NPD

stimpsonslostson

I'm finally dipping my toes into the world of effects after a long time of just using the inbuilt settings on my THR10 amp or pocket pod. 
I've just taken delivery of one of these...
http://welltimedphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/dirty-monkey-resizecrop--.jpg

sorry, wrong Bad Monkey. It's one of THESE!
http://medias.audiofanzine.com/images/normal/digitech-bad-monkey-544657.jpg

It seems to do exactly what it says on the tin, a gentle boost to thicken up my sound when I want it without distorting my tone too much. I like it. It wasn't expensive either, though prices seem to be creeping up as they're now discontinued. 

JDE

Sad to see they've been discontinued. I rocked two of these for years back in my indie rock days. Great, great pedals. I'd actually rate them as one of the best mass production drives of the last 15 years. Glad you like the monkey!

Alterlifeson

+1 for these. Very much a TS with bass and treble controls, who needs more!

steer

I had this and a TS9. Got rid of the TS9 and kept the Bad Monkey, I preferred the sound. They have a bit of a cult following.

colourofsound

Does the Bad Monkey have the fabled TS chip in it? Or is it just a very faithful clone tone wise?

steer

From what I know, it is a typical tube screamer type circuit. Not sure about the chip though. 

english_bob

colourofsound said:

Does the Bad Monkey have the fabled TS chip in it? Or is it just a very faithful clone tone wise?

Tubescreamers use RC4558 op-amp chips. They're very common in overdrive pedals, so yes, the Bad Monkey has the same chip. Kind of.

Various different manufacturers make RC4558 chips. Because original Tubescreamers became desirable and some guitarists just love proving what they say about a fool and his money, various myths grew up around which manufacturers' chips were "correct" in Tubescreamers. The truth is, most likely, that Maxon (who made those Ibanez pedals) used a widely-available, cheap op-amp chip, and sourced it from wherever it was cheapest.

If you decide to go down that rabbit hole you'll probably find several different opinions on whose RC4558s sound best, and you may or may not be able to hear the least bit of difference yourself.

57Deluxe

isn't a Bad pedal, but a rather dark sounding... the EHX ERD is much better for just a little more

Dave_Mc

^ yeah. The bad monkey is killer for what it costs (at least just before it was discontinued), and having a bass control is very handy, but I found it a little muffled-sounding compared to my joyo tubescreamer clone (which is also cheap). the digitech hardwire tube od is pretty nice as a "better" bad monkey (though the extra headroom means I couldn't get it to sound quite as compressed as my joyo, i could get 95% of the way to the tubescreamer thing but not 100%). EDIT: I haven't tried the ERD.