SONICAKELooper Pedal Guitar Effects Pedal Sonic Dub Looper Storable Loop Station Recording Looping Guitar Bass Effects Pedal

I love the simplicity of this item. It could add bass, mid and treble knobs or a presence.

I was in the market for a cheap, no nonsense ir loader and the only thing I wanted was to be able to load impulse responses at good quality and something which won't cost a lot of money. Let me start by saying that I have a torpedo live and a UA ox, but they are too bulky to lug around and sometimes less is more. Before sonicIR even came out I had a mooer radar. Yes it has more options, a screen, power amp simulation and headphones, but I had two faulty ones in three weeks, which had to be replaced. Not to mention it's more than double the price.Packaging , construction and features: Sonicake sincerely doesn't cease to amaze me. They've got the perfect balance of features, quality and price. The packaging is simple yet I have to underline that they provide clear instructions, a cable( which btw is type c) to connect it to pc and velcro for the bottom should you wanna attach it to a pedalboard. Unfortunately doesn't accept batteries and does not come with a power supply but you can get them for cheap or get a battery clip which connects to the power socket. One of the reasons I got it without a second thought was the presence of balanced out( which I am using in the video) which can eliminate many issues and most notably noise, interference, clicks and pops. You can load 11 cabs ( I am usually using the ones from Bogren, cannot recommend them enough) but comes preloaded with 9 guitar and 2 bass cabs( all can be seen on the card and these are the ones I am using in the video). It is very easy to do so, just connect it to usb, comes up as a flash drive and you drag and drop the IRs you want after you name them with something starting from 1 to 11. Eject safely the drive and enjoy the new IRs. Sound and thoughts.Sound wise, that's where it shines. Whether you want a portable rig or you wanna up your recording game without getting into many menus , sonicIR definitely gets you covered. You can load irs which are 24bit, 44.1kHz which are the industry standard . It was quite surpising that loading the same IRs in this and the torpedo , at the same quality, didn't have any noticeable difference in sound despite the abysmal price gap. In case you are still wondering, GO GRAB IT, it's a steal at this price honestly,In the video I am using my trusty ML with seymour duncan blackouts in D standard, going straight to Bying metal end( great metal zone modified clone, also a steal for the price) and the to sonic ir and directly to my interface( motu ultralite mk3) and then my monitors( krk rockit 5).

It does wipe noise but at a cost. When you turn it on and have it on the lowest setting it does reduce some background noise but then when you turn the dial maybe 20% it increases noise back to the same level as when it was off! If you have a powerful overdrive/fuzz/distortion pedal then 50% -60% is required. However you do lose a lot of sustain. Anything above 40% and the sustain loss is noticeable. At 70% the guitar is unplayable as the pedal eats the sound of your picking/strumming. I use it at about 50-55% when using a fuzz pedal or with a lot of gain and it works well for chords and lead. However, if I want more sustain I play on a cleaner setting and drop the noise wiper dial back to minimum.**It is worth noting that if you are trying to eliminate a noise from a poor earth/bad pickup/noisy power supply then it will only work to a point. It will kill the hum/noise when you are not playing but as soon as you hit a string you will hear the background noise along with the tone/note being played. This is especially noticeable on a clean sound. If this is your reason for looking to buy I would recommend purchasing an isolated power supply instead (Once you have ruled out bad cables and guitar pickup earth issues that is!)

Build quality is sturdy. Pedal is smaller than I expected, so its a bit fiddly changing the settings. The printed words which describe the function and settings of each knob are much too difficult to see, due to tiny letters and poorly contrasting colours. Even when looking closely at the pedal in room lighting, it's difficult to read. In a stage/gig environment, the wording would be impossible to read. Sound quality seems pretty good. Pleased overall with the pedal... but it could be a bit larger (less fiddly) and a better colour scheme for wording. Worth buying, especially for the price.

My main fuzz is a hand built Tone Bender type and I bought this because I was interested in trying other types and this is said to be a Big Muff type. And it really is different! The Tone Bender is wild and almost unreliable in the way it flies off into different harmonics with different attacks. The Fazy Cream is quite a different beast - its fuzz is continuous and reliable, a great hosepipe of fuzz that you can point with some faith that it's going to hit the spot! This is the fuzz sound you need for playing pure melody with sustain - Mike Oldfield's lead sound perhaps, or with some modulation, things like "Who's That Lady". But the tone control really took me by surprise because it has a great range from seriously thumping bass to seriously sharp buzzing treble (the proverbial bee in a biscuit tin). A big range of sounds for different songs. Another very low-price winner from Sonicake.

This works ok if all you're looking to do is quieten that 60hz hum that single-coil pickups produce or reduce excess noise created by your EQ if you're using it to drive your clean signal a little, and perhaps for O/D if you're not pushing it too hard, but for distortion effects, it leaves much to be desired. I'm sure there is a sweet spot where you can get the balance right, but I haven't found it, so it either cuts too much or too little from the signal. Try to stack your overdrive with your distortion and this becomes utterly useless. I should have known better than to try to replace a decent noise gate with this just to save a little cash. Still, it will be useful early in the effects chain just to lose the 60hz hum on my Strats and Teles, so not a total loss.