Caline CP-20"Crazy Cacti" Overdrive Guitar Effect Pedal

This Caline Crazy Cacti is an overdrive pedal with variable boost. The main drive section has 3 modes for different types of drive. The boost section has 2 modes and its own knob for amount of boost. It's a metal casing with substantial footswitches and toggles. It feels good in your hands.So, this is not what I'd consider a distortion pedal, though it can provide a medium-level of classic-rock overdrive. It does AC/DC, not Metallica.Pros: Easy to dial in useful tones. Sounds musical on every setting. Provides that "edge" of breakup very well, so you can keep it clean by playing a bit lighter and get that crunch when you dig in and get more aggressive. Folks with solid state amps will certainly welcome that new ability. Also, it provides a Tube-Screamer type of gain staging ability for real tube amps. This is where this pedal really shines. I also like that I can place a pedal like a delay after this pedal while keeping my amp pretty clean, and finally get good results with a usable echo for solos without all that muddy junk that seems impossible to work with by dialing it out. Now, I have real control and great tones, as if my amp had an actual effects loop, which it does not. And for $30 or so, you really can't complain. I've spent more on a guitar cable than this.Cons: I wish the boost function had a couple more dB. It's fine the way it is, but it's almost like they want the pedal to always sound good, so they made it foolproof and fall short of allowing experimental players to go that one step over the line while creating sounds. It's a small gripe, however.Conclusion: I own about 20 pedals, mostly vintage 70's and 80's. This pedal (I bought two of them) now serves both of my rigs; a Marshall half-stack, and an Orange/Ampeg halfstack. I found most of my pedals were over-the-top for distortion when all I really want was a pedal to gain up a bit and sculpt my existing tones. This pedal does that. The Boost function is something I use for solos only. I feel like I can still get my amp's sounds, just enhanced, instead of the sound of a pedal getting amplified, if that makes sense. If you love your amp, this pedal just allows you to work with that tone and get a bit more out of it. If your amp is only so-so, you'd still benefit from this pedal for its bluesy, classic-rock in-between clean and drive abilities. It sounds good, and I'm glad I bought two.

TL;DR -- I'm tired of seeing "YMMV" just about everywhere online. But, yeah, it's worth remembering...Many years ago, I found myself in what could only be defined loosely as a restaurant somewhere in the vicinity of a graying Vegas casino. It was somewhere in the small hours, and my companion and I were hungry. Quickly scanning the menu, I selected the Monte Cristo (with no small amount of causally dismissive bravado). Had I ever had one before? No, but I thought I knew the general outline: ham ’n cheese with a twist. Sure. Why not. It couldn’t be that far off the mark…right?When it arrived, it was stark white. The top covered in a good 1/8” powdered sugar, I tried to hide my initial confusion. This was a sandwich? That humans ate? And enjoyed?I’m not timid when it comes to gastronomical adventures, so I tucked in. Ugh. Not savory enough and too sweet by half. But…when I dusted off 84% of the sugar, it wasn’t without its charms. The ham was decent enough, and the waffle-y French toast wasn’t completely sotted with pork fat. I genuinely liked some of it, actually noting that I should try this again somewhere else, sometime soon. But after I left most of the sugary ham-thing behind, I had to reconsider what happened in that loud and permissive dining room.That’s the first thing that sprang to mind after my first hour with the Crazy Cacti. I’d see a few videos, knew that it was Full Drive 2 clone, and called it good. I like overdrives all of stripes, and something with this rep just had to be sampled, right? Well, I had not prepared adequately for the midterm, and I paid the price.Key words here are “sensitivity” and “subtlety.” The volume of your guitar is critical to what your end result will be. The toggles: Comp Cut (think of it as boosted boost that you can combine with the Boost), FM (flat mids) and Vintage. Like many of you, I dig vintage things, so I was thinking this is where I’d post up and hold court. Um, no. With my 70s humbuckers, I always ended up with a fizziness that just didn’t please, even when adjusting all other adjustables; rolling off the Drive and pick-up volume deflated things to a “what’s the point?” level of overdrive.But when I went for the Comp Cut + Mosfet Boost (with Tone all the way down), I arrived at a very nice sorta-kinda-Jim-Hall-y jazz tone which was quite enjoyable. Punchy attack, nice sustain and overall mellow, round sound. But here’s the problem: I can get that by plugging directly into a DAW and calling up a plug-in I already own. Pedals are great when playing with others. My late-night ham-fisted jazz explorations are all solo trips. So will I be keeping the Cacti? Is it going to be deployed in a multi-player environment? Not sure, really. Perhaps if I took the time to shuffle it before, after and/or in-between one or more of a small phalanx of dirt pedals I have hanging around that I’ve have my eureka moment and the clouds would part. But I’m not sure I want to work that hard to find a home for this guy?I gave it a 4-star rating because it’s probably doing just what it’s supposed to do (minus the fizz). Is it my unit? My pick-ups? Would I be love if I had single coils? I’m not sure I’ll ever know.At the end of the night, I think it’s a great reminder that it’s always a good idea to do your homework and know when your sandwich might be coated with a sweet and chalky dust. And if that’s your bag, cheers — and don’t forget to tip your dealer.

Day 1: I have no idea what to make of this. 4 knobs, a 3 way switch and 2 way switch, plus a boost footswitch... There's so many options, but I have no idea how to get a usable sound out of it... Hmm...Day 5: Oh wow... Everything sounds pretty good!Day 10: Amazing! So many options, and they ALL sound great!I still don't know what to make of it, but I use it ALL the time! I love the sound. Very usable even with bass. I realized putting an eq or compressor ahead or behind it completely changes how it sounds.I've got a lot of pedals, but I haven't experimented much with different gain pedals... This turned out to be one of my favorites. Its not exactly what I expected, but I love it.

It took me a few days, but I finally figured how to make this pedal work for me. Using it as more of a clean boost, with another boost available built in, it is fairly quiet, and gives a good transparent drive. It has some fuzzy and distorted sounds in it too, but I like it set cleaner. All in all, not a bad deal at all.