I recently picked up one of the pedals on my bucket list: the Rockbox Baby Blues vintage distortion pedal.
What do I think of it? Read on for my First Impressions.
Table of Contents
- What Did I Buy?
- Why Did You Buy It?
- Did I Get A Broken Pedal? (No …)
- My Rig Today
- First Things First: Restring The Guitar!
- What Do The Toggle Switches Do?
- Tackling The Pedal’s Low-End
- This Pedal Comes Alive With The Right Guitar
- Final Thoughts
What Did I Buy?
I bought a Baby Blues overdrive pedal, by Rockbox. I got mine second-hand from a shop on Reverb.
It’s not an overdrive pedal. It’s actually a low-gain distortion pedal. That’s a bit different for me, for sure. I believe that it’s based on the Marshall Bluesbreaker circuit?
There are two unofficial versions of the Baby Blues: ones that come in a hand-painted enclosure, and ones that come in the solid blue enclosure. As far as I know, it’s the same electronics in both enclosures.
I got the one that’s hand-painted.
Why Did You Buy It?
This has been on my bucket list for some time now.
Last year’s reissue of the Marshall Bluesbreaker got me interested in exploring more pedals based on the bluesbreaker circuit. And folks have recommended this pedal as one of the best takes on that around.
Then there’s how much I really enjoyed the Rockbox Boiling Point drive pedal. I thought that pedal was one of (if not the) easiest pedals to plug in and use that I’ve played. Is this a winning formula throughout Rockbox’s pedal line? I want to find out.
Unfortunately, these are incredibly rare pedals here in the UK. So rare, in fact, that I haven’t seen a single one on eBay UK since I started looking for one.
There’s a few available for import from Japan. That’s a very expensive way to buy a pedal, and a route that I’ve never tried before.
In the end, I got lucky: this one turned up on Reverb UK for less than the Japan-import route, right when I could afford it – and right when I was looking for something to celebrate completing my recovery from surgery.
I figured that this could be my best chance to own one.
Did I Get A Broken Pedal? (No …)
I unpacked the pedal, plugged it into my rig, and … it was clean. It was super, super clean. Huh. I wasn’t expecting that.
According to a photo I found online, the two toggle switches on the right switch Drive 1 and Drive 2 on and off. So I flip both Drive switches to the right, and I couldn’t hear any difference at all.
At this point, I’m ashamed to say that I panicked a little, and send an email off to the Reverb seller to let them know the pedal wasn’t working and I’d need to arrange a return and a refund. This is an expensive pedal – one that I’ve been after for a very long time – and I was just totally crushed by the disappointment.
I don’t return second-hand pedals if I don’t like them. As long as the pedal works, it’s my problem if I don’t like what I’ve bought. In this case, though, I really thought it was broken. A return for a refund seemed like the right thing to do.
After emailed the Reverb seller 🤦♂️, I popped the back off the pedal. Oh, there’s a battery in it. I took the battery out … and the pedal started working as expected.
Why didn’t I check that first?!? God, I’m an idiot!
I’ve emailed an apology to the Reverb seller, and (if they ever stumble across this blog post), I’m apologising here to them too.
My Rig Today
Today, I’m playing:
- my Gibson Les Paul CR8 (and a mystery guest …)
- into my Axe-FX 3 (for tuner and EQ tools)
- out to my pedalboard
- back into my Axe-FX 3 (for amp, cab, delay, reverb and some added sauce)
- and into my DAW.
I’ve gone with GP (my Les Paul CR8) because I prefer to use bluesbreaker-circuit pedals with a Les Paul. The mystery guest will be revealed further down!
On my pedalboard, I have the JHS Pedals Notaklön, MP Audio Brit Blue and Rockbox Blues Baby in separate loops of my Gigrig G2. When a pedal isn’t being used, it’s completely out of the signal path, to ensure it doesn’t affect the tone in any way at all.
On the Axe-FX 3, I’m running my 65 Vintage pedal platform preset. I am going to have to use some additional effects along the way (it’s that kind of pedal); I’ll make sure they’re clearly mentioned when I do.
There’s no post-processing in my DAW: all effects that you hear are coming from the Axe-FX 3. I will level-matched the demos before uploading them.
First Things First: Restring The Guitar!
I really struggled to get any sort of acceptable tone out of this pedal at first. The problem? Old strings on my Les Paul.
I’ve found that this pedal demands a lot of treble in the input signal. For a Les Paul, that means being on the bridge pickup with fresh strings. Anything else, and not only did the pedal sound incredibly dark and dull, it also struggled to add any sort of dirt to the signal. (This probably played a part in me thinking that the pedal was faulty at first!)
It seems to be one of those pedals that only uses the upper frequencies for the distortion stage. I’ll come back to this point very shortly.
What Do The Toggle Switches Do?
Listing The Toggle Switches
Here’s a quick summary of each toggle switch, what it does … and which direction is the ‘on’ position.
| Toggle Switch | Purpose | On When Pointing … |
|---|---|---|
| Top-left | Boost | Right |
| Bottom-left | Treble Boost | Right |
| Top-right | Drive 1 | Left |
| Bottom-right | Drive 2 | Left |
Yeah, the ‘on’ position for the right-hand toggle switches is the opposite to the left-hand toggle switches. That caught me out at first. It’s fine once you understand the quirky design.
Together these switches offer 16 different variations.
I haven’t had time to systematically explore all 16 combinations, to discover how many of them work for me. Here’s some examples of what I have tried so far.
Drive 1 – Top-Right Toggle Switch
Seeing as it’s called ‘Drive 1’, it seems like the obvious place to start.
First off … it’s quiet. With the gain control at 12 noon, unity volume is around 3 o’clock. I’m not very comfortable with that; I’m concerned that working the pedal so hard won’t produce the best sound from it.
Secondly … even with fresh strings on my Les Paul, it’s a dark dark pedal. I’ve had to turn the tone control up to 3 o’clock just to get this:
That’s an awful lot of low-end coming through. I’m surprised at just how boomy it is. This is a bridge humbucker!
I’ll come back and focus on this low-end characteristic in more detail before the end.
Drive 2 – Bottom-Right Toggle Switch
I’ve turned Drive 1 off, and enabled the Drive 2 circuit. Everything else is the same as before: volume around 3 o’clock, gain at 12 noon, and treble control at 3 o’clock.
Because of the name, I was expecting Drive 2 to provide more overdrive than Drive 1, but it’s actually the complete opposite. Drive 2 offers the least amount of gain, and more volume than Drive 1.
That was hard to play. It took me a few takes to get an acceptable performance. Regular readers will know that I like a low-gain rhythm tone, but that was just too clean a guitar tone even for me.
However, if I wind the pedal’s gain control up towards 2 o’clock, that’s where the dirt is on Drive 2:
I think Drive 2’s more me than Drive 1 was. It feels nice to play, and (to my ears) has this open quality to the tone that sounds interesting and expressive.
There’s plenty of work to do, though, before I’m happy with the results.
Drive 1 and Drive 2 Together
For completeness, here’s what the Baby Blues sounds like when both drive circuits are on at the same time:
I’ve haven’t spent much time exploring this setting, so I don’t have much to say.
If I start with Drive 1 and then add Drive 2, I don’t hear any change in volume. Does that mean that the signal goes from Drive 1 into Drive 2? I don’t know, and Rockbox do not say on their website.
Treble Boost – Bottom-Left Toggle Switch
Is this an EQ shift or an additional gain stage? To my ears, it sounds more like an actual treble booster than just an EQ shift.
There’s a bit more gain from the Drive circuits when it’s engaged. Unfortunately, because this pedal’s drive circuits are voracious for treble signal, that doesn’t help me tell what this toggle switch is engaging.
But there is also a (small) bump in output volume too when the treble boost is activated. Rightly or wrongly, if this was just an EQ shift, I would expect the volume to remain about the same. Come to think of it, given that a lot of this pedal’s volume is coming from the low end, an EQ shift could actually reduce the pedal’s overall volume a little.
After a bit of experimenting, I’ve figured out when I like to have the Treble Boost engaged. I’ve tried to summarise it in the following table:
| Stacked? | Drive Toggles? | Treble Boost Toggle |
|---|---|---|
| Baby Blues is only dirt pedal | Any of them on | On |
| Baby Blues is stacked after boost pedal | n/a | Off |
Here’s how Drive 2 sounds with the Treble Boost enabled. For this clip, I’ve turned the pedal’s tone control down below 2 o’clock.
Ignoring the excessive low-end (for now), that’s more like it. To my ears, the extra treble has added a little bit of extra bite and note clarity. The earlier demo recording sounds softer to me – although there isn’t much in it.
Maybe I’m mistaken, but I think I’m hearing a little more saturation in the mid-range too? It certainly felt a touch more compressed under the fingers when playing. Nothing excessive, mind.
The pedal has an internal pot to adjust the Treble Boost. I haven’t touched that yet. One for another day.
Boost Control – Top-Left Toggle Switch
It seems to be a fixed boost circuit. It’s either on or off, with no way (that I know of) to adjust what it’s doing.
On its own (ie, both Drive circuits disabled), it provides a huge volume boost. I think it’s adding at least a 12 dB boost (based on me A/B’ing it with an external boost pedal). It might be as high as 15-16 dB of boost, or even more?
It’s not a clean, full-range boost either. The pedal’s built-in boost is shelving low-end, and is adding some drive too. I don’t think it’s meant to be another drive stage per se; I think it’s just clipping a little bit inside the boost circuit itself.
Here’s how it sounds, with the pedal’s gain control as low as it will go (!!). The first audio demo is me boosting the pedal using an external boost, and the second demo is what the internal boost sounds like.
Whether it’s 12 dB, or 15 dB, it doesn’t matter: this internal boost feature adds far too much boost for my tastes.
I’m playing with vintage-voiced PAF-style humbuckers. These are low output humbuckers. And even with the pedal’s drive control turned down as low as it will go, the internal boost is just adding too much gain for my needs:
That’s a shame, because I do love what the internal boost has done to the EQ. It’s cleaned up all that excessive low-end, allowing the pedal’s quality to finally start to peek through.
Dear Rockbox, if you ever read this, please give us a Baby Blues v2 where the internal boost is either halved or adjustable in some way. I’d buy one!
Until then, I’m going to leave this internal boost off, and get the boost and low-end shelving that I need by stacking it with another pedal.
Tackling The Pedal’s Low-End
Option 1: Internal Boost Engaged, Input Signal Starved
The first option is to keep the internal boost on, and turn down the input signal that’s going into the pedal. This will gave me (some) usable range on the pedal’s gain control.
The traditional way to do this is to turn down the volume on the guitar. I’m not a fan of the results, tbh. I lose a lot of treble very quickly on this guitar when I turn down. As a result, I couldn’t find a sweet spot that I was happy with.
The modern way to do this is to stick something between the guitar and pedal, and turn down its output. I’m running a hybrid rig, so in my case, I can simply turn down the signal that’s going from the Axe-FX 3 to the Baby Blues. This can also be done on a pedal switcher like the Gigrig G2, or with a full-range boost pedal where the volume’s been turned down.
After some experimenting, I settled on a sweet spot where I’ve got a -12 dB cut going into the Baby Blues, and the pedal’s gain control no higher than 9 o’clock.
I found it to be a bit of a balancing act, tbh. Different levels of input signal cut and different settings on the pedal’s gain control together caused different EQ shifts.
So, while it works, it’s not a technique that I’m likely to use much. It’s just not flexible enough.
Option 2: Post-Pedal EQ
What about applying a tilt EQ after the Baby Blues, to cut the low-end that’s coming out of the pedal?
Here, I’m on Drive 2, with the pedal’s treble boost on. Drive 2 and the internal boost are both switched off. I’ve added a tilt EQ between the pedal and the amp. Here’s how it sounds:
That definitely works!
Listening back, the interesting thing is how the Baby Blues has kept that fuzzy mid-range characteristic. I didn’t really notice that while recording the demos. Dare I say it, it’s kinda tweedy …
Option 3: Turn Down The Bass On The Amp
I’m sure at least one of my readers has been shouting this at the screen, and wondering why I haven’t led with this. Why not just turn down the bass control on the amp?!?
That also works.
I’m running a hybrid rig (plus I’m playing at home) so it’s not a big deal if I have to tweak the amp settings when I’m changing pedals. If I was playing a valve amp (especially if I was playing live), it wouldn’t be the technique I’d go with. I’d much rather stomp on a second pedal than touch the amp.
Plus, I think the Tilt EQ approach is providing a bit more note clarity to my ears. It allows me to be a bit more precise; I can adjust where the cut is to suit this particular pedal.
I’ve exhausted my usual bag of tricks for dealing with a lot of low-end in a pedal’s output signal. Let’s switch it up, and start looking at reducing the amount of low-end that goes into the pedal in the first place.
Option 4: Pre-Pedal EQ
I’ve taken that tilt EQ from earlier, and moved it so that it’s in front of the Baby Blues. This will reduce the amount of low-end that’s going into the pedal.
Here’s how that sounds. For comparison, I’ve also included the demo where the tilt EQ is after the pedal.
To my ears, both demos sound incredibly similar. I wasn’t expecting that.
I thought that cutting the low-end into the Baby Blues would change its overdrive characteristic in a much more noticeable way. I was expecting there to be more bite to the notes, because there’s less low-end to smear the distortion.
I don’t know enough about pedal circuits to explain what’s going on here. Is the low-end largely coming from mixing in the dry signal? If you can explain it, please leave a comment below!
Option 5: External Boost That Cuts Low-End
Regular readers will probably be aware that my go-to technique for this kind of situation is to stack my drive pedals with a boost pedal that also shelves low-end. Klon klones are quite good for this.
I’ve switched off the Baby Blues’ internal treble boost, and put the JHS Notaklön in front of it. Here’s how that combination sounds:
I’ve had to wind the gain up on the Notaklön more than I normally would for a clean boost setting. It was the only way to cut enough low-end to tame the Baby Blues. Turning the gain up has introduced more mid-range into the final signal.
That might be what you want. It’s definitely a creative choice that you can make. The Baby Blues is already quite a mid-forward voiced pedal. In my experiments, it seems to take external mid-boosts far better than anything else. I do think the option’s there for you.
Me, I kinda want to go in the opposite direction, and clean up the mid-range a bit. And that gives me an idea for one last thing to try …
This Pedal Comes Alive With The Right Guitar
Enter The Mystery Guest
From what I’ve read, the Rockbox Baby Blues is a bluesbreaker pedal. The Marshall Bluesbreaker circuit chases the sound of the 1960s JTM amp.
What if I paired it with a guitar that’s voiced for that era too? What if I tried an old Gibson Les Paul R0, which has a colder, more aggressive voice than my CR8 does?
Here’s how they both sound, for comparison purposes:
Introducing Some New (To You) Signal Chain Components
Before I talk about the tone, there’s a lot of extra components in the signal chain that I used to record those final two demos:
- multi-band compressor in front of the pedalboard (to reduce low-end going into the pedal)
- MP Audio Brit Blue boost/drive in front of the Baby Blues, to add mid-range saturation
- different impulse response (IR for short) in the Axe-FX 3 (my 65 Vintage 4 Darker scene)
- stereo enhancer after the amp to make it sound massive
- chorus, harmonic tremolo on the ‘dry’ signal out of the amp (extra spice)
- TC 1210-style delay and 16ths delay in parallel as an added a ‘wet’ signal (extra secret sauce)
The multi-band compressor and different IR are both a standard part of my “65 Vintage 4 Darker” preset scene. I’ve alluded to them before on the blog, but haven’t done a detailed write-up of them yet. It’s on the TODO list.
The Brit Blue is one of those pedals I’ve owned from before I started the blog. It doesn’t look like I’ve mentioned it on here before, though. No matter: it’s going to feature in my next #CoffeeAndKlon piece.
I threw on the multi-band compressor, different IR and the Brit Blue to (collectively) shape the low-end of the signal while making sure the end result didn’t sound too thin. I think it worked really well for the Baby Blues.
The “spice” and “secret sauce” are two elements in my pedal platform presets that I haven’t written about yet. They’ll get their own blog posts soon!
The stereo enhancer is (for now) an experiment. I don’t know if it’ll make it into the published version of my pedal platform presets or not.
I threw on the “spice”, “secret sauce” and stereo enhancer just to add a bit of interest to the final sound. Together, they add a bit of movement and sweetness. Well, I think so anyway 😁
Expect to hear more of them in the future.
Cornflakes For The Win
GP (my Les Paul CR8) is the Les Paul that regular readers have heard the most over the last 12-18 months. It just works really well with most pedals that I try.
In this case, though, I think Cornflakes (my old Les Paul R0) pairs better with the Rockbox Baby Blues. Hell, more than that: I don’t think Cornflakes has ever sounded this good before. (That’s why it rarely makes an appearance on the blog!)
If you go back and forth between the two demos (Cornflakes and GP), can you hear the mid-range difference between the two? To my ears, GP is filling out the lower-mids more, while with Cornflakes, there’s more of an upper-mids emphasis.
I’m also hearing more note attack from Cornflakes, and more note clarity. That’s partly the mid-range difference, but also (I think) the Baby Blues reacting to less low-end being fed in.
Overall, I think that GP sounds very good through this signal chain and the Rockbox Baby Blues, but Cornflakes sounds excellent.
Final Thoughts
At first, I wasn’t at all convinced by this pedal.
Rockbox’s Boiling Point was the ultimate plug-and-play pedal to get a great tone with zero effort. I found the Baby Blues to be the exact opposite. I almost put it in a box and gave up on it.
The key really was changing the guitar strings on GP. That’s when the pedal started to give me enough to get me interested. But I wasn’t really sold until I tried it with Cornflakes (my old Les Paul R0). I’ve been enjoying that pairing for the last few days, while finishing off this blog post.
Now, the Baby Blues is a keeper, and this experience is just the latest this year that’s convincing me to seriously think about starting to write about end-to-end signal chains (more than just individual pedals in isolation). I’m going to have to think about that.
Oh, and when I finally get around to writing about bluesbreaker-based pedals, I’m going to have to try them all with Cornflakes too now!