The new Westwood pedal is best classified as a lower- to mid-gain pedal. Like the sound of a nice overdriven amp in a pedal format? Look no further. Pairing it with a variety of amps offered up great drive tones across the spectrum. It really interacted with a nice clean amp, with heavier drive settings. Players that like pushing an already overdriven amp? Lower the gain, and tailor the level; this works great as a boost, especially with the EQ dialing the tone in, regardless of the guitar. Single coils do benefit from more of a bass boost, rather than a treble cut, and humbuckers seemed to favor a slight bass cut, and a slight treble boost. Overall it interacted with the volume knob on the guitars nicely — rolling it back, while at higher gain settings, things cleaned up very nicely and responded with extra body, while still maintaining some top end chime and sparkle that felt very organic.
Pairing this with other pedals was a dream as well, and using it in front of a very simple boost really brought a bigness, but in this case, a simple boost works best. Let the Westwood do the Drive and EQ, and let any boost pedal afterwards just bring up the level. It’s like a tonal spice that works well on its own, but if it’s added in to an existing recipe (or pedalboard) it’ll still be noticed for what it brings to the table.
The term Transparent gets thrown around with pedals in the mid and lower gain ranges, and that basically means when it’s kicked in, you’re not fighting the overall tone circuit, signal-wise. The Westwood fits into that category, but with the EQ, it really goes a step further. There are some famous very expensive pedals out there that coined that phrase, and the Westwood does have that characteristic. BUT, the active EQ takes it way further and makes it a much more flexible pedal. Any player who likes a medium drive like sound, regardless of guitar and musical style, would find happiness with one of these on their board.
PROS:
really useful drive tones, excellent EQ section
CONS:
none
STREET PRICE:
$179 [click to buy now]