Modtone Clean Boost review
Posted on 06/01/2013 by ozzy in The Blog
As I needed to amplify my guitar during solos, I decided to buy a clean boost pedal and plug it into my Moen GEC9 pedal switcher. This booster should have natural, transparent character and should neither alter my guitar tone nor create distortion on its own. I first got to consider a Carl Martin Hydraboost, but I wasn't sure about its 15 dB, so I (eventually) decided to take a chance and try a Modtone Clean Boost (20 dB).
Modtone is a vendor of an OEM guitar effects manufactured in China - maybe you know some of their products under a different brand names like Artec, Hofner, Belcat, etc... (feel free to add more in comments below). Despite Modtone's strategy to pretend that they sell an american-custom-moded-boutique-blahblah stuff at budget price, their pedals are more expensive than their identical chinese counterparts (like Belcat for instance).
Anyway, the Modtone Clean Boost is a pedal that's capable of boosting your solos up to 20 dB. It has two control knobs. Tone knob allows bass or treble filtering, while Level knob acts as a dB gain (turn it before 12 and it acts as a dB cut too). Company's web site says that their Clean Boost has 20 dB of gain, but for some strange reason, there are 25 dB stated in the pedal specs elsewhere on the internet. The web site also says that the pedal is true bypass, which I doubt.
At about 8 o'clock, the gain (level control) starts adding some grit to your tone and it gets slightly dirty, so don't expect your amplified sound to be a 100 % transparent. For a real clean and transparent boost you might want to look somewhere else (like Mooer Pure Boost).
Pros:
- tone adjustment
- 20 dB
Cons:
- could be cheaper
- loud click
- have to unscrew 4 screws to remove/replace battery (included)