This is a preliminary review in a Q+A style, and based on first impressions as to its abilities. If any of my feelings change over the coming days or weeks then I'll post them here.
1. Who are Carl Martin and why did you look at them?
Well, I hadn't heard of them either until a couple of weeks ago. They are a small Danish company that make analogue effects pedals for guitars. All are apparantly hand made, and all offer high quality buffered bypass as opposed to true bypass. They will claim that this is an advantage, but your opinions may vary. I've read the articles and (from a theory point of view) a high-quality buffer at the start of your signal chain seems like a good idea. In terms of market position, they are at the posher end of things and seem to be at the T-Rex end of the price scale as opposed to the Behringer end
http://www.carlmartin.com/index.htm I became interested because I love the natural sound of my amp and I wanted to get an overdrive (or clean boost) that would not alter the sound at all apart from pushing it a little harder.... For this reason, I ruled out anything of the regular mutlifx variety as I did not want any D/A conversions going on. This may be unfair of me, but I've done the digital thing ever since I've had a guitar and I suddenly find myself bordering on being an ex-smoker with my new found love of the valve! I also wanted an analogue-sounding delay, though would have been fine with a hybrid effort as long as it didn't put converters in the signal path. I wanted something with a buffer, and I wanted something with a high input impedence so as not to alter the positive experience I've had with the amp making my guitars sound great.
2. Why the Quattro?
Because I got it for a decent price on eBay
It does the overdrives and the delay along with a couple of other things, so getting it for £160 worked very well in comparison to a decent overdrive + decent delay.
3. Features
This is a very minimalist beast. It has 6 standard round stomp switches and 11 chickenhead knobs. There are no menus (there is not even a display!!!). There is an input and a pair of mono outputs (to send to two seperate amps), plus an FX send and return. This splits the box in half with the compressor and overdrives before the split and everything else up back. This makes it possible to put extra overdrives or modulation fx in the loop, and as the buffers in this thing are excellent then it should help with any tone sucking individuals! The power supply is built in, so it's just a 2 core mains flex going in. There is, unfortunately, no mains switch and no power on light at all. If it's plugged in, it's on. I can see myself accidentally leaving it on fairly regularly
There are nice bright blue led's to show when the robust, positive switches are engaged. The footswitches are a little closer together than I'd like.... I can see me accidentally hitting two at once. I guess that means I could do it on purpose and call it a patch change
It has a compressor with two controls - compress and level. Then it has Drive 1 and Drive 2... The only parameters these have are the level and a tone control which affects both overdrives. Then we have a tremello with depth and speed controls (this is the older version of the Quattro, the newer version has a chorus instead of the tremello). Finally we have an analogue delay. This is set by tap-tempo only (I'd have prefered a knob too but I'll live) and also have the level of the echos, number of repeats and a tone control that only affects the echos.
The layout is simple and clean and (to my eyes) backwards.... I would always think of a signal chain going from left to right and would expect the stompers to be laid out in this manner. Not so. We have the compressor on the far right, then the OD, then the trem then the delay is over on the left. Very odd!
4. Sounds.
If you like lots of variety or want / need really extreme effects then this unit will not suit you. It does a narrow range of things very well indeed and that's it.... This will either appeal or turn you off depending on world view.
The first bit of good news is there seems to be no difference in the level or tone of the guitar when it is bypassed; I've spent time swapping the Quattro in and out of the signal chain and can't really tell a difference. I need to do a bit more on this to convince the peddant in me and I need to get a couple more guitar leads.... All of the effects seem to be noise-free (or as good as). As noise was one of the reasons why manufacturers went towards digital, it shows that Carl Martin have done a good job here. You'd never know that this was working on old-style technology.
The compressor is very nice. I've had scant experience of compressors up front of a guitar unless it's been part of a patch on a multifx. With the compression on 0 and the level turned up, this effect acts as a completely clean boost which was one of the things I wanted. It ticks the box very nicely indeed. With the compressor turned up, sitting in front of the speaker cab is great fun as the whole thing just sustains forever
Whatever you do to the compressor section it sounds musical - no bad sounds to be had.
The overdrive section is very simple. They don't seem to have much character of their own as in they just seem to amplify the sound of the guitar more as opposed to shaping it. This suits me perfectly as all I wanted was the ability to hit the front end of my amp harder but if you want a whole lot of buzz it isn't possible until you really crank the levels. When I do this, the amp is super-loud
There is an overall level as well so I'll need to fiddle with this to see where I go, but overall they are 'just' overdrives, not distortions. The tone control does give a bit of variety. Set at 9 o'clock (ish) the sound of the guitar is unchanged, so there is range for a bit of top cut and a lot of treble boost if you like it. This section makes me happy, but it would not suit everyone. I may add a fuzz in the FX loop at a later date. As it is, I can leave my single channel amp alone and get clean, OD and distorted sounds with this unit. I can add a 4th flavour by using the compressor as a clean boost as opposed to compressing. Not bad!
The tremello is a really happy accident; I wasn't in the market for one but it is absolutely gorgeous and will get loads of use. I'm not a chorus fan, so having the trem on this older version suits me! Having said that, if the Carl Martin chorus sounds as good as the tremello does on this thing then it may convert me to the joys of chorus! It's unfortunate that you cannot tie the speed to the tap tempo...
The delay is lovely for what it does. It is a little 'shushy' but I guess it's supposed to be! The tap tempo works well, but turning the unit off resets this to the default. A knob to 'go with' should have been included TBH. It sounds very retro and I love it. It has no bells or whistles here, so if you need multihead, ping pong, reverse, stereo or the ability to dial in an exact tempo for recording then you are out of luck. If you want 'dead easy and sounds great within its limits' then it is fab.
Overall, this is a great unit for a person who wants to add a couple of basic effects and overdrives of excellent quality to an amp they are already happy with. As this was my aim, I'm really pleased with it. It is dead simple, built like a tank and (within its limits) sounds gorgeous. Due to the limited range of parameters, It's hard to get a bad sound out of it though it may make tweak-junkies frustrated with its limitations. It should also marry up nicely with other stomp boxes due to the design of its internal effects loop, so if you have favourite pedals but need to upgrade your basics then it's well worth a look. They retail at £330 ish new, or you can get fleeced for £425 on eBay. Or get lucky as I did
