Second Bite: NABLA Custom Black Tweed Overdrive Pedal

This photo shows my Marshall DSL20HR amp head on a shelf, and my pedal board on a second shelf below.

The Marshall DSL20HR is on the clean channel, and the controls can be seen as follows:

* reverb: off
* resonance: about 8 o'clock
* presence: about 12 noon
* bass: just below 10 o'clock
* mids: about 10:30
* treble: about 1:30
* volume: about 10 o'clock
* gain: about 11 o'clock

On the pedal board, we can see three pedals: the NABLA Custom Black Tweed, the MXR Sugar Drive, and the JRAD Archer Ikon.
My rig for exploring the Black Tweed, second time around.

First time around, the NABLA Custom Black Tweed overdrive pedal just fell a little bit short of what I was hoping for. While I loved the feel of playing the pedal (honestly, it’s like playing an amp), I struggled with the EQ controls and the lack of top-end presence in the overall tone.

That was last year. Six months or so later, do I still feel the same?

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Side By Side: NABLA Custom Black Tweed and Mythos Lark

In my first impressions of the NABLA Custom Black Tweed, I said that one of the things I didn’t like about it was that I found the tone to sound very dull. This morning, I was going back through my New Arrivals posts, and I was reminded of another tweed-tone pedal with a top-end that I didn’t like at first: the Mythos Lark.

I thought it’d be interesting to throw them both on the board together, and explore them side by side. This isn’t a ‘best’ kind of review: it’s about understanding the options that each pedal offers … and yes, about exploring the top-end of them both.

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