Xotic BB or Barber Small Fry?

[polishcomedy]

I really like Andy Timmons' demo of the BB, but the GuitarShop demo on YouTube doesn't do much for me. However, the GuitarShop demo of the Small Fry sounds great. First off, Timmons uses the BB to grit up his clean channel tone. Isn't using channel two's "clean" switch supposed to do the same thing? Seems redundant. I want a pedal to push channel two's gain into more saturation and sustain, but I also want somewhat of a versatile pedal to do other things, as well. I think I'm down to these two pedals, but are there any others you might recommend? Thanks as always!

 

[plan-x]

I'm a little partial to Barber pedals as many know around here. They're so transparent and great for pushing an amp over. They stack well together also. To me, those qualities are required to push ch 2 on the LSC. Other pedals I've had (non Barber) just muddy up the mix. Buffered pedals seem to do the mud also. I highly recommend any Barber. They cover anything from clean boost to amp like gain (low,mid,& some high gain too) really well, all models with the exception of the Dirty bomb not really doing clean boost, mainly a high gainer. I have the LTD,DD,SF,TP,Tpump, with mods also. The Barber line is the best bang for your buck boutique pedals out there.

As for the BB, I've read(never tried one) that stacking in it's own line up (AC/RC/BB)(or with others) results in it getting a little muddy in the bottom end. Hmmm. Somebody is going to slap me for saying that. :shock:

One more thing, the SF is a tad bit thinner than the LTD/DD. The latter are very warm sounding. But, the SM has some internal trims to help warm it up alot. IMO,(no humble here) the SF sounds really, really, good with an ext. cab added to the pig. This is not true of the LTD or DD, since they are very warm already and just get even fatter with the ext cab. I also would recomend the Barbers with internal trims. DDSS, SF, CC(LTD SR with SF controls). This allows for tweaking to match guitar/amp very nicely by adding more tricks to the pony.

 

[axman53]

I've got the Xotic BB and the Xotic RC on my board and also own the Barber Direct Drive. I've found that both the Xotic BB and the Barber DD work great to push channel 2 of my LSS. The BB won out on my board because 1) it takes up half the real estate of the DD and 2) it has active bass/treble controls versus a single tone control on the DD. Also, I find that I can duplicate the effect of the DD simply by using a clean push from my Xotic RC on channel 2, so having the DD seemed redundent to me. On the other hand, the Xotic BB turns channel 2 into an awesome grind machine. OK, that's my $0.02. Hope it helps.

 

[gregrjones]

I own both the Xotic BB and the Barber Small Fry. I prefer the Small Fry because it sounds more "complex" to my ears. It's hard to describe...

The BB sounds good, but I think the Barber sounds even better.

 

[Quetapasao]

I've got the BB and RC , and to me both are great in both channels . The BB is great for pushing ch2 into more sustain.I'm with Axman , what it's cool about the BB ( besides the sound ) it's the eq . I hate the bass sucked of by EVERY dis pedal , and with this one ( also the RC ) you can dial the exact amount that you want , and mainly you can still hear your guitar . Talking about demos in Youtube , well I prefer to hear a demo by somebody who can play ( Andy Timmons , Scott Henderson , you name it ) than any other kind of demo simply because these guys have spend enough time with the gear they are using to get the best out for them and their other gear than somebody who is demoing 20 pedals a day .

Polishcomedy , have you seen the videos in Mesa's site with AT ? He explains how he uses the BB with the LSC in detail .

Hope it helps.

 

[GIG4FUN]

I have the Xotic BB and the Barber Dirty Bomb on my pedal board. I suggest you consider these two!
They are quite different BUT YET so much the same and these two really do well for me.

 

[pine]

I have a Small Fry and love it, it is an extremely versatile pedal and there are tons of good tones in there