BBE Sonic Stomp Maximizer

Hey AD3THREE, let me try to give my 2 cents worth. (From where I'm from, that can't buy squat.)

1. Which Behringer compressor did you sell? I can help you find the pedal that it was based on - hopefully with better reliability and tone.

2. What kind of tone are you looking for? I personally don't think that if you're getting a pedal board you'd want a good distortion, a compressor, and a 6 band Eq to "get every inch of your sound covered "

My stand on it is, your amplifier will be the main voice and effects will shape that sound. Just like icing on a cake, it will never make a bad cake taste good. I hope I'm not misleading up to this point.

Some people may like compression, a distortion pedal, and an EQ, but at that point, you're not "adding" to your tone but rather you're masking it. This may get me flamed, but to me, those three pedals when engaged at the same time are compressing and processing your natural tone too much. Each on its own or just paired may still be okay.

3. EHX Knockout/BBE Sonic Stomp vs a compressor -

a compressor in nature makes your tone, for the lack of a better word, compressed. You reduce the spikes in volume while playing. It also increases the sustain you get from your tone in effect since also the softer played notes are affected. It removes some of the dynamics of your playing. Words often associated with compressors are: "squashed", "balanced", and "spongey".

The BBE Sonic Stomp on the other hand, is not a dedicated compressor. I'm not an electronics expert but that pedal is made more as a radical EQ. A similar effect may be reached by scooping the mids off and increasing treble and bass. T & B are controlled by the two knobs on the pedal.

If you notice, this pedal isn't used by most people who play live. Go to any guitar forum and their respective pedalboard threads. The bedroom players have this more than the gigging players. Doug Seven is an exception though, he gigs and does sessions but has this pedal.

I think that when you're playing alone at low volumes, the BBE SS works wonders in "taking the blanket off" your amp. The big BUT is that when you start increasing the volume and when you start playing in a band setting, this doesn't contribute to your tone at all. It is the stuff of buzzing bees and harsh ear-piercing tones. That's because all the mid range has been removed.

The guitar has a naturally mid-rangey frequency that doesn't sound as good at low volumes. It can sound nasal to a point. The SS gets rid of those frequencies which make it pleasant to the ears at low volumes.

Now if you're wondering why the guy sounded great in all videos, I have a hunch that it's because he' always playing at a low volume, with humbuckers (?), and a lot of gain. Don't get mad at me if I haven't seen the videos. Youtube is blocked here at work.

In summary, if what you like is a compressor to let your tone ring out some more and to even out the levels, that is totally different from what the BBE SS will do which is scoop the mids out and boost the highs and lows.

I don't know if that helped at all. LOL. Good luck, man.

Well, if your amp is dark, you may want a treble boost (those things work well with EL84 amps in general).

If you do go back to gigging, I will not recommend the BBE SS if what you want is your "presence to stand out more". That requires MIDS not HIGHS. You may want to consider something like the Xotic EP Booster for a clean boost with mids if you don't want to add any dirt or your standard issue tube screamer.

For Clapton, he has an active mid boost in his strats that gets him into humbucker territory. The slightly overdriven Eagles tone is also a tube amp pushed to overdrive. The Sonic Stomp may not help you get there.

I suggest you listen to Gearmanndude over at youtube. He sometimes uses a Blues Jr to demo a lot of pedals. FWIW, I think all you need is a boost pedal that accentuates the mids. The BJr is already a good amp to begin with.

Think about Derek Trucks for a while. He plugs straight into a Super Reverb with no effects (his tone has enough mids and treble). Joe can get his signature tone no matter if he's using his fly-in or regular rig. It's because they understand how the MIDS work in a band context. The best you can do is hold off your buying until you get into the band, and then make a decision as to what's needed. The pedal market is so nice right now that there's a knife for every job, if you get my drift.

If you're confined to being a bedroom rockstar like a lot of us, try the Sonic Stomp out at the store at volumes you'd play at home. As you said, it's not too big of an investment.

Hope that helps.

I talked to many people about the Sonic Maximizer by BBE.

The consensus is that it can spike the highs and the lows... ie stagnating the mids. You can already do this on you EQ on the amp by going B10 M0 T10. It gives you that "Disturbed" crunch heavy metal-esque. From what I hear, the Sonic Maximizer has more use for PA mixes than a guitar signal. And, unless you want the mids scooped out - you don't need one of these.

that was the way it was described to me anyway. I heard "clarity" when I had a guitar through one, but by that I really heard more lows and more highs. All the snarl and balls were taken out of the sound and replace with boom and glass.

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping.

Ok so I got it in today sadly couldn't try it out with my regular guitar because of some things I was changing on the guitar, and didn't realize I was out of strings.  However I'm selling a Schecter guitar on ebay right now for a friend and it was ready and more then happy to do a test with the Sonic Stomp.  First impressions is that video I posted earlier really should have told their setup on their amp because at my regular settings which is kinda bright I found no change at all in bedroom levels.  So I had to bump it up a notch to the dismay of my wife and 3 kids.  I was ready to box it up and send it back when it occured to me the video tone was muddy sounding.  So I made a muddy tone on my amp which still sounded good but not for leads really.  Strumming a few chords sounded good, then I hit the button and instantly the tone was awesome.  It really sounded better then any tone I had had in this amp since I modded it.  It wasn't as loud but your filtering so thats to be expected, but the volume didn't drop off much.  I still didn't try it cranked but I can honestly say I think this speaker I put in sounds too dark even with a Telecaster, but the bass is fantastic.  Now if this pedal will work the way it did earlier at loud volumes I might just be on to tamming this beast.  Yeah swapping the speaker is the more logical step but I really do like the speaker, but it has to be with a bright sounding guitar for me to get my best use out of it.

Glad you like it too.  Try getting your best amp tone and then turning the pedal on, and fine tune the pedal knobs.  Also, I used mine LAST in the effects loop.  Don't know if your amp has one or not.  It can go either way (front of amp, or loop) as long as it's last in the chain of effects.

Ok best effort here to give you a sound clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4buUHqH … tube_gdata