devi ever:fx Cherry Pop Fuzz Pedal

[bobbass4k]

For the past couple of weeks I was GAS'ing for a budget fuzz pedal that was good with both bass and guitar and wasn't a russian muff or an odb-3 (having previously owned both). The russian muff part took some doing but i definetly found it the devi ever Cherry Pop.

First some stuff on actually buying it:

The only place I could find them in the uk was selling them for £120, so i settled on importing it. With shipping from america it came to just a shade under £85, i ordered it about 1am tuesday (hey what can i say, i'm a student) and it arrived friday, very impressed. The place i ordered it from [url="http://www.proguitarshop.com"]http://www.proguitarshop.com[/url] marked down the stated value on the shipping info so it wouldn't get stopped by customs (which would leave me paying exorbitant taxes and import fees), and while not strictly above board, this is very useful and a lot of places do it now, so if you're thinking of importing anything from america, give them a look. One slight downside though, i had to pay through paypal, and i couldn't pay with bank transfer or my debit card, so i had to borrow my dads credit card, which happened to be an american express, now i don't know if it accepted it because it was a credit card or because it was an american express, so give them an email if you're thinking of ordering anything. It wasn't magnificently packaged though, the pedal was in it's box with just a few inadequate packing peanuts, and that box was in a shipping box with equally inadequate air packing, i'll adress the consequences of this in the reliability section (did somebody say...tension?)

Anyway, the pedal, reviewed in harmony central style, partly because it's requested, partly so i can just c+p it for my harmony central review

Ease of use: 6

Don't judge it simply by a number, to me it's what every good pedal should be, it takes some getting to know to use well, but what might get some people is it manges to be quite complex with only 3 knobs, volume for gain, tone for ...well, tone, and control changes intensity, but also the characteristics of the fuzz.
It takes a bit of fiddling to get decent sounds of it, it's very sensitive to everything, i tried it with a passive and an active and it sounded quite different with both, on the active, the simple 2 band eq made a massive difference to the pedal, significantly moreso than the clean signal. On both, the slightest change in dynamics made a difference, but in a weird way i'll address later. Setting eitheir of the tone or control knobs to hard left or right has an odd effect also. If you turn eitheir to just a slight turn before hard left or right, then turn it to hard left or right, it sounds completely different. I've come To think of it as hard left and right being their own settings, and then everything else being the adjustable setting. It's defintely a pedal you need to know well to use well, it's got it's own personality, but a rewarding one. If you're gigging with it, i'd say you definitley need to know what you're going to use it for, spend a lot of time figuring out good settings in advance, practice, and don't stray from them. The jacks take some hammering in, but at least they're sturdy. Battery access is via the back plate, which removes with fours screws, there's no battery holder, but th small mxr size enclousre means it slots in sungly behind the switch, and there's a 9v boss type jack.

Sound Quality: 9

Bring on the fuzz. This thing is chock full of it. I've tried it with my active and passive basses, and my cheapy guitar. The first issue to address is low end response. When i first tried it i had the tone set hard left, as i figured left was bass and right was treble. When i hit the switch and was assualted by a thin weedy screechy open E i almost cried. I tried fiddling with the tone knob, and low and behold, left was treble, right bass. I then turned it hard right and nearly blew out my amp. The Low end response is unreal, as good as every bass specific fuzz i've ever heard. There's a variety of tones for bass, having the tone hard right and control hard left gives you a very bassy tone with simple tame, synthy fuzz, very overdriveish, think the opening riff of Time Is Running Out by Muse. Cranking up the control makes the fuzz more intense, anything past about 2 o'clock though and it gets pretty unusable for low end, so you have to use the control and tone in tandem, they interact quite a bit. This however highlights something else about the pedal, not so much a flaw, as just how it works. The tone knob acts essentially as a filter, not just boosting the treble or bass, but eliminating the opposite frequency. This may not be by design, but it happened with both basses and the guitar, The Effect is only occasionaly noticeable with low frequiences, if you have the control low and the tone hard left you wont notice even on an open low C (I didn't try any lower tunings) if you push the control past 1 o'clock you'll occasionaly notice depending on your amp and eq settings the fuzz is inconsistent and takes a second or two to kick in properly on some notes, but just push the tone up a tiny bit and it's fine. It only gets noticeable with the high frequenices, with the tone past 4 o'clock (the tone only goes up to 5 o'clock) and the control past about 12 o'clock, anything past about 12'th fret on the g string decays almost immeadietly into sputtery oscillation, and anything past about 15'th fret just doesn't sound at all, you just get the sputtery oscillationy decay minus the actual note. To me this is by no means a major issue, with a negligble compromise on the low end (even with the tone hard left, there's still plenty of low end) there's plenty of sounds to treat the whole fret board well. The sustain sings, depending on where the tone and control are, you can get some nice rich oscillations, certainly rivals a muff on sustain, probably even beats it. The pedal itself is no noise, if you mute the strings completely, or turn your bass/guitar volume down, there's barely even a hum, but it is very sensitive, with the tone far left and control high, even a slight rubbing of the strings will cause it to scream.

Overall Very Very Good Fuzz, lots of different sounds, simple tame low end fuzz, to high end wall of noise weirdness, i've heard samples of other boutique fuzz's, The supercollider, the ramshead, the wooly mammoth, even the legendary shin ei, and while the cherry pop is probably not comporable to a £300 pedal, the low low price outweighs any small sound difference.

Reliability: 9

Small MXR Size enclousre, made of thick, unpainted brushed steel, jacks are rock solid, foot switch is very sturdy, my main concern is probably the pots, they're small plastic, and raised of the pedal, they'd be the first thing to go i'd say, but good for now. The led is right nect to the foot switch, but it's sunken so there's minimal risk of breaking it. If you recall the intro (seems so long ago doesn't it?) i said it made a transatlantic journey very badly packaged, well it survived unscathed, i gave the box a shake when i got it, and it rattled quite a bit, so it was obviously knocked around, and still fine. Having a look at the innards, it's all very minimlaist, no pcb, just the switch, the jacks, the pots, and presumably the fuzz circuit wrapped in tape attacthed to the pots. There's no battery clip but it slots in snugly behind the siwtch (i've never had an mxr pedal so this might be the case with all pedals of this size). These things are handmade by devi ever (she's a person, it's not just the company name) and someone else I believe, and it looks and feels very well designed and very well put together. Definitley boutique quality.

Customer Support: N/A (9)

I've only had it a week or so, so i've not used it yet, but i've heard nothing but good things, the company is run by the founder devi ever, and a few other people i think, but apparently all the technical problems are handled by devi, and she'll tell how to fix it if you feel confident doing it yourself, and she's very accesible through the website, and the forums, and she's also active on youtube. So N/A because I haven't actually used it, but 9 on repuation (no 10 because nothings perfect)

Overall: 9

For £70, you can't do any better, It's not even deisgned for bass, specifically, like all devi pedals it's designed for everything, guitar, bass, vocals, synth, drums. I got it because I also play guitar a little, and i'm very poor, so when i spend what little money i have on gear, I want it to be versatile. Coupled with the only other pedal I own at the moment, a dunlop bass crybaby, I got some awesome sounds perfect for my weird atmospheric post rock band. I also observed the basic bass effects forumal, fuzz + wah + bass + show off player = Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth). Sounded fantastic, I've never had so much fun playing it. But as i said repeatedly it's also capable of simple, groove friendly, bass heavy fuzz, some fuzzed up sabbath sounded fantastic. If you're looking for a specific bass fuzz, they do make a bass fuzz that's probably more up your alley. In fact they only make fuzz pedals, so there's something for everyone and every purpose, I definitley reccomend the pedal, but I whole heartedly reccomend the company. Any company that gives you a free lollilop with a fuzz pedal has got to be worth a look, right?

Thanks for reading that very, very, very long review, pics below:

Edited September 2, 2008 by bobbass4k