gilmourish | 7 years ago

Buffalo FX Carrera Overdrive review

Signal chain:
Guitar - Fender Stratocaster, with D Allen Voodoo 69 neck and middle pickups and Seymour Duncan SSL5 bridge pickup
Amp - Laney L20H, Laney LT212 cabinet with Celestion V30 speakers
Mic - Sennheiser e906 mic

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Buffalo FX
http://www.buffalo-fx.com

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Every time I come across a new overdrive I always ask myself – Do we really need another overdrive pedal? You probably have a couple on your board already and a handful laying in a box somewhere. Still, I’m always excited when Buffalo FX comes out with something new and their most recent offering is indeed an overdrive. The Carrera. Here’s my review.

I’m a huge fan of the stuff Buffalo FX make (yep, I might be a little biased here…). The TD-X and Patriot are some of my all time favourite effects and while we’re certainly not talking about reinventing the wheel, Buffalo FX main man Steve has a unique way of tackling classics with a new, and often much needed, spin.

In recent years I’ve gone from a typical early/mid 70’s setup, with mids scooped fuzz and boosters, to more mids humped and cutting pedals. I still try my best to create those raw and edgy tones but nowadays I need big fat tones, with lots of presence and less struggle.

The Carrera address this issue. You want that tube amp chime but with enough mid range and presence to effortlessly cut through the mix regardless of what amp and pickups you have.

The Carrera feature controls for volume, gain, treble and bass, a bright led and top mounted jacks. It runs on 9V and like all Buffalo FX pedals, it feature true bypass switching.

Tonally, the Carrera sits somewhere between the TD-X and Evolution (or a Boss BD-2 and Rat). Whereas the TD-X can sound a bit thin and bright on some mids scooped high headroom amps, the Carrera has that extra mids hump that maintains the character and warmth of the pedal.

On some amps, the Evolution can sound a bit flat and the higher gain settings a bit too bright, but although with less gain on tap, the Carrera sounds creamy and fat when you crank it. For the same high gain tones you get from the Evolution though, you might want to pair the Carrera with a booster.

The Carrera is the perfect link between the TD-X and Evolution and the fact that it can do similar tones but with a bit more mid range and compression, makes it perhaps even more versatile than the other two.

Read the full review here
http://www.gilmourish.com/?p=7507&preview=true