REVIEW: T-Rex Reverb & Totenschläger Tonebug Pedals

Why just play, when you can breath fire?   04-May-12

T-Rex Reverb and Totenschläger ToneBugs

Whilst I was at Musik Messe I caught up with Miki Peterson and got a brief look at the latest Tonebugs.
In this review I take a more in-depth look at the Reverb and Totenschläger (roughly translated means "the most evil sounding distortion on earth").

I played a gig the day after receiving these pedals and, like every smart guitarist, thought it would be a good idea to drop them straight onto my board, with no practice. This was a terrible plan but with wonderful consequences. The Reverb made my clean sound come alive! Straight out of the box, dropped straight onto my (already overly crammed) board and it sounded great. A few tweaks and I had exactly the sound I wanted. It's built like a tank and with only three controls it's hard to go wrong.
The only issue I did take with it were the dots they used to mark the pots, it was a little tricky to see where they were pointing. Having said that, just by listening to what was coming out of my amp, I was able to dial in what I wanted pretty quickly and even though I couldn't see what I'd done I could hear it sounded good. [btw, on the T-Rex website, they show pics of a Reverb ToneBug with more visible 'Red-style' markers, so maybe the latest ones have been changed].

I'll be honest, I didn't try the distortion that night for fear of unleashing hell but when I did get a chance to try it I was very impressed. The Totenschläger  tag line from T-Rex is... 'Why just play, when you can breath fire?'.
It is possible, although unlikely, that they have ever come up with a truer sentence. This thing is insane!
Huge bottom end, plenty of high, more gain than you can shake a flaming Indiana Jones stick at, and all with NO FIZZLE!
It can be backed off on your guitar and it can be used to drive your amp harder if you lower the gain and boost the volume. It does everything you want it to... and more.
If I had to pick fault,  the build quality of the mini sliders isn't great and I'm not mad keen on having open faders in a building usually full of drunk people and vast quantities of liquid… but that said, the three-band EQ is a great idea and it works really well.

All in all, both these pedals are worth buying. Both are within the £120 price bracket but can be found for less if you look hard enough. I would say they are definitely worth a go.

If you don't already have a reverb pedal this one is worth trying out.

As for the Totenschläger;  buy one - buy one now and you'll never look back!

More info can be found on the T-Rex website

Rob H