Great Barrier Keef 

At the heart of this pedal is the Twill Deluxe PCB from PedalPCB which utilises an Electra circuit design. Components have been carefully chosen based on their tolerance and how they work together to create the desired tones. Everything is hand assembled, soldered and individually tested in Brisbane, Australia. 

The Great Barrier Keef is inspired by the Lovepedal Les Lius which mimics the sound of an overdriven Fender Tweed style amp.  Those tones are synonymous with the tones of Joe Bonamassa, Neil Young, Rich Robinson, and of course “Keef” Richards.  It is great at getting a good edge of break-up tone from a clean amp.

The controls are simple. The left footswitch engages the pedal and gives you access to the master volume control knob.  It adds a tiny amount of fixed gain, but increasing the volume past unity will also drive your amp harder.

The amount of gain on tap here will depend on your amp to an extent and how you have it set. If you have a low wattage tube amp, the volume side of the pedal on its own may lead to your tubes being pushed into saturation. If your amp is already overdriving, you'll notice less of a volume gain and more compression. 

The right footswitch engages the gain stage.  The gain control is very subtle until you get to around the 3 o’clock position and beyond, then it will really kick in. You can get it to emulate an amp that’s about to blow up. This is normal, and part of the design characteristics of the pedal’s circuit. This gain stage is only active when the left footswitch has already been engaged. It has that tube feel, even with some of that saggy tube compression. At the same time, it brings a bright, chime-y sparkle to the top end to add articulation.

The mini toggle changes the voicing of the Tweed amp tone:

·  Up – 5E3 Woody (Fender Tweed Deluxe). The most compression, drive, and the least headroom.

·  Middle – High Power Twin (50’s Fender Twin). The most open, most low end and headroom. The loudest and dynamic)

·  Down – Master Volume Tchula (Combination of the 5E3 and HPTT). Some compression. Lower headroom than a Twin, with more sag, tighter bass, and more harmonic content. But it has more headroom and punch than the 5E3.

This pedal is really shines when used live into an amp at the edge of breakup, where you are using your guitar volume knob to control the various flavours of clean / dirty. There’s not a great deal of compression, with so much life in each note that everything “just sounds better” with the pedal on.

A standard 9v centre negative power supply is required, there is no internal battery connection. Top mounted jacks for convenience in a 125B sized aluminium enclosure with a powder coated finish.  Bright blue and green LED’s mounted in metal bezels let you know when the pedal is engaged and if you’ve kicked in the second boost stage.