
Hallo guitar fans. Today we are presenting TWA™ - Fly Boys™ guitar pedals by Godlyke Distributing Inc.
We received 5 ultra compact mini pedals with very eye-catching packaging, features and great sound. This mini pedal size is a great addition to any crowded pedal board. Even if you design the brand new pedalboard, you will be able to fit more pedals in.
It comes very handy for a traveling musician as well, because there is no need for very big and heavy pedalboards on the road.
Fly Boys video review
Every pedal comes in a small box with one page instruction manual containing all basic information about every potentiometer and switch, inputs and outputs and also includes Features section with short tonal description of the pedal and specification info. Pedals are made of a strong aluminum-alloy chassis and one weights approximately 240 grams with the box. These pedals use 9V positive tip AC adaptor with 25mA working current and feature a "true bypass" foot switch.
It is perfectly safe to carry these pedals in their original boxes as well. I sometimes just bring an "Overdrive SC-02" with me to a blues session and plug in into any in-house amp. This box is small enough to fit in my "Mono" guitar gig bag. When you use it without the pedalboard, every individual pedal has a rubber pads on the bottom, so your pedals will not slide on the floor.
Even though all Fly Boy pedals are very small, just make sure you space them correctly on your pedalboard. If you place them too close to each other, you can step on two switches at a time. Unless you keep it always on, like delay for example, spacing is very crucial here. In some cases one has to preserve spacing of a regular guitar pedal on the pedalbord layout.
To power up these pedals I used BOSS PSA-230ES AC adaptor by Roland Corporation. Flyboys use a positive tip power jack. PSA adapter works perfectly with these pedals.
What makes these pedals very attractive beside their pure and warm tone is their price. They are very affordable for this size and for the sound quality they offer. Let's say you are a musician with $600 budget. For that money one can get a decent pedalboard with 4-5 regular priced pedals. With Fly Boys, you spend less and get more... Besides my racks and big guitar pedalboard, I made a mini pedalboard with all 5 FlyBoys for travel. This mini travel pedalboard is very friendly for carry-on on any airline.
And now, let's fly-in deeper into Fly Boys territory.
OVERDRIVE SC-02
Input Impedance: 520K Ohms
Output Impedance: 12K Ohms
Working current: 8mA
Power Supply: AC adaptor (Positive Tip)
Dimensions: 95x45x48mm
Weight: 240 grams (with box)
Price: List $89 | Street $69
This is a classic electronic overdrive pedal with very warm sound and two modes: "Hot" and "Warm". These two modes can be toggled with extra small switch on the top. Other controls include: on-off foot switch, tone, level and gain pot. This overdrive provides nice and warm tube sound and it is a great companion to any Blues or Classic Rock player. Personally, I have used it in an open blues session, on a clean Twin Reverb. I also used it on Marshall Plexy and Mesa/Boogie Stiletto. It just works great with any amp I've tested. It's very versatile and works great as an additional drive booster as well. When combined with Marshall distortion for instance, it gives this extra punch to the sound. This is why Overdrive SC-02 is our favorite in this Fly Boy series.
DISTORTION SC-01
Input Impedance: 1K Ohms
Output Impedance: 2K Ohms
Working current: 9mA
Power Supply: AC adaptor (Positive Tip)
Dimensions: 95x45x48mm
Weight: 240 grams (with box)
Price: List $89 | Street $69
Now here we have a classic Marshall JCM800 - style distortion. I'm talking about 80's Rock scene, like Guns n' Roses, Motley Crue, Skid Row etc... If you are in any 80's tribute band, you will appreciate sonic quality of this pedal. It does have "strong intermediate frequency [and] high degree distortion", as stated in the manual. Dynamic response is really great here. I could play blues, rock and also shred the heck out of it :-) Whenever I adjust and experiment with my guitar volume pot, I got different tones with SC-01. You can hear what I played in audio examples section in our video. This is great "rehearsal pedal" as well. I have a new 80's tribute band called "BDI" in Dublin area, and I just bring this pedal to our rehearsals. This is very public transportation friendly. As I mentioned before, it fits in my "Mono" gig bag with guitar and cables.
METAL SC-05
Input Impedance: 1M Ohms/p>
Output Impedance: 500 Ohms
Working current: 25mA
Power Supply: AC adaptor (Positive Tip)
Dimensions: 95x45x48mm
Weight: 240 grams (with box)
Price: List $89 | Street $69
If you are not into 80's glam rock, and you need more gain, or if you a metal head or you have 80's trash metal tribute band, then this is definitely the pedal you're looking for. I'm talking about Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer etc... This is very aggressive over-the-top tone for your metal riffs and tonal abuse :-) There is a small toggle switch here for Hi Boost, Lo Boost, and Boost Off. If you need an extra low bottom, use Lo Boost. Sometimes the gear you're playing on has too much bottom end, so you can engage Hi Boost in this case. Hi Boost can come in handy if you have two guitar players in your band, so this boost helps solo guitar to "cut through the mix". In my own case, I prefer to use SC-05 with the Boost Off. SC-05 is extremely shredding friendly. If you hear my sound examples in our video, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Chorus SC-04
Input Impedance: 490K Ohms
Output Impedance: 490K Ohms
Working current: 10mA
Power Supply: AC adaptor (Positive Tip)
Dimensions: 95x45x48mm
Weight: 240 grams (with box)
Price: List $99 | Street $79
SC-04 can create very clear chorus resonance. It is very easy to dial any sound with depth and rate pots. With all pots on 12 o'clock for example, I got very discrete chorusing, just enough to spice it up. I am simply impressed with such clarity of this pedal. This is a perfect example that sometimes size don't matter :-) Chorus effect with SC-04 can be extremely obvious or extremely transparent, so that is the main trademark of this pedal's sonic quality. If you like mixing your chorus with any drive pedal or sound, this pedal would be a perfect ingredient for your tonal blend. In our sound examples, I have played jazz-style chords, some clean tone shredding and I have used chorus with an overdrive. If you are one of the people who like having their chorus pedal always on and using it unnoticeably, you can easily attach SC-04 in your pedalboard somewhere between your pedals, without changing your pedal layout.
Echo SC-03
Delay Time: 20ms - 620ms
Input Impedance: 1M Ohms
Output Impedance: 490 Ohms
Working current: 42mA
Power Supply: AC adaptor (Positive Tip)
Dimensions: 95x45x48mm
Weight: 240 grams (with box)
Price: List $99 | Street $79
SC-03 Delay pedal comes with standard tweak knobs: Echo, Intense (Feedback) and Rate. It is perfect for slap back echo effects, rhythmic doubling and adding depths to your solos. It is very discrete and straight forward. It is possible to set delay times between 20ms and 620ms. For some people, that would not be enough if one wants to play Malmsteen-style Fugue with 1-2 second delay and level all the way up. For me it works great and it is the perfect add-on to this Fly Boy series. I leave mine always on and very discrete. It sounds great with clean sounds and especially distortion. It is very warm and analogue-sounding delay.
Verdict
All these pedals are very compact and easy to carry. It's also effortless to upgrade your existing pedalboard without any layout change. It is so painless to design an extra mini-pedalboard with these pedals and make them travel- friendly. Second of all, these pedals are very affordable and your wallet-friendly. That makes them the best bang for your buck. Tone is very warm and sound is truly outstanding for the pedals of this size. All 5 pedals sound great, with Overdrive SC-02 as our top choice. I would suggest a further development and addition of Compression pedal, just to complete the list of the most wanted and used pedals. Fly Boys - best of both worlds, with great tone and value for your money.
http://www.godlyke.com/totally-wycked-audio-effects-pedals/fly-boys
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