Kingsley Jouster Double Drive vs. Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor

Recently one of my buddies threw these two pedals my way and said "Make a shootout video!".  That's just what I did this weekend, and I was surprised with the results.  While I believe the Kingsley Jouster Double Drive is ultimately a more versatile pedal with more voicings and options, I really liked the smooth high-end and upper mids of the Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor.  It has silly good sustain, creamy smooth highs, and made it really easy to find pinch harmonics -- and all the while it still retained a sense of clarity for each string within a chord.

For me, the ability to hear each string clearly within a chord when there is heavy overdrive or distortion is the mark of a good drive circuit.  Frankly, there are plenty of crappy solid state amps that feign this reality by adding lots of noisy harmonics, not related to the fundamental... similarly there are plenty of cheap solid-state (and tube) pedals that unsuccessfully make the same attempt... and not to mention even some all-tube amps fail to get there, as well.  For example, my current Vox NT50 is about to get demoted due to it's lack of ability to give this definition and clarity to each note during heavily distorted parts.  The thing is, about half the time it does just fine and has some really great bite and edge during such parts; but the other half of the time it drops the ball and the sound gets squished, muddy, and unintelligible.  Boo.

The most important thing for guitar tone in "loud, heavy" rock or metal music is musicality and clarity.  Given that us metal guys are already playing loud, dissonant chord progressions and fast, palm-muted riffs that are hard to follow, we absolutely can't have our instruments, pedals, or amps getting in the way of the final product.  Our equipment simply needs to let the sound in, build it up into something great, not take any tone away, layer in some pleasing harmonics related to the fundamental, and then let the sound out freely and effortlessly through the speakers.

In this shootout, I think both pedals accomplish this in different ways.  But like I said, I really liked the H&K Tube Factor better, and it made me want to play more.  The fact that it motivated me to come up with new riffs is all it takes for me to give this one the Win.  It may even sound better than the Krank's 3 onboard 12AX7's.  And by the way, the match between the Tube Factor and this Krank Rev Jr (armed with 5881 Sovteks in the power section) was a great one.  Highly recommended.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!