NPD: Fairfield Barbershop (now I get it!)

Crazy Otto

Crazy Otto

Jan 11, 2016
666
884
4,551
Germany
#1
I now understand what all the fuss is about over this pedal and I'm really glad I decided to give it a spin. It is for sure going on my board as my 'always on' low gain OD. It's transparent as all getout, even more so than my Grizzly...does absolutely nothing to my tone beyond fattening it up and giving it more presence, which is exactly what I wanted it for. The sag pot is really where it's at on this pedal, it's subtle but is really nice to have. It sounded pretty good with my setup pretty much anywhere between 12 and 3 (I settled on 2 eventually). I kept the toggle in either the middle position or to the right for a small treble cut, depending on the song and had the gain between 9 and 10. Pretty much a perfect base tone. I haven't tested it at higher gain, but I can't imagine I'd ever use it that way given that I have other pedals to handle that stuff.

One thing I did notice is that it didn't play well with a clean boost going into it...for those that have this pedal, is there some internal trim pot or something that I can adjust to make it more compatible with a boost? That's the only issue I have with the pedal at all, but it's not a gamechanger, I can just put the boost after it if there's no other way around it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: monsterthompson, blindrabbit, Nunovsky and 1 other person
#3
GMC said:
A clean boost before it will push the Barbershop into fuzz land. So you will need to reduce the grit on the Barbershop accordingly. If your clean boost is wildly hot, then this may not be possible. You'll need to move your clean boost after the Barbershop.
Click to expand...

Thanks -- it's about a 5-7db boost, I'll play with it some more, otherwise I'll just move it.
 
#4
It's a good way to get more grit out of an OD pedal...hit it hard with a clean boost (or slightly dirty for a cascaded OD) before the OD unit. Just like you would with a valve amp, you get even more crunch. But it's also quite possible to totally saturate the OD unit and loose the gentle clipping tones from the "it's just breaking up" clipping. A clean boost is more of a guitar thing than a bass thing. Most basses are a lot hotter than guitars, so you shouldn't need one, unless you really want to shunt your Overdrive into crazy land...where the Barbershop gets quite gnarly....which may / may not be what you are looking for in an overdrive.
 
#5
GMC said:
It's a good way to get more grit out of an OD pedal...hit it hard with a clean boost (or slightly dirty for a cascaded OD) before the OD unit. Just like you would with a valve amp, you get even more crunch. But it's also quite possible to totally saturate the OD unit and loose the gentle clipping tones from the "it's just breaking up" clipping. A clean boost is more of a guitar thing than a bass thing. Most basses are a lot hotter than guitars, so you shouldn't need one, unless you really want to shunt your Overdrive into crazy land...where the Barbershop gets quite gnarly....which may / may not be what you are looking for in an overdrive.
Click to expand...

Yeah the boost is primarily for the grizzly, which is at the end, so I'll just keep it right in front of that. BS is definitely better without it -- that will be at the start of the chain.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back