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This weekend marks the end of my days of being pedal-less! I am gonna place a fair-sized order with Tom at FH,no later than Monday. I had once stated that I was going for a "broken toy" sounding effects chain,with Devi's US, GZ,and OK at the heart of it. With so many great builders and pedals out there,there was much deliberation. I have decided to go with the following: pre-ordered Phantom Octave(it's blue,it's called a PHANTOM octave and brilliant conceptually),Mellowtone Mini Wolf CPU,and still undecided as to whether I should pre-order a Velcroar or go with the US. But by Monday,I'll know for sure. In the meantime,please let me know your thoughts regarding the US vs. Velcroar conundrum. I'd like to hear from people who have experience with both.

Bear in mind that I've owned the US and only know the velcroar from Tom's demo video. US is great in that it's highly interactive(as is the case with all Devi's pedals) with the volume and tone knobs. The Velcroar gets cool tones from what I heard in the video. Just haven't played with it before. Any thoughts?

blooghost wrote:please let me know your thoughts regarding the US vs. Velcroar conundrum.

First, thanks in advance!!

I know you've owned a US, but I'll describe both for comparison and anyone else interested.

The US and Velcroar are definitely two different beasts, despite both having "velcro" associations. The US has sort of a velcro gate, where the Velcroar has a general stickiness and hints of velcro in the attack and tone. (When people start trying to describe tone, they start making less sense...so just go along with me here!)

The US has a variable gate--one of the stronger gates I've played, but there's far less gate when cranked or defeated with a boost in front of it. Great for raw nasty leads, sqelchy, sputtery raw rock. One of my 3 favorite Devi Ever pedals. Notes rip in (sustain depends on on how high the gain's set) and then the device goes silent with a velcro rip.

The Velcroar has no gate, but is really sticky (hard to describe, but the fuzz sticks to your notes, and on some pickup settings you might notice a slight lag on the attack harmonics). Its fuzz tone is boxier and somewhat-lo-fi, sorta similar to the Wolf Computer's fuzz tone on single notes. Roar is also part of the name, so there's a unique balance between compressed and roaring tone (am I making sense here?). There's also that "hint of octave," which adds to a slightly chorused sound sometimes. Go right with the roar knob and things open up a bit and get a little more chord friendly.
There's a fine balance of velcro and roar, compressed and openness, raw and smooth (smooth when that octave effect layers things) going on.

Well I thought you made perfect sense. I guess all I really had to do was ask if the velcroar had a gate. I know nothing of the inner workings of a fuzz pedal,other than silicon and germanium transistors are used. I just know that both of them sound REALLY fucking good. The 'roar had a cool video game-ish type sound at times during the demo and the US sounds like Leigh Stevens from Blue Cheer. And I DO love playing the type of lead guitar that would leave one thinking that I hated my guitar and want it dead. Yet I like static-y broken toy noise just as much. I'll just get 'em both (at different times).

Definitely get 'em both. Two different beasts entirely (though I've only played the US, I can tell the difference from Tom's demo of the Velcroar).

Personally, I'd like to hear the US stacked with the Velcroar. Now that could be some velcrofuzzaliciousness!