Mad Professor Twimble pedal REVIEW

Dumble Amps are less common than unicorns, and even the clones and copies of these mythical beasts can get expensive. Mad Professor captures the essence of this articulate and toneful rarity in its new Twimble pedal.

It’s a blending of two of their existing pedals, the Dumble amp flavored Simble overdrive, and the Predriver pedal. First off, we didn’t have a $60,000 dollar Dumble to compare this pedal to. But here’s the breakdown.

The first section is the Predrive which is a boost, in essence, but with just a hot or cool selector, it’s not super adjustable. It’s not lacking in any way, though, with a subtle enough volume and EQ bump that is noticeable. The cool setting brings in +6dB, and the hot brings it up to 10dB.

On the other side sits some more unusual controls for an overdrive pedal. The sensitivity is a dual overdrive that also brings in some sweet compression. The accent control brings in or softens up pick attack, while contour adjusts the overall output brightness. It gets darker to the left, and brightens up to the right.

The overdrive range is nice, but not super excessive. For most blues and rock sounds it works well, with both single coil and humbuckers. There’s a nice articulation there, with no fizzyness or flubbing low end. With a tight and responsive attack, it could easily fit in most modern rock settings. It responds more like an amp than additional gain stage, to be honest.

Pulling in the Predrive really enhances the overall depth. In most cases, leaving the Predrive on will add a lot of evenness to a clean tone, and just kicking in the overdrive is a great way to go. The accent control interacts well with the predrive, but it works more as top-end definition. For rhythm parts it really does the trick, and leads have plenty of sustain for most settings; it’s not over saturated, it sits a bit higher than most overdrives, gain wise, but just under the distortion ranges. With the attack, contour and predrive, adding or subtracting brings in more, without extra unwanted sonic junk.

Players may think, “Oh, this is one of those guitar nerdy pedals, that really only works in that sweet, smooth clipping that modern bluesy players love.” Well, yes. It does deliver on that blues-tinged highly articulate sound, but using it in any setting where a highly articulate yet overdriven tone is needed will be well worth the investment.

The street price is $229, and considering separately the Simble comes in at $189, and the Pre-driver is $169, it’s a pretty good value (not cheap, per se, but a good value none-the-less). With a Dumble now at astronomical prices, it’s a no brainer for tight and well defined overdriven and distortion tones.

PROS:

articulate, tight.

CONS:

boost function is at set levels.

PRICE:

$299