Catalinbread has released The Tribute: a versatile overdrive pedal with EQ to cover all your drive needs. We tested this pedal in the Happy studios and took it through its paces.
Catalinbread is a company from Portland, Oregon made up of musicians and artists that have been making pedals to satisfy their passion for great tone. They have succeeded in their great tone journey with their latest release, The Tribute Parametric Overdrive.
The Tribute absolutely hits the mark with the inclusion of an EQ built into a drive pedal. Whilst keeping the pedal’s profile small and the knobs simple with Tone, Frequency, Volume and Drive, it’s an instant classic.
Where can we drive to?
As mentioned, the Tribute has 4 simple controls, Tone, Freq, Vol, and Drive. From left to right, The Tone knob has a 12dB cut and boost — plus a handy centre-detent at noon so you know where zero is. The Frequency knob — which works in conjunction with the Tone knob — sweeps from 1.4kHz to 70Hz with 440Hz sitting at noon.
The Volume knob — which should be fairly straightforward — sits at an even level just above the centre, pointing at the L in Vol. And lastly, the Drive knob has a huge range, and worth noting that it somewhat acts as a blend knob, from a clean signal far left and no clean signal far right — and that far right (all the way up!) is a very welcome complete overdrive saturation.
What can it do?
Tweaking all these knobs I was instantly amazed at how varied the sound was! I found myself being able to quickly create a warm, subtle drive tone, something like a Rolling Stones sound where the notes are clear, and the drive opens up when you hit harder. I achieved this with about a 3dB boost of what I believe is 100Hz.
To get a completely different sound, I cranked that Drive up, boosted 12dB on the Tone, and turned the Freq knob to 1.4kHz. I got myself one hell of an over saturated tone. Think Foo Fighters when they are in full flight distortion.
It’s for this reason that I felt like I had two overdrive pedals in my hands. I understand the simplicity and design of the many other overdrive pedals I have used but having that EQ section on the Catalinbread Tribute made it so easy to envision its use across multiple genres.
Our thoughts
Being 2022, guitarists and pedal lovers alike seem to be loving the smaller size pedals, allowing more pedals to fit under the foot and welcoming variation in sound more and more. The Catalinbread Tribute hits these marks.
From its small profile (Its outline is smaller than my iPhone!) to its variation in sound, this pedal would be more than welcome on my desert island pedal list and it comes with a little protective bag and a sticker, nice touch!
For more information on the Tribute, head to Catalinbread’s website Catalinbread.com
