This month, I had – and took – the opportunity to add a couple of increasingly-rare tweed tone pedals to my collection. In both cases, I’m very glad that I did.
I also tried out a new (to me) pedal brand for the first time: NUX. I grabbed a couple of their pedals. Both were excellent in their own way.
Finally, I picked up another clone-in-a-box from my favourite pedal clone maker, websmurfer. It’s always a delight for me to try one of their designs.
Read on for all the details.
Bearfoot FX Honey Beest Overdrive Pedal
Of all the pedals in the legendary Honey Bee family, this is the one that I’ve always passed on. Every review I’ve read says that it’s quite different to the other circuits, and as a result, it’s something of a marmite pedal amongst guitar players who have tried one.
Well, you know what else is quite different? My PRS Paul’s Guitar (aka The Earl). It doesn’t really sound like anything else that I play (in a good way!) and I’m very curious to see whether or not these two go well together.
Spoiler alert: this might be my favourite pedal in the Honey Bee family to date, for my Telecaster’s bridge pickup.
Bearfoot FX Honey Bee X Overdrive Pedal
Speaking of the legendary Honey Bee family … this is one of the latest additions to the lineup. The ‘X’ stands for ’10 year anniversary edition’. As far as I can tell, it’s a Honey Bee with the Uber Bee’s gain range, and with additional EQ controls to make it more flexible for a wider variety of rigs.
I’ve had the Uber Bee for longer than I’ve had this blog. While it’s a great pedal with Telecasters, in the past I’ve struggled to make it work when I’ve reached for my Les Paul. I’m hoping that this ‘ultimate’ Honey Bee design will prove to be the best of both worlds.
It turned out to be a bit special …
WebSmurfer Golden Fleece Pedal Clone
websmurfer is an amateur pedal maker, who makes and sells pedals on eBay UK. Long-time readers may remember me raving about the ‘Little Pink Wonder’ boost pedal into my Marshall Origin amp? That was one of their pedals.
It’s been a few years since I’ve seen websmurfer release a new clone, so when I saw this one, I jumped on it right away. The original pedal – Mythos’ Golden Fleece – is a bit of a revered pedal, and rarely comes up on the second hand market. And it’s something a bit different for me.
I’ll say one thing about this pedal: it’s making me rethink my entire signal chain, for when I try a new (to me) pedal. I’ll explain more when I post the First Impressions blog post.
NUX Horseman Overdrive Pedal
My local guitar shop just got in a bunch of NUX stuff, and amongst them was this affordable klone pedal. I thought I’d get it to check it out.
It’s got a feature that might be unique? It’s got two modes, known as ‘gold’ and ‘silver’. The accompanying paperwork claims that these modes emulate the differences between gold Klons and silver Klons. As far as I can discover, though, both the gold and silver Klons used the exact same circuit, so 🤷♂️
I’m going to talk about this in an upcoming #CoffeeAndKlon post. But if you can’t wait, the tl;dr is that it’s a very good overdrive pedal for the money.
NUX Morning Star Overdrive Pedal
I enjoyed the Horseman so much, I decided to give one of their flagship pedals a try too.
I’ve seen some debate online about what the Morning Star actually is, especially as the name invites comparisons to JHS’s Morning Glory pedal.
So what is it? Here are my First Impressions.