Caline CP-12 Pure Sky Guitar Pedal Effect Highly Pure and Clean Overdrive Guuitar Fx

This is my first real pedal, I just got this today. I play an ESP LTD M-10 guitar, through both an Acoustic G20 amp and an iPad with JamUp Pro using a Griffin Guitar Connect Pro. This setup sounds good to me, except that I can't easily switch to overdriven sounds in the middle of a song. I needed a pedal to get me there. I didn't want a Tube Screamer clone, because I didn't want to always cut bass and treble. I wanted something transparent (no changes in bass, mid or treble). This pedal is supposedly similar to a Timmy (a very highly rated OD). The big differences are that on a real Timmy, you get some extra setting switches that change the symmetry of the diode clipping, and the amount of compression. Also, the treble and bass controls on the Timmy will only cut frequencies. On the Pure Sky you can either boost or cut both treble and bass by either going clockwise or counterclockwise on the knobs. The real Timmy is probably much more precise. For a guitarist like me, who doesn't record or play in a band, and needed an inexpensive option—I opted for the Pure Sky. It took less than two weeks to arrive from China (from seller Mohan Xu) to my place in the U.S. It came packaged inside a plastic bag, within foam, within a small cardboard box, within a bubble mailer envelope. This doesn't come with a battery or power adapter. The only included extras were little round sticker "feet" for the pedal, which I haven't needed yet. The pedal appears and feels adequately durable on the jacks, knobs, switch and casing. The pedal is 8.5 ounces on my kitchen scale without a battery inside. I've not tested with a 9V battery. I'm using an Electro-Harmonix 9v 200mA power adapter with a Boss-type 2.1mm center negative jack. I've read on a forum that this pedal only consumes about 5mA. I did try to test the true bypass: If I don't plug in the power, it will still bypass my guitar's sound to the amp without changing the tone. If I turn the pedal on without power, it will mute the guitar. With the gain all the way down, level set to unity, bass at noon, and treble at noon—I can't hear it switch on (not even through headphones), and I can't hear any difference at all in my tone (this is very good). It's as if it's not even there. Turning up the gain, and backing off the volume to stay at unity, I can kind of mimic the lower gain settings of the lead channel on my amp. With the gain dimed, I can clean up the sound completely just by turning down the volume on my guitar, and then switch to a lead tone by rolling it back up to full again. With the gain all the way down, and volume all the way up, I can use this pedal as a clean volume boost. With the gain down, and the volume at unity, I can use this as a basic EQ pedal by changing the bass and treble knobs. With the gain dimed on the pedal, and on my solid state practice amp, I can get some extra compression/sustain that sounds good to me. I haven't tested truly overdriving my amp by turning up the volume on the amp, and then engaging the pedal. I live in an apartment, so I can't try this. With an SS amp like mine, I've read elsewhere that this usually ends up in harsh clipping that's not very musical. So, it's a mystery how my amp and this pedal would respond. At the most extreme gain settings, it seems to compress slightly. I don't really care for the gain to be past 2 o'clock, as the character of the clipping doesn't sound good to me (harsh/raspy). I think this excels at either giving a slight to moderate level of grit by itself. If you're looking for more of a modern rock heavy overdriven sound, this pedal isn't really for that. If you're looking for a clean boost, basic EQ, and/or light transparent OD, then get this. I recommend searching for the video reviews of this pedal so that you can listen to it and decide if it sounds like it will work for you first though.

Great sounding pedal at any price, and especially great for the $29 I purchased it for back in early January. I've owned many guitar pedals over the years, and as for flavors of of overdrive/distortion/fuzz, I currently own a Keeley Blues Driver, an old TS7 Tube Screamer, a Caline Orange Burst, a Danelectro Wasabi Overdrive, a Joyo Ultimate Drive, and a clone of a Tone Bender Professional MK II that I hand-built. This is one of my favorite pedals. How to describe its tonal qualities for those curious? - well, lets talk grainy distortion to ultra-smooth overdrive and everything in-between, to give you an idea of the tone: 1. On one extreme of the above mentioned pedals of mine is the Tone Bender MK II fuzz. Though it's less grainy than almost every other fuzz pedal back in the day - it does sing - you generally don't use it lightly. Think Yardbirds "Avron Knows" or "Think About It". 2. Next comes the the Joyo Ultimate Drive - it's somewhere between Distortion & Overdrive in graininess, and VERY fat. Amazingly good at heavier 70's tones (single notes & power chords) on the bridge pickup of a traditional Tele or Strat early P90 guitar. Likely not clear enough for modern/high-output humbuckers....I wouldn't know for certain though, as I don't like, therefore don't own those sorts of guitars. Best with the gain at about 25-40% (which is already quite heavy at that, due to a poorly thought-out overdrive curve). This pedal is instant Led Zeppelin with a Telecaster. 3. Next comes the Keeley Blues Driver. This pedal is crunch overdrive galore. Kind of grainy for an overdrive, but much smoother & clearer than distortion, and very hi-fi sounding - lots of bass & treble, no midrange hump. It's also quite dynamic. On single-coil through P90 bridge pickup, it's great for slamming 3-6 note chords for a grainier "just breaking up" sound....not as good at single notes. I only ever use it at around 30-50% gain setting (and usually with a compressor pedal), as it just doesn't sound very good above that (gets kind of mushy and nondescript), and below it, doesn't taper the overdriven notes off smoothly enough to be truly great at it. With a Tele, this pedal sounds top-notch for chord-driven songs like "Jumpin Jack Flash" (gain around 30%, broadcaster-style bridge pickup) or "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" (50% gain, with my Filtertron/mini-humbucker style Tele neck pickup) more than any other pedal I've yet-heard.. 4. TS7/Wasabi/Orange Burst/Pure Sky - All of these are very fine-grained overdrive pedals/very smooth (fine-grained enough for complex chords/arpeggios sounding warm and clear when lightly overdriven on a Telecaster). Notes taper off well. Out of these, the TS7 & Wasabi are more 1st generation "lo-fi" sounding pedals (either with that annoying TS7 midrange hump that only sounds truly great on Strat neck pickup, or with a limited EQ that messes with the tone too much - Wasabi) and each are less dynamic than the Pure Sky. Then there is the Orange Burst, which sounds like a better version of the TS7 or Wasabi, with better frequency response, yet has a bit of natural compression of dynamics compared to the Pure Sky - I've heard it compared to the Xotic BB Booster, but I've never owned one so I can't say. Note: should you wish it, this pedal can produce HUGE clean volume boost via the "Volume" control. Finally comes the Pure Sky, which is very smooth, nearly as hi-fi as the Keeley Blues Driver, and very uncompressed & dynamic. Quite the opposite of the Blues Driver, it sounds fantastic on single notes, with a very smooth decay. I've never heard an overdrive so smooth, while at the same time having such a flat frequency response. Works great with *any* one of these other pedals (just don't overdo the gain). Now, as for the long-term quality, well, it's made of metal, but internally, it's a cheap wave-soldered Chinese pedal. I've had no problems yet, but I'm fairly gentle with pedals, keeping them on a pedalboard. I'm not going to count on it lasting as long as my 1985 Boss CS-2, but at least it's been OK so far, and for $29, I'm not complaining.

I bought this pedal out of pure curiosity and was very pleased. To preface this review, I've been playing since age 8 and am now 44. I've had a slew of gear over the years, most of it very high quality or vintage...not out of snobbery, but because it's what I liked to hear. Recently I've been on the hunt for a great overdrive to push the front end of my dual amp setup (1961 and 1962 Fender Bassman heads and cabs.) In the capacity that I'm using the pedal I've found it to be quite good, particularly for the cost of a mediocre meal that leaves me with nothing more than a burning sphincter and questionable leftovers (just found the name of my next band and first album title.) I found the pedal to really "zero" out or become transparent in tone with the drive off, treble and bass at roughly 2 and 3 o'clock respectively and the level knob adjusted to match my amp. From there simply increasing the gain gives me a nice overdrive on top of my clean tone. The other way I like the pedal is to slam the front of the amp with the pedal's level at 10, drive at little to no gain, treble and bass at the same positions as before. This sounds really nice with a strat and the neck/middle position. The pedal seems to have an unusual amount of headroom in terms of the level knob. Much more than my other overdrive pedals (JHS, Maxon, Nobels etc.) This is a cool feature for really driving a tube amp at lower volumes without using an attenuator or a power soak. The build quality of the pedal seems fine. Upon opening I noticed the weight is maybe slightly less than others, but nothing drastic. The pots all turn consistently and are smooth to operate - they do not feel cheap. The switch also seems fine - it feels sturdy under your foot. The one thing that I do not like about the pedal is the location of the power jack. For whatever reason, the power supply jack is located on the left side of the pedal right next to the output jack. To me this is a really weird spot and frankly not something I care for as it forces you to have a minimum amount of space between your pedals. On a pedalboard where space is valuable - that could be troublesome. One might think "run it off of battery power then". Here's the quirky part of that - you receive a very short cable that has a female 9 volt battery plug on one end and the male power supply end on the other....so if you're powering the pedal via battery, the battery has to live outside of the pedal. For something you're stepping on with your feet, I feel like the power source should be out of the way (north of the knobs) or protected (inside the pedal). Those couple of things aside, I've been very pleased with the pedal. It easily holds it's own against pedals three times it's cost.

As you can see from my board, I'm no stranger to expensive gear but I'm not one to ignore bargain pedals either if they do the job I need them to do. At 70 I've gone through over 500 different pedals in 55 years of playing and now have found the perfect mix of functionality and affordability for my sounds. I was searching for a low gain transparent drive to add basic rhythm crunch to the clean channel of my Orange Crush 35RT solid state amp and the Pure Sky fits the bill in spades. I won't say it adds "tube-like warmth" but it does add a smoothness that makes the amp "feel" tubey, if that makes sense. No noise, no popping switch, no tone loss when off. It's a great pusher for the OCD & MXR, perfect for solos over heavy chords. This would be a bargain at $75, so at this price it's a steal!

I bought this pedal and use it in tandem with the Caline Orange Burst. In terms of a two stage, two pedal, overdrive setup coming it at around $60, I've been beyond thrilled with their performance. The Pure Sky itself is a magical little pedal. At first, I used this to add clean boost and a bit of tube-ish tone to my guitar which at the time, I was running straight into a keyboard amp because I play a variety of instruments in my band. Even alone it added a bit of spark to my amp. Eventually I added an amp-modeling pedal (at first the JOYO American Sound and now the HX Stomp) and the Pure Sky serves as my "always on" pedal that adds a bit of sparkle and analog to my base guitar tone. For the most part, I just leave this pedal on anytime I'm playing guitar and use the EQ and volume controls to adjust to each room I play in--the gain knob stays at 0 almost always . I've experimented with the gain, and the Pure Sky adds a nice bit of low gain overdrive up until about halfway, at which point it becomes a grittier overdrive that probably has some application, but sounds mostly a little hairy to my ears. That said, for 30 bucks, this pedal is a steal--and despite the fact that I completely intended to replace this pedal with a more expensive model down the line, it's been in the mix for over a year and I can't bring myself to stop using it. When used with the Orange Burst, the possibilities are seriously impressive. At this point, I exclusively run the Pure Sky into the Orange Burst, leaving the Pure Sky on always and adding the Orange Burst for an extra layer of OD/distortion for certain lead parts. These two pedals really sound great together. Earlier in my experimentation, I ran the Orange Burst into the Pure Sky just for fun and kept this order for a number of months (despite the fact that it goes against the typical OD stacking philosophy). This provided an entirely different sound that I still loved. Both pedals clean up well by lowering the volume knob. Overall, these Caline pedals are no brainers. I've only tried these two, and have doubts about their more complicated digital pedals, but as far as OD goes, these pedals are fantastic for the price.

LOVE this pedal. Tried several of the mini-clone (matchbox) pedals and none did the job. I don't have one of the original Cochrane Timmy's but have a preset of it on my multi-effects unit and the Pure Sky pedal is dead on. I wanted one pedal I could use on the clean channel of my amp and this IS the sound. It lets the sound of the guitar/pickups thru, nothing added, the tone controls let you shape to your sound. BEST $30 I ever spent on a pedal, hands down.

THE SOUND: In my honest opinion, this is one of the greatest sounding pedals I've played. The tone is warm. The whole thing is so versatile. You can go from really clean to really dirty really fast. The tone knobs tremendously add to the versatility. I've played a Timmy, and this thing is pretty much the same (hence the cloning...) However, I would say I like the Pure Sky more than the Timmy because of its Treble and Bass knobs, which function as boosts instead of cuts. Currently, I run the Pure Sky as a clean boost with a Zvex Box of Rock going into it. They sound great together. THE PRICE: This pedal is DIRT CHEAP. I was never the type of person to care about the country of origin of a product. And when it comes to pedals, my mentality is "if it sounds good to you, get it." So price is not really a thing for me... I would have gotten the Timmy if it weren't for those tone knobs. I actually prefer the Pure Sky, and the price is just a huge plus. THE LOOK: The one thing I do hate about buying items made overseas is that they tend to look tacky... This thing looks tacky. That's why I had to give it 4 stars. The color is gross, the font is childish, and the paint job is sub par. I was embarrassed to put it on my board. So I actually sanded mine down. Now it's just a metal box, and it looks great. Like a true clone pedal. THE VERDICT: I don't see myself parting with this pedal ever. For how cheap it is, it's worth just getting one. So do it, and prepare to be amazed.

I only own a few pedals, by choice, I like things simple, that being said I submitted a review on this pedal about a year ago after only having it for a month, after using it and another dirt cheap Zen Drive type clone for the past year I can honestly say that the Pure Sky is a steal, I paid $30 for it, almost too good to be true for the tones I can coax out of it. It's a low gain od pedal that I run through a Bugera V22 clean channel, I set it and forget it, it's always on and adds something to an already excellent clean channel that just sounds super, a touch of delay and/or reverb makes my old 90's Yamaha 121D sound like an aged expensive guitar, not bad for a something I rescued from a pawn shop, after a setup and a few modifications, of course. I use to buy and sell guitar pedals like a fool who couldn't make up his mind, always lost money in the process, one day I woke up and went back to simple, where I started, $30, somewhat amazing. I do have to add that it seems to be well built and the sky Blue color spells peaceful, not for heavy hard rock or metal, transparent, I believe so although I could care less, it just sounds good.