J. Rockett Audio Designs El Hombre Overdrive Pedal

I'm not a big pedal guy but after hearing someone use this I had to get one! I'll never have his fingers but now I'm just a little closer to sounding like him.

The pedal has been out in the market for over a year, and I was skeptical of the early hype followed by relative silence from the youtube reviewer community in later times. Perhaps not such a great pedal? I have been looking for something that would bring life and articulation to the relatively flat and dark humbuckers on my '76 Les Paul Custom, when playing clean or emulating a ZZ Top ovedriven lead. Nothing was working for me, even changed out the bridge position for an EMG active split coil, which never gave me the "click", or maybe "quack" I was looking for when in the single coil mode.So, I was searching for help from OD pedals. The Boss Blues driver is standard fare, and has a lot of range, but just didn't get to the level of articulation I wanted. After a fashion it just gets muddy. Got some relief with a (well rated and reviewed Chinese made) Klon clone, which does manage to brighten and accentuate pick attack while staying clean. This has been great for John Mayer tones, but required quite a bit of treble boost. Not a terrible thing, but not as even across the fretboard as I had hoped. I have access to several iterations of the Tube Screamer. Ultimately not satisfying.I spent a lot of time auditioning with the side-by-side comparisons on YouTube indicated that this J.Rockett pedal could deliver in the absence of other pedals, when playing into a clean channel. Long story short, this is now my "go-to" pedal for just about every style, the dynamic response to just the guitar volume control is amazing, and the articulation from string to string is incredible; whether playing single note lines, double stops or chordal lead; every string and nuance is retained; and easily controlled right on the guitar. From clean to La Grange. It doesn't get muddy or add that nasty harshness via odd harmonics. How does this happen? I use the "Bite" knob... it's not at tone knob.. I keep it high somewhere between 3 o'clock and full. Keep the gain relatively lower, and set the output volume to unity gain (same dB with pedal on and off). That's it. The results are magical. And it's made in America.. huge props!More info, I'm now working with a generic strat, single coil, and getting very pleasing results It seems to require a bit more on the gain knob to achieve the range of tones. The strat already had pretty good "click" so it appears to require less from the "bite" control. And of course there are a variety of amps and amp emulations downstream that I will have to check in with.. but that bite magic is still there, sweet articulation.The reason for my "4 star" overall rating, and the 3-star on quality is the LED indicator, it's the same color as the pedal itself and not at all bright. Is it just my pedal or does anyone else have this problem? On a well lit stage you will not be able to see if the pedal is "on' or "off". Bad design choice. But no effect on the 5-star tone, which is why I got it in the first place. I do click the pedal off for ultra-clean & flat tones... when I don't want guitar to be in the forefront. I wonder how hard it would be to replace that LED.. any ideas out there??The early reviewers were right. This deserves a permanent place on my pedalboard. Change the LED and this becomes a 5 star pedal. An unusually high recommendation from a tough to please player.

It’s like a ts9 with better EQ response, but that description doesn’t do it justice.Nice, thick, syrupy sustain without losing any EQ.It’s just great.

Unlike most purchasers I bought this pedal for a different purpose altogether. Because it has so much headroom, you can dial the gain back between 9 and 11 o'clock to set a great edge of breakup cleanish lead tone that rolls off beautifully for full chord rhythm tones that stack well in front of other drive pedals. It adds a rich bass hump using it this way too. I really like it. Don't ask me if it sounds like Billy, I don't use it that way.I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because, for some reason, the power supply cable doesn't fit tightly in the pedal. It's like the diameter of the male + pin in the pedal is too small in diameter for the cable to fit snuggly. It didn't keep me from buying another as a backup, but I did expect better from this manufacturer.