I broke the octave switch within two weeks of owning this, but for the money, it's a great pedal. Sounds great, and you can really get some interesting sounds out of it. If you break it like I did, then you can easily replace it.

I bought this pedal thinking I was going to be impressed. I was horribly wrong. This thing isn't worth the money at all. It does hold up I'll give it that but other than that its just ugh. With the octave switch on it'll muddy up humbuckers like no ones business and it even does a number on my strat.

This pedal was exactly what I was looking for. I will discuss it's high points, and low points.

First the bad: This pedal is made of plastic, and I'm a stomper. I wouldn't feel at ease hammerin' down the fuzz in the middle of a song, so I'd be more likely to come at it a little easier, but that isn't a huge problem. I felt the plastic guard on the knobs made it too hard to mess with the controls, so I took it off. The biggest problem was this: For anything heavier than "hard rock," I would not use the octave feature. It makes it sound kind of robotic and noisy if you put too much fuzz with the octave, which may be what you're looking for, but it's a bit extreme for just plain riffin'. Also, it's pretty noisy on its own. Let me explain, whilst playing, it is great, no unwanted sound, but when you stop, after almost an exact second, you get that mellow hum, similar to when your guitar isn't plugged in and your amp is on. No big deal, just stomp the pedal off.

Now the good: I was able to get an enormous range of fuzzez. I could get any sound I wanted, exactly how I want it. This is really a true modern fuzz sound. You won't be able to exactly recreate the sounds of old but you can get fairly close, or come up with YOUR sound, which is really what music is about! Also, my complaint with fuzz pedals before this was that I couldn't get enough, but this pedal has more than enough for me.

Overall, excellent pedal!

Almost makes my single coils sound like humbuckers, (for when i'm in the mood for that) Of course if you crank it up on the treble side of the octave switch, it will scream at you when the distortion is all the way up. But I like it, its not better than the other distortions in this danelectro cheap pedal line, its just different. Get it, its fun and cheap.

Perfomance of this pedal will soley rely on how good your amp is. If you have a cheap chinese solidstate generic amp and it will sounds like a swarm of beez. I have tried it also on my 10watts IBANEZ practice amp but considering the size of the amp it sounded great. Gives a slightly compressed tones and good mids for lead. I can dial in a wide variety of drive sounds, from Overdrive to Distortion to Fuzz just by varying the EQ knob. Dial in the distortion knob for more sustain and crack up the level for more punchy attacks. Octave sound is an alternative experimental pshychaedelic tone, good for power chords and, sounds haunting/devlish when used for leads.

Minimal tone loss when bypassed, unnoticeable, doesn't hum on ac/dc walwart adaptor. And Battery life is very good as it uses 2mA only as I tested/tap it out on a multi-meter.

One thing I dislike about this pedal is its' tiny knobs. How I wish I could rehouse this and make the knobs play in a wider-manner and also make the octave switch a real stomp footswitch instead. Nonetheless I would leave it as it is designed, atleast It easily fits in my pocket, on a call for quicky-gig.

Overall think of this like a tubescreamer with a lot of gain, I dubbed it as a pocket monster.