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Since I’ve been talking and looking for different overdrives and potential distortion pedals for myself, I came across a fantastic comparison video by ProGruitarShopDemos featuring the Fulltone OCD, MI Audio Crunch Box and Barber Direct Drive. In the past, I talked about the Fulltone OCD and the MI Audio Crunch Box, so it was nice to see in the mix with the Barber Direct Drive. I wasn’t too familiar with this pedal, so I had to check this out. It’s clear they they all have some different nuances that each lacked, or gained. Overall, the Barber Direct was ‘darker’, but to me sounded the most natural. The OCD, which I think is a great pedal, had some nice sparkle. I also like the MI Audio Crunch Box, I think you could get that pedal really growling with the amount of gain it can pump out. I didn’t think there were any winners or losers in this comparison, but it’s great to hear the differences between them.

Fulltone OCD is available for $159.00 at Musician’s Friend
MI Audio Crunch Box is available for $129.95 at Musician’s Friend
Barber Direct Drive is available for $119.95 at Tunnel Vision Music

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Today, I’ve been interested in distortion boxes, and I came across a very cool one. This is the MI Audio Crunch Box. This is a great little distortion box that gives you that cranked British tone (which I’m a big fan of). Lots of punch and crunch, and reacts nicely with your guitar’s volume.  Interesting there is a presence pot inside the unit, which is cool to add some additional sparkle to the top end.

Here is the official description from Musician’s Friend:

The MI Audio Crunch Box Distortion Guitar Effects Pedal brings you high-gain British amp distortion in a stompbox. MI Audio did a careful study of the way that modern British style amps get their overdrive and found that there was a very big concentration of the frequency information in the midrange. The Crunch Box distortion pedal captures the huge crunch of a Marshall amp on steroids and has become one of MI Effects most popular pedals. The Crunch Box is of the fastest selling boutique distortion pedals in the world.Simple and straightforward, with just gain, tone, volume and an internal presence control, the Crunch Box is based on a multiple clipping architecture (the signal is clipped 3 times. In the lower gain range, the pedal’s tone is very punchy and throaty. There are some great classic rock rhythm sounds to be found in there. As the gain is wound up, the Crunch Box develops a beautiful singing lead tone. Pinch harmonics are a breeze. The tone control has a wide sweep with a lot of top end. I have put in there more gain than anyone should need, but due to the way I handled the pre-overdrive tone shaping, the pedal always stays tight and each pickup retains its character, including single coils. The Crunch Box has a lot of volume up its sleeve. You will find though that 12 O’clock is close to ‘neutral’.An Internal Presence Control helps control the ‘shape’ of the pedal. By winding up the presence control, the lows won’t feel as powerful, which some people might find to be a bit too much. Also, this creates the effect of giving the pedal even more top end. So with the new Crunch Box, there is no chance that the pedal will be too dark. The Internal Presence Control is very useful if you wish to match the Crunch Box to your amp because some amps can be a lot brighter/darker than others.

I found a great demo that shows the features of this pedal with a Strat and a Les Paul. I love demos that can switch between these two guitars. I wish the demo featured a gained amp and using this pedal as a overdrive for leads, but rhythm tones sound really good, and the notes are sounding great.

The MI Audio Crunch Box v.3 Distortion pedal is available at Musician’s Friend for $129.95

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