This edition I am reviewing the Carl Martin Plexi-Tone pedal.  In case you haven’t seen any of these Carl Martin pedals before, they are a very professional looking guitar pedal from a well respected company.  The Plexi-Tone is basically a high gain vintage overdrive pedal offering you 3 different steps of distortion / boost.  It is a super solid looking pedal, slightly larger than your standard stomp box with three chunky metal footswitches and five classic chicken head knobs.  As the name implies, this pedal is just screaming vintage Marshall overdrive / distortion tones. 

The Plexi-Tone is way more than just a distortion / overdrive pedal.  From the start, the Plexi-Tone begins with a two step overdrive, the crunch channel and the high gain channel, on top of that it gives you an up to 20dB clean boost channel as well.  The five knob controls on the top of the pedal are for controlling ‘Crunch’, ‘High-Gain’, ‘Tone’, ‘Level’ and ‘Boost’, with three other footswitches controlling the three stages of overdrive being ‘Drive’, ‘High-Gain’ and ‘Boost’. 

The crunch channel starts with a very warm subtle overdrive right up to a hard rock gain stage with plenty of fine tuning adjustment all the way along.  The high gain channel then takes off from hard rock gain full on up to absolute meltdown!  This pedal has loads of gain and bottom end, and it all sounds so ‘Marshall’ like.  On top of that, there is the boost channel which can add a further 20db of boost on top of that, more than enough to kick any sluggish valve amp into action!  All of this and in a tone that brings the memory back to the early 80's high gain guitar hero's – and who doesn’t love the 80’s?  What I really liked is how the tone stays true Marshall, even by adding loads of gain; you can dial back the tone a touch without losing and clarity at all.

The ‘boost’ control can be used independently or with each of the other two gain stages, and with 20db of crystal clean / clear boost, it really works well making a huge difference.  The ‘tone’ control has a wide range of adjustment also that controls the overall EQ without making your tone sound too mushy or edgy.  The ‘crunch’ channel has been voiced to give you that classic Marshall, Angus Young tone, where the ‘High Gain’ channel has a more compressed and mid-scooped tone. 

So, how do you get the best out of this pedal?  Well, with this pedal you also receive a comprehensive instruction booklet with suggested settings as well as a catalogue of the many other Carl Martin pedals there are available (and there are a lot!)  So you can try the suggested settings as a starter and then set your own later on, but for the very best tone, whether you use a single channel amplifier, or a multi-channel amplifier, you will want to start with the cleanest sound you can, at a level you can work with. (The last thing you want to do is try and distort distortion - very unpleasant!)  Set up your amp for a good rhythm volume, then adjust the gain controls to your taste, then use the boost control to jump up your solo volume.  Very simple.  If you need to increase overall volume without upsetting you other settings, just use the ‘level’ control, perfect for live gigs!

Another great bonus with all Carl Martin pedals is the high quality built in power supply.  No batteries or wall warts to worry about, all Carl Martin pedals plug straight into the wall, AC 240 volts.  This is a far superior way to go.  Power is supplied via a standard AC cable (rather than a 9-volt transformer) to the built in ‘regulated power supply’.  This allows the engineers at Carl Martin to use higher quality components, and provide for the required ‘headroom’ that sets Carl Martin pedals apart.

In general, I loved playing with this pedal and could easily see one working its way into my arsenal of effects.  Just the simplicity of getting a great tone without any stress and the solidness of the whole thing make this pedal very attractive to any guitar player.  It would be one of those pedals you could have in your gig bag for many years.  Experience the new standard and let the Plexi-Tone take you to the stratosphere of high gain.  Check one out now!