Barber Small Fry - Note Shape!

[MullyFX]

Heya,

I just got the Barber Small Fry on a musicians flea-market the other day.
I liked the look of it and the sound demos were promising but I couldn't check it out when I was there.

to my surprise it sounded better than expected... just the notes were a bit too gritty when using my neck P90
I read the manual and opened the back and started screwing around with the internal trim pots till I got what has to be the best sound
from a dirt box I have heard so far (and as you can see I own quite a few dirt pedals)... settings are (note shape: minimal / bass: maximum / mids: minimum / presence: minimum - and yeah I admit those are extreme settings but it sounds AWESOME this way.)

I just noticed one thing..... when turning the note shape all the way counter clockwise the pedal gets a bit noisier... (I can understand the fact that it gets more noisy when turning up the presence - which I understand is a treble boost before the clipping) but I have yet to work out why decreasing the bass feeding into the clipping section (which is - and I'm GUESSING here - what turning the note shape ccw does) causes more noise....

guess there's something way more sophisticated going on there.... anyway.... the noise ain't super bad and with humcanceling pickups it'd be gone completely but if this would be a perfect world that'd be my only gripe.... but since it's not and there will always be compromises I'm happy to tell you that the Barber Small Fry is the best dirt pedal (especially with the settings of the internal trim pots) I have owned so far.

but wait since it's christmas soon:

if Dave can get the noise level of the pedal with the note shape trimmer fully counterclockwise to the noise level of the same pedal with everything set the same but the note shape trimmer fully clockwise - that'd be on my wishlist this year...

cheers,
mully

[David Barber]

Heya,

I just got the Barber Small Fry on a musicians flea-market the other day.
I liked the look of it and the sound demos were promising but I couldn't check it out when I was there.

to my surprise it sounded better than expected... just the notes were a bit too gritty when using my neck P90
I read the manual and opened the back and started screwing around with the internal trim pots till I got what has to be the best sound
from a dirt box I have heard so far (and as you can see I own quite a few dirt pedals)... settings are (note shape: minimal / bass: maximum / mids: minimum / presence: minimum - and yeah I admit those are extreme settings but it sounds AWESOME this way.)

I just noticed one thing..... when turning the note shape all the way counter clockwise the pedal gets a bit noisier... (I can understand the fact that it gets more noisy when turning up the presence - which I understand is a treble boost before the clipping) but I have yet to work out why decreasing the bass feeding into the clipping section (which is - and I'm GUESSING here - what turning the note shape ccw does) causes more noise....

guess there's something way more sophisticated going on there.... anyway.... the noise ain't super bad and with humcanceling pickups it'd be gone completely but if this would be a perfect world that'd be my only gripe.... but since it's not and there will always be compromises I'm happy to tell you that the Barber Small Fry is the best dirt pedal (especially with the settings of the internal trim pots) I have owned so far.

but wait since it's christmas soon:

if Dave can get the noise level of the pedal with the note shape trimmer fully counterclockwise to the noise level of the same pedal with everything set the same but the note shape trimmer fully clockwise - that'd be on my wishlist this year...

cheers,
mully

Thanks for the review. The note shape increases gain along with reducing bass as you turn it counter-clockwise. You can reduce the burn control as you turn down the note shape to help reduce the noise from your pickups/input cable and keep the gain consistent. You described the noise as coming from your pickups, so changing the pedal's note shape design will not fix the noise coming from your pickups. Here is an analogy of how pickup-noise being amplified by gain works. You go to the doctor for a yearly checkup and you feel fine, but after the doctor looks at your blood-work through a microscope he notices you have some abnormal cells. Since you can only see these abnormal cells when you view them through a microscope, do you ask the doctor to change microscope? Gain devices are the same way, regardless if it's compression, EQ, distortion, overdrive or fuzz. Gain devices magnify small signals, and this can lead to you hearing something that bothers you once it is more overt. Using quiet pickups, or possibly a quieter cable (if that is part of the problem) is the answer to reducing noise. The simple test question with guitar noise is, can you reduce the noise by turning your guitar's volume all the way down? If the answer is yes, the next course of action is to work on the guitar's noise, or decide you can live with the noisy pickups. Often gain pedals get a review that says "I could not live with the noise" when indeed the problem was never the pedal, but turning on the pedal is the only time the player could hear the pickup noise...so, time to through the microscope away!

[MullyFX]

Hi Dave,

yeah I know it's my pickup noise being amplified.... (that's why I said with hum-canceling pickups it'd be gone completely)
and I wouldn't want the noise changed if that means changing the sound....

as I said it's not a perfect world... (in a perfect world there would be a hum canceling pickup that sounds exactly like a P90 or a Strat pickup for that matter
I still haven't tried the Fralin pickups though)

I can easily live with the noise it's not that bad...
I just noticed the noise increasing while turning down the note shape control...

makes sense though that the gain is increased in the process...

as I said... the Small Fry is excellent & beautiful.... inside and outside
I'm just mad I had to go through all those other pedals to get to it...

[David Barber]

Hi Dave,

yeah I know it's my pickup noise being amplified.... (that's why I said with hum-canceling pickups it'd be gone completely)
and I wouldn't want the noise changed if that means changing the sound....

as I said it's not a perfect world... (in a perfect world there would be a hum canceling pickup that sounds exactly like a P90 or a Strat pickup for that matter
I still haven't tried the Fralin pickups though)

I can easily live with the noise it's not that bad...
I just noticed the noise increasing while turning down the note shape control...

makes sense though that the gain is increased in the process...

as I said... the Small Fry is excellent & beautiful.... inside and outside
I'm just mad I had to go through all those other pedals to get to it...

If you find some great sounding hum cancelling P90's or "Strat pickups" let us know. I'm always looking for better sounding single coil sounds.

[MullyFX]

If you find some great sounding hum cancelling P90's or "Strat pickups" let us know. I'm always looking for better sounding single coil sounds.

I recently got a David Barfuss Precision Bass style pickup for my Les Paul (neck position)... it's basically a hum canceling single coil in a Humbucker case....

and sounds LOVELY....

really happy with this pickup, and it loves the Small Fry.....