REVIEWS| EFFECTS
KEELEY
Angry Orange, Blues Disorder, Muse Driver and Super Rodent
TESTED BY ART THOMPSON
YOU COULD BE excused for glazing over yet another batch of pedals trumpeting different flavors of grind, but these new boxes from Keeley have a cool twist in their ability to mix and match different drive and tone stacks, enhancing their sonic range and flexibility in the process.
The Angry Orange, Blues Disorder, Muse Driver and Super Rodent are each based around two distinctly different distortion circuits, but they share a control format consisting of three skirted metal knobs and a pair of two-position mini toggles that perform different functions, depending on the model. The knobs are fairly tall and have ribbed barrels that make them easy to grab if you need to make mid-song tweaks.
The wedge-shaped aluminum housings have front-mounted input, output and power jacks, and a press on/off mechanical foot switch that defaults to a buffered bypass but can be changed to true bypass by holding down the foot switch for a few seconds. This function proved handy for this review, as I could arrange the pedals on a board with the first one set for buffered bypass and the others in true bypass to avoid potential issues caused by stacking buffers in series. In addition, all pedals run at 9 to 18 volts, giving you the option of more volume and headroom at higher voltages if you need or desire them.