Chase Bliss Brothers Analog Gainstage Effects Pedal

First I'd like to lol at Amazon for giving me two categories of features to rate this pedal on: thickness and sheerness. I will say that it can definitely produce some thick sounds. As far as sheerness goes... Well.... Uhhhh, sure. That too.So basically this pedal is what you think it is. It has two channels of 3 circuits each (boost, overdrive, and fuzz) and you can run them independently or stack them in a variety of ways (A into B, B into A, or run them parallel. Each individual circuit sounds great and is usable on its own. Think of side A as a bit more transparent while side B is generally thicker, more gnarly, louder, and with more mids... The boosts are great for clean boosted sounds and can get into breakup territory if you dial the gain up. The overdrive circuits give you your traditional drive sounds and works great for bluesy stuff all the way to those classic rock sounds. The fuzz circuits get into your fuzz/distortion territory and depending on how you have them dialed in it can go anywhere from a Big Muff-ish type fuzz sound to more of a full-on distortion sound.... Incidentally, I have a Big Muff Ram's Head fuzz right after this Brother's pedal and they stack well together. I'm sure it would stack well with other drive and fuzz pedals too.... And like you already know, you can stack the channels. So you can run a clean boost into a dirty fuzz, or run the two overdrives at the same time, or run both fuzzes for heavy sounds, ect.. Tons and tons of options. It's just great.And with an expression pedal you can do even more cool stuff... You can set it up to go from low gain to heavy gain, for instance. Or something I really like to do is set two different circuits in parallel and then set up the EXP pedal to go from say, a transparent overdrive sound to sweep into a full-on heavy distortion sound, all just by using an EXP pedal.I would say this pedal can do cleans, bluesy, and rock sounds very, very well. If you're looking for super high-gain metal tones it may not deliver in spades like it does for blues and rock. Though I'm sure it would stack well with higher gain pedals... I don't play much metal but if I want to say, play Master of Puppets, I might want to use amp's onboard high gain channel cause I think it sounds a bit better than just using the Brothers into my clean (for metal). BUT I could still use the Brothers by using one of the boosts, or up the dirt even more by using the drive channel into my amp's dirty channel.... Just options for days. This pedal is pricey but you have to think about it as being multple products all in one box... As far as sheer options go (hey, there's the sheerness factor lol) you can almost think of it like $500-600ish worth of pedals all in one $350 pedal. I highly recommend. And even if you already have some fuzz and overdrive pedals, this will stack with them. More options = better... Think of it like having more color options to paint with.

I am trying to populate a Pedaltrain Nano Plus with five all-analog pedals that will take batteries and cover all my basic needs. Doing this is a challenge in the least and maybe impossible when it is all said a done. I chose this pedal to cover my drive needs because it is small, takes a battery, and has so many options and versatility that whatever situation I find myself in I am sure this pedal could be configured to do what I needed it to do.What good is a versatile pedal if it does not sound awesome? This pedal sounds great. The two sides are distinct in sound but compliment one another and stack well. Side A sounds more compressed, softer and more 'vintage' to my ears. Side B sounds drier, brighter, and more modern by comparison. Each mode of each side is also distinct. The Fuzz on side A does not sound anything like the overdrive of side A or the boost. However, you will find the characteristics I mentioned for side A above like "more compressed, softer, and more vintage sounding" across all modes on side A.I think this is great in that if you want a clear fuzz sound into a softer drive sound? Choose side B fuzz into side A drive. Want a more modern drive sound that can be boosted to drive the front of an amp for a solo? Choose side B drive into side A boost. Of course, you can also run them parallel, but I like stacking them as I have found that by keeping both sides as different levels of overdrive I can get three distinct drive sounds out of this pedal. Side A alone, Side B alone, and both together, all great useable tones.If this pedal has a downside, it is that there are so many options it may take you a while to wrap your head around all the combinations and the way the two drive circuits interact with one another if you are stacking. However, I think it is well worth the cost of admission as you have two configurable drives that can be a fuzz, overdrive, or boost in any combination housed in an unbelievably small enclosure with presets and MIDI should you need it!For me, Chase Bliss is the future of guitar pedal design, and this may be the last drive pedal that you or I ever need.

I just exhausted myself with ONE overdrive sound from this pedal.I play on a Strat through an AC-30. Maybe I have weird taste, but I love the way they sound together. Finding an overdrive to match those two has been difficult. I've spent a lot of time and money experimenting, but I was never really satisfied with the results. The tone always ended up sounding too much like the pedal and not "Strat through an AC-30 with a little extra bite". I had no trouble finding exactly that with the Brothers. After fiddling for maybe 20 minutes, I found a tone and lost all track of reality. I haven't played guitar with that intensity since I was a teenager.The pedal is also very intuitive to use. I didn't read the manual. I plugged it in and started twisting knobs and flipping switches. I love Strymon and Boss pedals, but I always feel like I have to learn a secret handshake to change certain settings on their pedals. Not so here. Everything is labeled clearly and does what it says it does.Chase Bliss pedals live up to the hype. I haven't even scratched the surface of this pedal's capabilities, but the sound alone has me ready to sell off all my other drive pedals.