gilmourish | 9 years ago

Review of the CostaLab Bad Angel

Signal chain:
Guitar - Fender Stratocaster, with D Allen Voodoo 69 neck and middle pickups and Seymour Duncan SSL5 bridge pickup
Amp - Laney Lionheart L20, Laney LT212 cabinet with Celestion V30 speakers
Mic - Shure SM57

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CostaLab
http://costalab.com

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We all want that super smooth tone, with singing sustain, that makes our guitar sound huge and impressive. Not all pedals, nor amps, can do that and it’s certainly a challenge to achieve something like that on a typical bedroom setup. The CostaLab Bad Angel promise to deliver classic amp distortion, with no compromise. Here’s my review.

My first love, when it comes to pedals, was the green Sovtek Big Muff pi. My second love, and equally long lasting, was the the Rat. I bought the “Vintage” model back in the mid 90s and it completely changed my tone and shaped the sound of early Airbag. I still use it, or similar sounding clones, just for that saturated, smooth distortion.

Fuzz and Big Muffs might be more unique in the way that they have a distinct tone and, they allow some really cool experimentation and wild sounds. Amp distortion, or distortion pedals, often leave more up to the guitarist but once you learn how to master it, you can get some extremely versatile tones that can take your tone and playing to new heights.

Italian company CostaLab has designed some of my favourite pedals, including the Chorus Lab – an excellent version of the Boss CE2. The Bad Angel is one of their newest pedals and although not perhaps the typical Gilmour pedal, I wanted to check it out, mainly because I know how versatile a Rat can be and I’m sure many of you also have one, or something similar, in your Gilmour rig.

The Bad Angel is housed in an MXR-ish box, with true bypass switching, bright leds and it runs on 9V negative tip adapter.

The pedal sports three controls: gain, tone (clockwise) and volume. A push/push knob engages a second gain stage, adding more gain, saturation and harmonics.

Strangely decorated with a 50s rockabilly theme, the Bad Angel has nothing to do with twangy tones and spring reverb. As mentioned, the idea sprung from the Rat and its amp-like distortion.

In default mode, the Bad Angel act as a low gain amp or overdrive pedal, with a sweep from fairly clean, or slightly crunchy depending on your pickups and headroom, to pretty hot, similar to the Fulltone OCD.

The Bad Angel responds extremely well to your playing and cleans up nicely when you roll back the guitar volume. Unlike the OCD and Rat, which both tend to sound a tad boxy and even lack some of the low end, the Bad Angel has more emphasis on the lower mid range, which makes it sound open but with a chunky attack (much like boosting the SPC on the EMG DG20s). The low end is nicely balanced, making the pedal an excellent and versatile overdrive unit equally capable of defined chords and fat bluesy leads.

Read the full review here
http://www.gilmourish.com/?p=7109