Greasebox GB-83

[pothole]

A GB-83 has landed in Boise..very fun little box. The shear range from clean boost to overdrive to distortion to fuzz is quite impressive.

[cajone5]

How's it compare to the Germ version?

[pothole]

How's it compare to the Germ version?

it's actually quite different. not only in the mile wide scope and detailed sensitivity to guitar volume adjustments, the 83 is much stiffer and more focused. If the GB-80 is a tube rectified, saggy and squishy EL-84 based amp that wants to just get along; the GB-83 is a solid state rectified 6L6 big glass scream machine that wants to fight.

or at least that is my initial takeaway from 30 minutes of noodling at lunch today.

[Philip]

^ Sounds spot on to me.

[redeyeflight]

Here's my initial impressions, mind you I haven't had a chance to really crank these up yet but I have sent several hours with them now. The gb80 and gb83 share the same sonic fingerprint: midrangey bite and really tight attack. The gb80 has considerably more gain and a warmer edge to it, I think it certainly falls under the definition of a "fuzzbox.". a tweaked, tightened and focused tonebender. The gb83 on the other hand is brighter, cleaner, and has a lot more range on the sustain dial. I'd really call it more of a fuzzy overdrive than a straight up fuzzbox. With the sustain all the way down it really reminds me of the Creepyfingers doomidrive (or the subsequent unidrive) but without the staticy artifacts. It doesn't have that tonebendery imprint of the gb80, it's really it's own thing. At full bore sustain it can cop some of the tones of the gb80 but it's still cleaner and a touch brighter. Unfortunately I didn't bring my original custom run grease box to work to compare but I'd say the gb83 is more in the realm of that than the new greaser. It's a fine fine pedal that's for sure. I have a gig this weekend and I'm going to bring the gb83 and see if I can get away with using it as my main low gain drive pedal (basically taking the place of what I usually use: toneczar dove) more to report after!

[mjkk]

I think my GB-83 has more gain than my GB-80's.

[pothole]

I think the amount of gain is highly dependent with this pedal..much more so than typical. Per the Captain's write-up, "I'll put it like this, it's not something you plug in an it does sound A each and every time with whatever guitar and amp combo you throw at it. It's very gear specific." (interestingly, he emphasizes the word very) Capt'n goes on to say "Offer the GB-83 low impedance pick-ups, a small valve combo all with the pedal played at moderate Volume and Sustain levels and you will likely be rewarded with a nice shiny drive tone with a more than workable volume boost and the ability push the amplifier into more saturated overdriven territories. Basically you do get what you give"

It's probably going to be important when talking about particular characteristics of the GB-83 to indicate what kind of setup you're using. With my AC-15 and '87 Strat with stock pups, the GB-83 has probably 75% of the gain as my GB-80.

[mjkk]

Yeah I guess I'm using it with a marshall, so maybe that is it.

[cajone5]

Yeah I guess I'm using it with a marshall, so maybe that is it.

I would guess the guitar pickup output would be the bigger factor in perceived gain... Are you using humbuckers or P90s?

[redeyeflight]

It may have more output volume, I haven't had a chance to really crank it up, but it has considerably less "gain" or "fuzz" than the gb-80 with my setup: '66 jazzmaster into a 60s Gibson scout amp set clean.