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What is it?
Thorn Soundlabs is a relatively new pedal company formed in Nashville, USA. Its mission, it says, is to “redefine effects pedals with tools that inspire sonic exploration, not just sonic replication”.
We have six of the current Flex range of nine pedals here for review, the Flex in the name standing for flexible with the understanding that each pedal offers a wide range of variation within and maybe beyond its allotted task.
Drive, distortion and fuzz are respectively taken care of by the Bad Cash, Silver Spurs and Black Swamp, while The FreaQ provides boost with EQ functionality, and Steam is a compressor. The Tremonator is the sole modulation pedal in the bunch, offering tremolo with tap tempo.
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Construction is reassuringly solid, and the pedals all run from a standard nine-volt adapter (no batteries), with four of them also taking an 18-volt supply for extra headroom.
A quick glance and one thing that’s apparent is that some of the pedals have controls with names that are not standard – most notably Damping and Headroom.
The Damping knob, found on the three dirt pedals and the boost, adjusts a variable filter that reduces the low-frequency content before the signal enters the overdrive circuit, working brilliantly for getting rid of any flub and tightening up your sound.
The Headroom knob is designed to adjust the clipping threshold of the output stage on the drive and distortion pedals, working in conjunction with the drive/gain knob to turn up the wick.
Specs
Thorn Soundlabs Bad Cash
- PRICE: $189 | £147 | €161
- ORIGIN: China
- TYPE: Drive pedal
- FEATURES: True bypass
- CONTROLS: Drive, Damping, Headroom, Volume, Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence, Symmetry O/I switch, Class A/AB switch, Bypass footswitch
- CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
- POWER: 9V-18V DC adaptor 18mA
- DIMENSIONS: 94 (w) x 120 (d) x 51mm (h)
Thorn Soundlabs Silver Spurs
- PRICE: $189 | £156 | €169
- ORIGIN: China
- TYPE: Distortion pedal
- FEATURES: True bypass
- CONTROLS: Gain, Damping, Headroom, Volume, Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence, Bypass footswitch
- CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
- POWER: 9V-18V DC adaptor 18mA
- DIMENSIONS: 94 (w) x 120 (d) x 51mm (h)
Thorn Soundlabs Black Swamp
- PRICE: $199 | £164 | €189
- ORIGIN: China
- TYPE: Fuzz pedal
- FEATURES: True bypass
- CONTROLS: Gain, Damping, Mid Freq, Volume, Bass, Mid, Treble, Character S/N/H switch, Hard Clip O/I switch, Bypass footswitch
- CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
- POWER: 9V-18V DC adaptor 24mA
- DIMENSIONS: 94 (w) x 120 (d) x 51mm (h)
Thorn Soundlabs The FreaQ
- PRICE: $149 | £121 | €139
- ORIGIN: China
- TYPE: Double Stage Booster pedal
- FEATURES: True bypass, Freq and Boost switching
- CONTROLS: Damping, Gain, Boost, Freq, Freq footswitch, Boost/Bypass footswitch
- CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
- POWER: 9V-18V DC adaptor 18mA
- DIMENSIONS: 94 (w) x 120 (d) x 51mm (h)
Thorn Soundlabs Steam
- PRICE: $204 | £164 | €189
- ORIGIN: China
- TYPE: Compressor pedal
- FEATURES: True bypass
- CONTROLS: Threshold, Amount, Attack, Release, Detail, Output, Auto/Manual switch, Bypass footswitch
- CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
- POWER: 9V DC adaptor 29mA
- DIMENSIONS: 94 (w) x 120 (d) x 51mm (h)
Thorn Soundlabs Tremonator
- PRICE: $244 | £199 | €198
- ORIGIN: China
- TYPE: Tremolo pedal
- FEATURES: True bypass, Tap Tempo
- CONTROLS: Symmetry, Mix, Volume, Rate, Multiplier, Sine/Square Wave switch, Tap Tempo footswitch, Bypass footswitch
- CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output, external tap tempo (3.5mm jack)
- POWER: 9V DC adaptor 28mA
- DIMENSIONS: 94 (w) x 120 (d) x 51mm (h)
- CONTACT: Thorn Soundlabs
Build quality, usability and sounds
Bad Cash is an overdrive with a wide range of tone shaping available from its amp-like tone stack array of Bass, Mid, Treble and Presence knobs, as well as the aforementioned Damping and Headroom controls.
There are two clipping options available; symmetrical is the smoothest option, with asymmetrical delivering an edgier sound. There’s also a similar choice of output distortion characteristics with Class A or AB on offer, so a total of four nuanced voice combinations. With a wide clean to dirty range, this is one flexible drive pedal that should pair with any amp.
Silver Spurs has a similar set of controls to the Bad Cash but operates in a higher gain range. The aim here is classic British amp sound, which the pedal does with aplomb, spitting out aggressive raunch and heavier saturation.
Incidentally, there’s one more drive pedal that we couldn’t fit into this review and that’s the Magma, which is described as a Metal Distortion.
The last of the dirt pedals is the Black Swamp fuzz, although we’d say it’s as much a distortion as a fuzz in the same way that a Big Muff can be.
With a choice of Smooth, Normal or Hot for the fuzz character, as well as the options of soft or hard clipping, all shaped by the usual Damping, Bass and Treble knobs, there’s no mistaking the versatility available.
But the kicker here is the extra layer of detailed tone sculpture provided by the semi-parametric midrange EQ, which offers boost or cut anywhere between 310Hz and 2kHz.
The FreaQ, described as a Double Stage Booster, has a Boost footswitch that activates the first boost stage where the sound is only affected by the Damping and Boost knobs.
It starts from unity gain, so has plenty on tap, yet it also adds a subtle but sweet amount of top-end that can combine with the reduced lows from the Damping knob for added tonal enhancement.
The second Freq footswitch only works if the Boost footswitch is already engaged and adds the Gain and Freq controls into the mix to give you a targeted boost where a frequency between 200Hz and 3.4kHz can be cut or boosted by the Gain knobs. This is a really functional pedal that works equally well as an always-on tone conditioner or something to be kicked in as needed.
First port of call on the Steam compressor has to be the Auto/Manual switch to choose between automatic attack and release timing (which is really well dialled in), or use of the Attack and Release knobs for your preferred settings, especially in sculpting the transients. A Threshold knob sets the level at which compression starts and an Amount knob sets the intensity of compression.
But the secret weapon here is the Detail knob, ostensibly designed to restore the brightness perceived to have been lost due to compression and in reality a great tone enhancer to focus your top-end with up to +15dB of gain in the upper mid/treble frequency bands. Steam provides a practical compression toolbox with plenty of output for a boost, too.
Finally, the Tremonator provides a choice of decent-sounding sine or square-wave tremolo that can be further shaped by the Symmetry knob, which will dial in lopsided waveforms in either direction.
The tremolo is added to the dry sound by a Mix knob that runs from 100 per cent dry to 100 per cent wet – think of this as your depth control – while speed is set by the Rate knob.
Alternatively, you can set the speed via the Tap Tempo footswitch, which means you can sync to a drummer on the fly. A Multiplier knob multiplies any tempo inputted by either method.
Verdict
Verdict: ★★★★½
Some US pedals can get a bit pricey, but the ‘Designed in the USA/Made in China’ concept here keeps these units more reasonable. They’re neither budget pedals nor overly expensive.
The Bad Cash and Silver Spurs have a solid flexibility with tonal shaping options that set them apart from many other dirt pedals. Likewise, the Black Swamp benefits from the tonal focusing of its semi-parametric midrange.
Flexibility is again the name of the game with the FreaQ, offering plenty of gain on tap and tonally targeted, too, while Steam pretty much does everything you’d want from a guitar compressor (apart from the parallel compression that a dry mix knob would add).
Guitar World verdict: Considering its higher price, the Tremonator isn’t such a bargain as the rest, but overall this is a range of pedals endowed with thoughtfully considered features that would make them practical additions to a signal chain.
Hands-on videos
Thorn Soundlabs
Thomann
