Tonebone Hot-British Distortion

It's a no brainer!! Versatile controls at your fingertips!

I use it with tons of amps as I gig quite often. Mainly at home I use it with a Blackheart half stack and a Marshall JCM 800 half stack. Produces great sounding classic distortion from AD/DC to Metallica to even My Chemical Romance kinda distortion! Amazing shiat comes out from this box. Adding a Tubescreamer in front adds more crunch and attack to it which enabled it to go even further. Sounds thick and warm with great highs and amazing harmonics and picking sounds. I use a Fender Tele Japan and a Gibson 56 reissue Goldtop as my main axes and it's a really sweet combination.

Gigged with this many times over the past 2 years. No problems at all except for some slight scratches on the casing, other than that.... this thing could be thrown around and it would still be working.

Never gave me any problems so I've never dealt with them.

Great pedal for any kind of music but for me, blues and classic rock to classic metal, this pedal can get all the sounds. If you can't bring around a tube amp, this is the pedal to achieve tube sounding distortion.

Theres heaps of knobs and switches but that isn't a problem.

OK this is why i wanted review it!

Yes it would be much better with a noisegate,eq and different tubes!

BUT you shouldn't have to buy all these to make it sound any good!

It should as good as the company described it!

It is basicly just ment for good clean amplifiers

LISTEN KIDS WHO EVER, THIS IS NOT A SUBSITUTE FOR HI GAIN TUBE AMPILFIE

IT WILL NOT MAKE YOUR SOLID STATE 15 WATT AMP SOUND LIKE ONE!

trust me i know :P

the knobs variate to make some good sounds but the TONE in general all isn't up to my standards!

By the way it's worth about $400 Australian over here...

Trust me on this it's built like a brick!

I give great Kudos on that!

I have dropped it now a fews times after i found out it was not what i quite intended it to sound like and it still strong, the tube is still fine after all that too.

Contact with them is great!

But the advice the give is pathetic.

I emailed them, to see if my pedal was broken or something.

When I select to neck pickup and put it on full drive it sounds digusting!

The company just said ease of the volume on your guitar and it should be fine!

All that did was make lower in volume and lower in distortion!

Thats not what i wanted. I wanted it to be high gain for a reason!

I play metal rock and some blues licks

it's good for rock and blues in a sense, metal it has no hope! sounds like crap with full drive!

Ive had it for about a yar now.

I have a Squier Strat*, Epiphone G400 with Dimebucker,Ibanez Custom made Blazer series, fender front man 15 watt, digitech rp80


I have played the TONEBONE THROUGH A PEAVEY 6505 with cabs and a MARSHALL DSL with cab- to try and see the diffence

that's why i came to write this haha

I would say this pedal is easy to use. It comes with quite many knobs and switches, but they do what they say they do. No surprises. The manual is all right, but you won't need it. Same one for the Classic distortion and Hot British also.

I would say this pedal is easy to use. It comes with quite many knobs and switches, but they do what they say they do. No surprises. The manual is all right, but you won't need it. Same one for the Classic distortion and Hot British also.

This pedal had, when I got it a somewhat moderate variety of sounds coming out of it. Of course it sound great when you just got it. And after a few months I would rather play the amp clean then with the hot British plugged in. No matter the settings it always sounded as the amp was put in closed box, really thin and without punch. It was way to early to change the tube, but I thought I'd give it a shot before cursing it to h*ll (It's an expensive pedal so you except it to deliver). I???m my case switching to a Svetlana tube made all the difference. Sounds great! No loss in tone when switched on. Bluesy, rocky and metalish.

I use this with a one channel tube amp (Laney LC15R). The amp does not have much gain, and the two get along very well. This combination works better with passive pups tho. Never found Active ones could use the dynamics.

The metal housing seems really solid. Don't know about dropping it...

Haven't talked to them

Does start of with some distortion even if you're really soft on picking and volume is rolled down. Other than that this pedal covers most areas except the level of distortion where you no longer hear the cords. Great sound, tho expensive and the two channel version is even more expensive...

As distortion pedals go, this is one of the more tricky ones. Speaking from about 3 years of experience with the Hot British, you can find awful sounds and you can find phenomenal tones from this box! The tube you use in it will also make some difference in the overall sound (naturally, right?). Now, this is not to say it's as difficult to use as a programmable preamp like a Triaxis, but because of the extreme range of the controls on the Hot British, it can sometimes be difficult to dial in a tone. You definitely must spend some time dialing this box in.

Ok. Here's the deal: Use an EQ after this pedal! As of now, I'm using a Boss EQ pedal in my chain immediately after the Hot British, and to put it mildly, it makes an enormous difference in tone! The Hot British by its lonesome tends to be thin and harsh sounding to my ears. It gets especially bad in lower tunings or when using 7 strings or baritone guitars. Without and outboard eq, the distortion takes on a very JCM-800 gnarl. That's a good thing for some, though not for me, and certainly not for tunings below D. In fact, the first year I had this pedal, I was quite frustrated with it and very nearly tossed it. Then I read a few posts online about using EQ pedals after a distortion box in your signal chain and decided to give it a try. Holy Balls! Death metal, black metal, van halen, greasy single-coil SRV tone, and a lot more were instantly at my fingertips! Lower tunings are absolutely no problem anymore!

However, you must be aware that this pedal has a few problems. First, while I applaud Radial for using quality tubes, the JJ 12AX7's that come standard in the Hot British are not the right choice for the distortion this box is capable of. Try an Electro Harmonix instead and you'll see what I mean. The JJ actually reduced the overall amount of gain of the Hot British with no appreciable difference in tone. Maybe I had a bad one, but I had a similar problem when I switched to JJ's in a combo I played as well, so I'm inclined to think JJ's are inherently less gainful than other preamp tubes. Also note, that the Hot British has difficulty nailing mid-gain tones. Even at lower gain settings, the distortion is too thick (compressed?) for that edge-of-gain type of tone. You'd be better of using a boost pedal or your amps own overdrive characteristics for achieving that type of sound.

But, if over-the-top metal and blues is your thing, take my advice, throw an EQ in the line after the Hot British, and run it into a good, clean tube amp (I'm using a Heritage Patriot and it's out of this world!), and you have yourself a very, very respectable rig.

I would not advise using this pedal with a high gain head or combo. They're usually voiced way too cold (especially Mesas, VHT, Peavey, etc.) for the Hot British to work very well. The Hot British works better with a mellow tube amp than with solid states or really tight sounding tube amps (such as many of the newer Marshalls or Krank heads). In other words, you need something in your poweramp section that will take some of the bite off of this pedal.

Also, for those complaining that this pedal is noisy...get a noise gate for christ's sake! Gobs of gain=noisy. Duh! Try to find me any pedal, head, or combo that doesn't get noisier as you crank the gain. Sheesh.

I practically destroyed this pedal and it still sounds great...it's a long...and embarassing...story.

It's rugged beyond my expectations.

Dunno. Haven't bothered with them.

It's sort of like this: Distortion pedals suck. They all have problems. None of them can really compare to full-on poweramp distortion coming out of a cranked tube amp and a stack of speakers a mile high. But let's face it--the vast majority of us don't have the space or the neighborhood to allow us to play such a rig...at least without legal ramifications. So, almost all of us will have to compromise on our tone for the sake of economy and practicality. That being said, many of us are using lower-power combos and more preamp distortion than our arena rock compatriots. Of all the super-distortion pedals out there for us lowly neighborhood rockers, the Hot British beats just about anything for high gain. So really, I guess I'm saying that the Hot British is a necessary evil. Would I rather have a monster rack or an old Marshall at full volume? Yep. Who wouldn't? But my rig right now makes the most sense for my budget and for my environment. I'm quite pleased. Most of you reading this will be too if you follow my advice on the EQ pedal.

There's a shitload of combinations to this pedal as it has the switches aswell as the normal bass, treble and contour controls, so it does take a bit of tweaking to get what you want, but it's not rocket science.

I bought this pedal because i'd sold my marshall DSL100 and bought a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and i wanted to make the Fender sound like my Marshall dirty (the clean is epic). Well first of all it doesn't have as much gain as i thought it would, to be honest I don't really put the gain above 12 o'clock because after that it can get a bit muddy, at 12 o'clock it's a classic rock sound, maybe Guns n Roses style gain, no more.
To turn it into a full dirt sound i had to use my Carl Martin kick boost to metal it up, together they sound great but on it's own the Tonebone is a bit limited.
It's a strange sounding pedal, sometimes it can sound great, and others it can sound a bit thin, the guitar you use affects the tone massively - for example I've played my Peavey Wolfgang through it and had really good deep crunch think Tool, but then played my strat through it and it's sounded a bit flappy.

Overall I'd say that through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe it sounds good, but not as good as I'd been led to believe by some reviews on here. For rythym it's not great, but for lead sounds it really comes to life.

Only had it about 6 months, no problems as yet, it seems very well put together.

n/a

I'd love to try it through a different amp, something more suited to a good distorted sound, but part of me thinks well if I have to buy a Marshall for this thing to sound good, i don't then need a pedal which sounds like a Marshall !!! if you know what i mean.

It's better than everything else i tried, but i'm still far from convinced.

Sure, easy to use, no problem here.

I didn't own it long enough to comment.

I didn't have to deal with the company.

I have been playing for over 25 years. I play anything from Robben Ford type stuff, to older Dokken, Van Halen. etc. One of my favorite guitar sounds is on Don Dokken's "up from the ashes" ripping boosted vintage Plexi tone all the way, ragged, crunchy, warm and bright in all the right places, check it out even if you hate the music. Tone! Tone! Tone! Back off the distortion and use your fingers! Stop the insanity!

easy enough, good marks here

I've been playing for over 25 years. Don Dokken's "up from the ashes" has one of my favorite distorted guitar sounds ever; warm, raggedy ripping old Plexi Marshall tone to the nines. Crunchy, warm and bright in all the right places. Check it out even if you hate the band. I play from Robben Ford type stuff, to Dokken-like or old Van Halen type older metal stuff. You get the idea. Tone! Tone! Tone! Let your fingers do some of the work, back off the gain! Stop the insantity!

First I would like to say that I agree with the guy below me. This pedal has gotten raving reviews.. and alot of people jump on the bandwagon to buy this pedal. But the longer I play this pedal the more I realize its shortcomings. In my opinion this pedal is NOT very versatile. I have fiddled with the settings for hours and still come out with like 2-3 basic useable settings. I have to keep the gain really low or it gets muddy and sounds disgusting. I even went on the website and tried all the factory settings and still did not get desirable results.

My main complaint is that this unit is noisy when on. I have a custom built hand wired mojave head and a PRS so my rig is dead quiet at full volumes.. except for when i activate this pedal. I guess when your playing its not very noticable but as soon as the band stops there is that obnoxious buzzing sound. In my opinion sound quality itself is up to the discretion of the user. Someone who has played on a crappy transistor practice amp thier whole life will think this sounds awesome. The other thing i dont like is how it gets so muddy when the gain is set higher. Any setting past 10 o clock is overkill and takes away from the from the over all sound.

I bought it used and have had it for over a year no problems

I have gotten some great tones out of this unit at lower volumes but for live situations it has its limitations. It is definately a usable and pleasing product but it is not the holy grail of distortion tone as it is made out to be.

Easy enought to use, all is self explanitory.

I think it?s about time someone submitted an opposing viewpoint on this thing. I got so excited about this from all the reviews both here and in magazines that I raced down to a local shop and bought one on the spot. I own a Marshall Plexi 50 reissue with PPI master installed and old Marshall 412 cab. I play a Strat with Duncan Single Coils and an 80?s Charvel with Dimarzio Airzone or something like that. As soon as I plugged in I immediately knew what I was playing through: A direct rip off of the old SansAmp GT-2 pedal. This is not a distortion stomp box, but subminiature transistor preamp with a tube used for nothing more than a pilot light. The sound was ok for low volume riffing but it is synthetic sounding and does not blend into your amp, instead it completely obscures the basic sound of your amp. The louder I played the more transistory and synthetic it got. To be fair, I can see why it's popular. At low volume it makes a big sound with satisfying bass and I guess if you have a little combo amp that is as non-marshall as you can get (seems to be the case with majority of the raves here) and you have not played a real boosted Marshall in a long time (if ever) then you might think this is great. But into a REAL Marshall that only gets up to mild grind levels on its own, you might has well be playing it direct in to the PA. Yes, the distortion has a fairly steady, solid nature to it, but again the texture of the distortion is very plastic and unnatural sounding and again, worse the louder you play. It IS voiced well for guitar. Also, it is very articulate consistant sounding from top to bottom (no mushy woofy bass or screetching highs) and that was the one thing I really liked about the SansAmp, But I still say this is so close the sound of the SansAMP GT-2 that these guys must have directly ripped off the GT-2 circuit because the similarity in distortion character and voicing is just too close for coincidence. THAT I do not respect. In summary, a fun toy for the bedroom, but not a pro unit. The Classic which I tried later was smoother and less plastic sounding, but still the same syndrome of a "hostile take over" of the foundation tone of the amp you play it into. Rating this is tough, because as a stomp box distortion which is how it is marketed, I give it a 3. As mini transistor pre-amp designed to imitate a big Marshall amp, I would give it an E for effort were it not for the fact that I believe this is a rip-off of another design with a tube used as a distractor. There is NOTHING "tubey" about this thing, and I mean both the good and the bad qualities of tubes.

Seems well built, I was satisfyingly heavy in solid to hold in your hand, which is always a smart thing to do from a marketing/customer satisfaction point of view.

I have no experience here so this doesn't apply.

I think I covered this section in the above. My main genre is "rock-metal". I like a high-gain but old-school type of tone and value hearing the tone of the guitar well-preserved. I am sorry if I offend anyone who has such contrary experiences with it, but I felt a contrary point of view would be helpful for potential purchasers.

Very easy for me to find the sound that I wanted. A few switches and knobs. Great tweakability.

Sounds exactly like I want it to. I play guitar with Autovenom and you can check out the sounds of both the classic tb and the hot brit on myspace.

Here's where I have a problem with the tonebone distortions, both the classic and the hot brit. The switching sucks the sweat off a dead mans balls! For this reason I am now searching for a replacement to both of these distortions. I've sent one of them back to canada already and I'd rather trash the thing than keep having to do that.

Radial supposedly fixed the switching problem when it first became a problem for me. Whatever they did it didn't last. If there's one thing that I can't fucking stand is being in the middle of a recording session and having any expensive piece of shit crap out on me. Kudos for their quick turnaround though, lol.....

What style of music do I play? I don't know, listen to Autovenom and you tell me! I've been playing guitar for 28 years and own nothing but top quality instruments and effects. Although the tonebone's sound great, I can't rely on them to be there when I need them. Hey maybe I just got 2 bad ones, and the one that was repaired just got tired of me stepping on it. If some dumb sonofabitch was to put there hands on my pedalboard, I'd probably tell them go ahead and take the tonebones, they suck anyway. Then again, they may swallow a hollowpoint! I give it a 4 in overall because it sounds so good but I don't want any extra aby switches on my board so I consider it a piece of sh1t!

This pedal will require some tweaking to get the tone from it IF you are adament about using the EQing and boosting features.Still in all, easy to dial in once you know what your looking for.

I use the Volume/LEvel and Gain knobs are all thats needed for serious sustain/tone. I shut off the mid and lowend boost switches - run them out/ flat. AS well, the same goes for the EQ knobs for If you run them straight up 12 oclock they are essentially taken out of circuit.

I use the new Marshall 1959HW handwired Plexi amp. Great amp with some tweaks to it. I bridge the channels on this amp and run the Hot British in the top left input. I let the Tonebone supply the Gain and Volume whilest the 1959HW Marshall gives me 110% of my tone shaping/EQing to shape mny sound.

I wouldnt even beging to noodle with it through a Master Volume amp. To me it is not focused what so ever in that direction. If your a JCM800 2203 guy, Master VOlume rig...type of player which I also am for my Second rig look to a Klon Centaur or a SIlvermod TS9 Analogman. THis Tonebone is for the NMV type rigs. WIll send your Marshall into heights of greatness. What this pedal will NOT DO is give you Eddie Van Halen.

So far mine hasnt broken however a very close friend of mines switch went down on him and after sending it back to TOnebone direct the company put a heavy duty switch on the unit. So far so good. I think if TOnebone would have possibly upgraded the switch to the heavy duty variety in the first place this would have been avoided. Still in all, Im hoping this was an isolated incident . All else with the pedal was 100% THis rates an 8 for it didnt happen to me...yet:>) Im sure it will be fine. I also own a TOnebone Switchbone which I have yet to fully dial in due to final Rig modifications that are currently being done. I will post for the Switchbone. Tested really well though. Ok the Hot British seems like its a decent build of course its pcb for $180. I use only a Marshall 9thj gen chinese 12ax7 which gives me a noiseless and smooth operating conmdition over the stock tube which had a slight hum but still barely audible until you cerank her up! I have tried 12 dif. modern 12ax7 and 12ax7a types and the 9th gen chinese shines brightest in more ways then one.

TOnebone took some time with the repair to my friends unit but was acceptable. Overall he is happy with the repair. I myself have not used Customer support so no rating here for me.

I bought this unit under recommendation from my friend who sweared by these things for NMV type Marshalls. Well, as he usually is, he was correct. If your looking for an original tone or rather the particvualr tone your amp stock gives you but with added dimensionality, infinate sustain (If thats your type), Excellent harmonics, Nice Overdrive structure with punch and a broad freq. with even order harmonics across the top mid and bottom end EQs this pedal is the ticket. Great stuff. Great price. Good reliability. If your trul;y wanting to enhance your current Marshall or other Non Master Volume amps tone but not color its sound than this [edal will give it up in spades. Only more a-0natural sounding pedal mayu possibly be the BK designs. Still noodling with both! I trhink your missing something if you own a NMV Marshall anyway and dont have this pedal at least for a part of your arsenal. If your wanting to be EVH look elsewhere like an Attenuatopr, Variac, etc . I think you know. Great 12ax7 TOnebox for the money.

once purchased, the user will effortlessly dial in a variety of pleasing tones. the manual is extremely helpful in pinpointing the basics, at which time you've to let your ears tweek and finetune ''the sound'', your pursuing. ther are a copious amount of buttons to utilise that will allow you to get that heavenly sound.
if you can't find a particular sound that you can honestly use from this box, take up knitting, cuz your deaf.

2003 strat deluxe with dimarzio's into clean channel of an ALL TUBE 212, with celestion greeback ext spkrs. NOTE: YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN!!!!!!!
don't whine about your tone when your running a floyd yamaha into a peavey bandit.
my pedal board , effects, and cables are boutique and first class. no digital boss crap here. many a praise i get.
this pedal is in one word british-marshall. a true pickers pedal, sensitive to pick attack, amazing natural lengthy decay, overtones.
i'll never have to look again. the distortion is JUST SO CONVINCING.
very finely grained distortion. smooth as butter to my ears and through my gear. sound is subjective and this is a refined marshal in a box. no overtly brutal sounds emanating from this box.

it's velcroed to my sturdy pedalboard and hasn't even farted in 2 years.

no need.

contemporary rock, legato, progressive. suits my style to a tee.
i'm a guitar teacher, weekend gigger, as well as many other things.
playing all my life, tried just about everything out there. smoother than my tube screamer, more versatile than them all. a very non-offensive user friendly pedal.
couldn't imagine playing without it anymore. i use it 75 % of the time i'm playing.

Its pretty easy to get a good sound of it, there are many EQ options to get used to, but once you get to know each one, you can get the hang of it.
The manual offers approx 10 examples of different settings, pretty useful... Overall, its easy to use, although the names for each parameter is a bit vague.

Im using a Fender American Stratocaster and a Fender 30w champion Amp, hence its a bit noisy, turning up the gain, though the single coils donate to it. The distortion you get from it is absolutely fantastic, you cant but get the authentic feeling of it.

Tweaking the parameters will lead to great sounds, although achieving a blues o/d might be a tough job to do. You also have the option to tweak the style of the sound (dark, bright, flat), making the bone a match to any amp.

I mostly into grundge - Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, but I also play alot of blues and some hard rock like Guns N Roses... It can easily navigate through all the grundge and rock, I cant think of a band I wont be able to get to with it, yet, playing blues is a difficulty.

Its built like a tank, the knobs are solid, its all well.

Had no troubles with it, I wouldnt know.

I play everything from hard rock (Guns n Roses), grundge (Pearl Jam, AIC) to Blues (robben ford, etc). It can definitely sound amazing with all the rock types, but getting it to blues is pretty hard (try lowering the gain to 0 and getting the contour to max).

If it were stolen i'd definitely buy another one.

I really love its big mid boosts, its "sweet" tone, the fact that its extremely dominant... If you're thinking whether to buy it or the classic, simply ask yourself whether you're more into hard rock, a dist that really upgrades your tone presence, or whether you're looking for a dist. that'll give you everything from blues to mid-hard rock... (classic)

My 2 cents.

Although the pedal is a bit of a one trick pony, and the overall sound is pretty uniform, it can take a little tweaking to find exactly what you're looking for. Overall, though, it's quite simple to set up and use.

OK, this is a VERY subjective field, but for what it's worth: I bought this pedal because a reliable friend/guitarist said "It's Van Halen One in a box!". To an extent, I'd have to agree. If you play through clean or limited overdrive-style amps, and you're looking for a "classic" Marshall type tone, this pedal RULES!! That is all it does, but it does it wonderfully! If you already play through a high gain amp, it's probably not what you're looking for, because it can tend to "muddy" those up. I play a variety of guitars (Strats, Teles, a couple of Valley Arts) through either an old Super Reverb or a Vox AC30 CC. Through these amps, I'm able to cop the fabled "Brown Sound" and LOVE the sound I'm getting. I've tried it through higher gain amps, and didn't like it so much. But for me and my amps, I gotta give it a 10.

Been using this pedal for over 2 years now, and haven't had one problem.

Spoke with the Radial people a couple of times about other products (this pedal seems to be a tank) and they were friendly, knowledgeable (sp?), and professional.

I play mostly classic rock, some blues, some country, etc. While it doesn't work for the kind of country I play, for rock and blues, I haven't found a pedal I like better. Ended up buying a Tonebone Classic as well. Love these pedals. I've been playing for around 20 years, and I've tried dozens of pedals, from Boss to Ibanez to Digitech/DOD to Tubeworks (they were making clones of the old Chandler Tubedriver pedals) and I have not found a pedal that comes as close to the classic "Brown" Plexi sound. Like I said, I did buy a Classic too, since this pedal is a one-sound pedal. I also use an old Tube Screamer, a Keeley compressor, a boss delay, and an mxr phase 90, and a boss harmonist for chorus. I've been able to get pretty much any tone I've wanted with this setup.
If someone stole this pedal, I would definitely replace it!

Very easy to use.

Good general tube fuzz. Can have it trebbly or bassy/muted. The key work is 'GENERAL' tube fuzz.

Major things to keep in mind:

1-If you use the tube, you WILL get distortion with very very little overdrive or crunch sounds. This seems to only give distortion.

2-There is no 'clean sound' through the tubes. So If you wanna learn chords or practice while surfing the net with a nice mellow tube glow - forget it.

3-The tube does not give full 'crazy' distortion. Even maxed out with all knobs at max, there still is plently of 'could be' room for more distortion. Keep this in mind if you wanna go crazy or chase a sound.

4-The distortion that you DO get, is very tailor-friendly. You can get muted 'midrange' distortion or you can get very trebly open distortion with bass (which is what I like). You can fine tune this exactly to how you like. This is my favorite part of the pedal.
Again, keep in mind, for some reason there just isn't a tight crunch sound. It's a fuzz type distortion and that's it.

Here is my expert synopsis:

It's really a chip based that puts out the same fuzz tone like a fuzz face. When you up the gain, you are mostly likely just upping the tube output gain. The bass, trebble, etc are again just boosting signals to the chip.

Think about it, a REAL tube overdrive pedal should have at least two tubes.

Lots of people dump on the Electro-Harmonix English Muff?n Overdrive Pedal, but it uses 2 tubes and when you overdrive it all the way it beecomes very mudy and grungy. Almost changes tone.. why? Because it's most likely a real tube overdrive.

pretty easy to get the sound your chasing if you fiddle enough. manual helps.

using a fat strat through a hot rod deville. nice warm sound. can get a massive array of tones with it and every control is super responsive, and with enough tweaking you can really nail the sound you want. i use it for soloing to cut through and beyond

yeah its going fine. i think the tubes just gone in it. not flash after four months, but hey, you get that

had it for four months and i want to get rid of it. when i went looking i was tossing up between this and the classic. my reliable guitar store guy said this was the one because the classic just didn't have enough oomph/meat/zang whatever. this is where i screwed up. not remembering that my guitar guy is a big 70's and 80's metal fan, i took his advice and bought the hot british. what i realised is that his not enough is my plenty for the vintage rock'n'roll sounds i want. i can use this thing for solo's, and it is the best at what it does. but what it does, i cant use. entirely my fault. this pedal is a beast. so take this as a warning all pop/rock'n'roll players. and remember that 90% of guitar shop dudes are in the same guitar headspace my guy's in, so translate their advice accordingly (ie "right on man" = "i can dig, sugar").

The knobs are pretty self-explanatory, and there's a button you put your foot on... how can you go wrong? :)

Takes a bit of tweaking until you find your sound, but then everything does. Plenty of cool example settings on the Tonebone website (tonebone.com) which can provide a good starting point.

Replacing the tube is something you don't have to do with all-solidstate distortion pedals, but the manual gives detailed and easy-to-follow instructions so it's not such a disaster, and you don't have to do it often at all.

What can I say... this pedal is amazing.

I play an Ibanez RG1570 with the stock pups swapped out for DiMarzios (Tone Zone/Blue Velvet/Air Norton). I put a little compression on my clean tone and I keep the Tonebone in the loop on my Boss noise suppressor (quite important for me at least - I crank the gain up on this and with the compressor it does get a bit noisy). Amp-wise I use a Line6 POD Pro on the Roland JC120 amp model - not got the cash for a new power amp yet so I run it into the FX return on my other amp (Laney MXD120H)... works for me.

With the POD and the Tone Zone this pedal sounds amazing. It sounds pretty incredible when I had the stock pickups and just the Laney amp, but still... the range of sounds achievable on this thing is very impressive. Of all the people who say it's not that great for extreme metal, here's one guitarist *waves* who does. It's perhaps not your stereotypical metal tone, but it works for me at least. Crushing rhythm tone when you need it, and beautiful, smooth, creamy lead sounds when you need them too.

I may have taken a gamble which paid off but I'd still recommend trying it in the shop first, if you can.

It's a pretty sturdy metal box, it could probably be kicked around a fair bit and live... but I'm not going to try :P

I've had it 5 months and it's been PERFECT - no problems at all. Haven't gigged with it yet (will in a couple of months though) but I trust it enough to play without a backup.

Haven't had to go after customer support, so can't say.

I've been playing for about 4 years and I play metal - think Nevermore, Death, Symphony X, Lamb of God, etc - although I don't really sound like any of those bands, which is a good thing I suppose :P I don't just play metal though, I can handle almost all forms of rock guitar, as well as blues, funk and jazz, and this pedal is great for everything.

If it were stolen... first I'd hunt down the guy who took it and rough him up a little, then I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.

I love the sound, I love the versatility. I can't really think what I hate about it... nothing to hate!

Compared to my old Boss... no comparison. The MT-2 is just nasty standing next to the Tonebone. The other guitarist in my band uses a Digitech Death Metal which got some good reviews, but it's still constantly upstaged by the sound of the Tonebone. It cuts through the mix better, sounds meatier, smoother, and doesn't sound like a swarm of bees.

What I'd really like is a 7-band graphic EQ or something on the distortion pedal, but I have a Boss GE-7 anyway so I'm covered... but it'd be nice.

That's it really... this pedal is brilliant, so at least try it if you can.

Find your tone! play around

This is to respond to the people who say that the TB does not produce classic tones....BS*****t. You don't know waht you are talking about. Like the older players.... You need to have an old tube head such as a marshall plexi or JMP (67-75...no later)and not a JTM.I have an SG and use the tonebone and it is a totally natural gain sound that can be tweaked up. But yes....you can get classic tones. AC/DC with the drive down low or George Lynch with it up. People say that it has too much gain????Just turn the drive down. You NEED to have an old Marshall or Fender head and a Gibson or Fender to get these tones. There is barely any difference of gain when my drive is on 0, and when the tonebone is off. An MXR phase melds great with it.Throw in a Digiverb at the end of your chain. If you have a JMP Marshall(early 70s)this is the best tone on earth.If your pickups are mud, your tone is mud(neck PU). You will put all other tones to shame with the Tonebone. Without these great old tube heads...you can't have a vintage tone with the tonebone. Why would I waste my time typing this??

Carry a backup tube

fend for yourself

or You will em bar ass!!other people with your tone. I have an SG withsa stock bridge PU and a PAF pro in the neck along with 75 watt celestion cabinets. You can also get a killer modern metal tone when you drive it up...just use a HUSH pedal for the noise.(a great noise reducer that will NOT alter or chop off your tone or sustain when using an adapter/batteries will burn too quickly)
After 20 years of searching...my tone quest is over.
Again....you need that old Marshall or Fender head for that classic tone. Carvin., Bogner and Mesas will give killer tones also! JCM 800s,900s(heads) are crap along with AVTs
Throw away(I mean sell) your MXR or Boss or Digitech
Remember..Spend the money on an old Marshall ...6 knobs, 4 inputs

Controls are somewhat complicated compared to other distortion units, hence an 8 rating.

I had high expectations for the Hot British, being a big fan of the late 60s Marshall Plexi sound. I use a Germino Lead 55 head and Bogner Shiva head for guitar, both of which have plenty of Marshallesque overdrive in them. But I found the Hot British to be too muddy and too noisy. I recommend getting a Fulltone Full Drive 2 or OCD instead. Keep in mind that is just my preference, you could try the Hot British and find it gives you the sound you're looking for. And I'll repeat the old mantra -- "play it before you buy it". Especially with the amp you will be using it with.

Didn't have it long enough for a rating.

Did not contact them.

The Hot British wasn't my cup of tea. Maybe the Classic is a better pedal. Check out the Fulltone pedals, they have great overdrive along with crystal clear definition.

This pedal has a great deal of eq options, along with a well-matched volume control, and a sensitive gain control knob. It takes a bit to get the sound, but the options are well thought out. I usually run the eq flat, with the mid boost out and the notch out, but to add the notch does add a lot of bass and high end boost.

this is a very nice sounding tube driver. I run it with a PRS custom 24 with dimarzios or a les paul custom with dimarzios into a Marshall JTM 45. The sound is more sustain than gain. It adds a beautiful violin like tone to the JTM. It is a bit to much gain for a jcm 800, but a perfect match for the JTM or any plexi non master volume head!! I love this pedal, and feel it completely matches the early B.K. Butler designed tube drivers, for half the price!! Get one for your plexi type head, you will love getting a sustainy tone over an overdrive sound for different types of solos, or open chords like Angus Young!!! Sometimes a bit of mud on the neck pickup, probably unavoidable with a tube driver, but it is controllable!!

Seems very reliable. I have taken apart this unit to check out the insides, and let me tell you, it is one of the most well designed pedals I have seen. The circuit board is well laid out, and the tube is easily removed and replaced. It also uses a JRC 4558D chip, along with a bunch of other JRC (Japaneses Radio Corp.) chips, which sound fantastic. It is NOT very hard to take apart and removed the tube, do not be put off by this job, it took me 10 minutes to open and close, with changing the tube. The installed lovw gain Ruby tube sounds the best, I tried a JJ 12Ax7A and it was too much high end and gain, keep the low gain ruby tube, it works the best!!

This company is really on the move!! I love the people there in canada! I called them up the other day to ask about the tube, and in 2 minutes or less, I had a very knowledgeable tech on the line answering all my questions. He also suggested keeping the stock tube, a ruby, and he was right!!! I feel this company would take care of any problems whatsoever, plus they are very knowledgeable, and have a R & D room for testing complete with all the goodies, they are testing sounds and it shows!!

Overall I give it a 9. It has a great tone for sustaining a plexi head. That's what it does!! I love the sound running through my JTM 45, like early Santana and lots of creamy, fluid sustain! A must have!!

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.