good tube amp , and a good guitar. The manual is great...you just need to take your timwe dialing in. After searching for 19 years, this is it.

If you are using a guitar without a humbucker, it is limited, of course. I am using an SG with a marshall 74 head with a Hush pedal(very important). The Hush will wipe out most of the noise without affecting a high gain tone.I am able to get such a wide variety of tones from death metal to mild rock. The sustain and crunch is incredible. The sound is so much clearer when soloing on the G and D strings in the neck pickup position. You do not hear that annoying pick attack scraping sound. It is singing clarity.

No problems yet. Any one with a brain would carry a backup tube with them.

xxx

The tone w/ my SG, old Marshall tube head JMP 1974, the Hush and the tonebone, in my opinion can give you any rock or metal tone. It can sing sweet or blow your head off. Try this setup..

The tonebone is the key to happiness

It's not hard but you have to take your time to tweak the knobs. I suggest you to read the explanations of the swithces in the manual, which brings average info about the features.

Gretsch Sparkle Jet and Yamaha AES620 (Les Paul type with Duncan JB on the bridge) throught Tonebone to '59 Fender Bassman reissue.

Compared it with my TS9 reissue, a Maxon D & S II, an American made Big Muff and a Boss Turbo Distortion.

I compared it with the TS9 because this is a pedal that realy keeps your amp's original sound, no matter what people say abut 808s, OCDs and Fulldrives. The other pedals were there just for the comparison's sake.

The Tonebone is by far the most convincing distortion pedal that I've ever tried, and I am picky. It just doesn't have the same low-end that the Turbo Distortion has, but it sounds bigger than this and bigger than the Maxon. I used to have a Metal Zone and I sold it because, although it has a tight low-end, it sounds very solid state, which can be good if you play metal.

There's no middle ground or mild distortion for the Tonebone. This thing was made to rock hard and loud. If you want an overdrive, to play, like, Rolling Stones or Steve Ray Vaughn, go get some Tubescreamer or Maxon808. The Tonebone came directly from the depths of Marshall Hades to take our guitar players' souls. Great for playing STP and classic metal, but not for Pantera or Death Metal (I would stick with the Metal Zone if I was to play extreme metal).

There are so many possibilities in the Tonebone that it'll probably take me a year to figure it all out.

Chord definition is good, but not superb. It's not fuzzy at all and it has some smothness reminescent of a Master Volume tube amplifier. I found that the TS9 and the Maxon had better chord definition, but the former is just an (very good) overdrive and the latter does get fuzzy in higher gain settings and it doesn't sound as convincing. The Tonebone sounds beautiful no matter where the gain knob is.

I don't know. Bought it two days ago...

Although the pedal looks and feels like a tank, I would bring a backup because this thing has a tube in it and tubes sometimes have a temper...

Never had to deal with them.

I play classic rock, punk, post-punk, metal, alternative and I think the Tonebone covers at least 80% of these territories. First time I tried it was about 3 years ago and in the clean channel of a Bad Cat Hot Cat amp. I compared the pedal with the amp's distorted channel and liked the amp's distortion better. However, that was a over $ 2,500 amp and I'm fine having the Tonebone turning my Bassman into a Marshall. My favorite features in this pedal are the dip switches, and the marvellous things they can do. I'm a bedroom player, but I bet this thing rocks on stage becase it excels in provinding you with two extra mid-range levels, just what you need to make yourself heard in the mix.

As I said in the beginning, I compared it with a few other pedals, had previously played with it years ago and decided to buy it after months of rssearch on websites, including Harmony-cental. Now my search is over; better than the Tonebone, only buyng a Marshall stack, which I won't do in this life of meat-and-potatoes guitar player of mine.

Simple. The manual is a great way to start with this pedal, then expand the sound with your own tastes by turning a few knobs. the sounds on this pedal are endless.

This is by far the best distrotion pedal ive played on so far. My own theory in one word is " tubes ". there is no substitute or anything that comes close to re-creating the sound of genuine tube distortion. i play everything minus country and anything similar to rap, and this pedal does almost all of it, incuding some pretty heavy stuff. the only complaint i have is if im in a low tuning ( drop - c ), once i start doing chords on the lower stgings up past the 8th or 9th fret, it gets more fuzzy than it does distorted. it could be my pickups, cuz all im playing on for dropped-tuning stuff is a ibanez low end rg model. this thing sounds great for all around rock on my gibson ( es-335) and esp ( tele reissue ) and i have no complains with those guitars. this isnt made for heavy stuff, but it can cut it. this thing also breaks through the rest of a bands playing great.

for how small this thing is, it weighs quite a bit. the knobs are very tight, and that seems like a good sign to me too. id gig without a backup simply because i have no other distortion pedals anymore besides this one.

n/a

For what i play ( rock, blues, and metal ) this thing is great, but i could probly use a little more metal-styled pedal for the heavy stuff. this thing sounds like an amp itself. a marshall to be exact, like everyone has said. i bought this thing without trying it out or anything thinking i was taking a big gamble on it, and im more than happy with this pedal. if it were stolen, id simply find it, get it, and keep it. i love the way this thing makes my guitars sustain basically last for days. its unreal.i do wish it had a mid knob instead of switch along with the high and low knobs. seems more sensable to me. but im not complaingin, trust me. buy this pedal if you want a pedal that goes from a little bit of a growl to liquid-like sustain and distortion. its awesome.

If you cant work this, just shoot yourself!!

Right i plugged this thing in an hour ago into my 100watt MARSHALL Valvestate.Now im gunna be completly honest with you about this pedal ok,i bought this still having MAJOR douts about it/i was a actually telling myself 'this is gunna be SHIT'!
Oh boy was i wrong,this thing made me cream my pants-INSTANTLEY!
Pure-Un-adulterated-Blistering-TONE!!
Now, i am 25 ok & ive been playing since i was 13,so im not a DUMB-ASS when it comes to MY sound that i love like many others out there like me!
Seriously you know that SOUND/TONE in your 'head'?
This this REALLY gets it out for you,you cant NOT like this peadal FULL-F@@KIN-STOP!!
Ive searched for years for a DECENT distortion pedal,and now im one happy dude!
The world could blow up/but i dont care as im playing this when it happens!
Im in a Grunge/Rock band (3 of us) - WWW.SABIBA.NET
Check us out & leave a comment if ya like....
oh yeah, BUY THIS PEDAL NOW!! YOU WILL KICK YOURSELF IF YOU DONT!!

Built like a brick shit house!!
nearly INDISTRUCTABLE id say.... \m/-_-\m/ (rock'n'roll)

Not delt with them & hopefully i wont have to :)

Yes i know its abit steep but buy the time you bought 3 or 4 other brand names you would have spent this anyways!
Think about it-cheep pedal=cheep sound!!
At the end of the day i can only give you my honest opinion on this lovely - TONEBONE Hot British,and put it this way this is the ONLY thing that would make me be proud to 'BE' British!!
End of story - nuff said!
Oww yeah,this is a FULLER sound to the 'CLASSIC' which is a fine pedal,but this is WAY BETTER to me personally.
I love - A.I.C/S.T.P/SOUNDGARDEN/NIRVANA/ZAKK WYLDE/HENDRIX/LEDZEP/THE DOORS/SLIPKNOT/SABBATH & many more!! :)

This is not the easiest pedal to use, but it is worth the effort.

This pedal is a true "stack-in-the-box"! No kidding. It is a little noisy, but show me a Marshall stack that isn't. If you crank up the gain, the noise comes along for the ride plain and simple. Now when I say noisy, I mean when the guitar is in neutral, but when you start to play all you're gonna hear is TONE! This thing turns my beautiful sounding Deluxe Reverb amp into a rock monster and I refer to it as channel 3. Channel 2 is my Tonebone Classic -- another equaly impressive pedal by Radial.

Well aside from tube changes, this thing ought to last forever. Thick steel housing and solid feeling knobs and switches leave me feeling very confident that it will be around fro the long haul.

The folks at Radial/Tonebone were very friendly indeed and answered all my questions patiently and honestly. I realize this is a "before the sale" thing but I get the impression these folks are proud of their product and are willing and able to back up that pride.

What can I say, my search for OD pedals is over. Between the Tonebone Classic and this little jewel -- coupled with my beloved Deluxe Reverb I have every sound I ever wanted to make with my guitar(s) at my finger tips.

Takes a lot of tweaking to get the desired sound out of it; i.e. Lead and rhythm require two completely different settings. Also very dependent on the guitar and amp.

It's somewhat noisy, but that's to be expected from a tube distortion pedal emulating a Marshall stack. For lead, it sounds phenomenal...think "Slash-in-a-box". But for rhythm, it sounded muddy with my G&L Legacy and Hot Rod Deluxe. It didn't stack well with my tubescreamer or HepCat, either. I tried it with a Gibson SG, too, which was a significant improvement...sustain for days. But it still sounded somewhat muddy with a weak low end.

Buy it if you already have your rhythm sounds taken care of...it's a great lead pedal for high gain solos. But it's not very versatile, and I think you'll find yourself using it on a single setting, set for "lead boost".

It's pretty hard to get a bad sound out of it, although I personally am very picky with my distortions, so to get a good sound for me is pretty specific. Being that there are a lotta knobs and switches, it makes it a bit difficult to dial it in.

The manual for it is freakin awesome, with suggested settings and then a whole page for you to pen in your own!

I use a 3 Loooper effects loop, and this is in the 3rd effects loop. It's in there with a super chile picoso and a boss RC20XL Loopstation. I use a Gibson LP into a Marshall AVT275.

This unit is extremely quiet for the amount of gain it has. The effects on it are extremely sensitive and make for great tweaking. When I put the midboost on +7dB, I sound like freakin Brian May! I generally have the midboost off, though, as I have a boost pedal already and I don't want to sound like May ALL the time.

My favorite guitar player is Slash, and this thing sounds like a marshall and is everything I could have ever asked for. This is, as far as I can tell, the best distortion pedal on the market for that marshall sound. I always leave the voicing switch on "fat", as that is how I like my distortions.

This pedal is true bypass as well, and no audible pops or clicks when turning it on and off

Hell, I think it's better than my marshall distortion!

The tube needs to get replaced every 2 or 3 years, but besides that this thing should last a few lifetimes.

The power supply seems kinda fragile, but I've found some on ebay for pretty cheap (20 USD)

N/A

I like my distortions fat and thick, yet smooth, and this pedal is beautiful. Every other pedal I've ever heard give thin buzzy distortions (even ones others love, like the boss MT-2) and this beauty is, well, beautiful.

My main types of music are blues rock, alternative rock, and jazz. This pedal is obviously useless for jazz, but for rock sounds (and even electronic dance songs, like a song in one of my bands) this thing is awesome. Very versatile, although you can't get a mild overdrive nor a thrash-metal sound outta it. Being as I can get a mild overdrive from my amp and/or my boost pedal, and I don't play thrash, I don't see these as limitations.

If it were stolen or lost, I'd cry. I got a great deal on this one, but it's damned expensive nonetheless. If I had the cash, though (meaning I'd be broke afterwards), I'd definitely replace it.

I love everything about this pedal. Being as I have ADD, I don't have the patience to sit and tweak knobs all day trying to find different sounds, but I found the sound I was looking for pretty quickly. I'm happy with it, and the manual helped me find that sound.

My favorite feature on the pedal, if I have to choose one, is the "fat" voicing. That's exactly how I describe my favorite tones, and this pedal takes it's awesome sound and kicks it up a notch with the "fat" voicing.

I first heard about this when i called my music store and asked them for a pedal that would gimme a marshall sound. This is the one they told me about, and after checking harmony-central, I was sold.

The only thing I would wish for it would be another footswitch to turn on and off the midboost, as it does raise your volume. While the SCP satisfies my boost needs, if I wanna sound like brian may I've gotta bend over and hit that switch.

It's an awesome pedal, and the only reason I don't give it a 10 is that it's freakin expensive for a single purpose pedal, but all other things considered it's the best one on the market for almost any type of rock sound.