Recently, we started teaming up with Celestial Effects to do some pedal reviews, the first of which was their excellent Sagittarius Overdrive Boost. After checking out that sick pedal, we were more than excited for the arrival of today’s featured pedal, the Aries Beast Distortion. Any dirt pedal with the word “beast” in it makes our ears instantly perk up, and this distortion absolutely stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park.
Right away, the Aries starts off with a must-have feature for great drives: an EQ section. Not only is this requirement present, they’ve expanded on the usual Tone knob to offer THREE different equalization options: Middle, Bass and Treble. This allows for complete control over how you shape the drive sounds, enabling the Aries to sound incredible with any guitar or amp you can throw at it. We love seeing this option on any pedal, really, and it is a much-welcome addition to this powerful pedal.
The real power of the Aries comes from two separate gain stages, stacked in series. The first stage, controlled by the Gain knob, does not utilize clipping diodes, making it fuller and more open sounding. The second opamp gain stage, controlled by the Drive knob, incorporates asymmetrical MOSFET clipping diodes, resulting in a tighter and more compressed sound. The real fun of this pedal is mixing these two together, for a basically unlimited array of overdriven and distorted tones. A Volume control rounds out the knobs present on the face of the Aries.
Warm, tube-like, clean and dirty at the same time, with the added ability to be used as a boost, overdrive or distortion pedal, the Aries Beast Distortion is an extremely versatile effect box that will keep you on your toes. Plus, with an always-welcome EQ section and 2 separate gain stages to maneuver around, you’re sure to find a whole slew of useable and killer tones with ease. We are excited to be able to keep reviewing these great creations from Celestial Effects, so thanks so much to them for partnering up with us and letting us review these great pedals! For their entire lineup of effects, head on over to their website right now, and explore the constellations in high-quality pedal form!
Specs:
• True bypass switching via high grade 3PDT footswitch
• High grade Panasonic ECQ series capacitors
• CTS high grade potentiometers
• Switchraft input and output jacks
• Wide 2oz. copper PC board circuit etch-lines in the signal path
• PC Board ground plane for superior stray noise reduction
• Battery or +9vdc to +18vdc power jack (Boss type – center negative)
• Controls are Volume, Gain, Drive, Treble, Bass and Mids
• Ultra-bright orange indicator LED
• Extremely tone transparent, organic and touch sensitive
• Input impedance: 1 Meg Ohms
• Output impedance: 1K Ohms
• Current draw: Approximately 20 mA at full ON
• Dimm: 5.00″d x 4.00″w x 2.40″h (including switches and knobs)
• Weight: 13.0 oz. (Not including battery)
Submitted by Mike B, Website
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