Guest Pedal Review: Barber LTD Special Recipe

The following is a guest post by Kevin Ian Common. If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

Hello Kind Readers!

I thought I would review another one of the pedals on my new pedalboard, the Barber LTD Special Recipe. What distinguishes this from the original LTD? According to the official website:

“The LTD SR came about when “yet* another *early beta LTD” came to our attention from a good friend and excellent player/listener. Our “beta friend” asked for a clone of his early beta LTD to have as a backup for traveling, after listening to and cloning his beta LTD we realized what a nice voice this version LTD possessed…so, the custom shop has made this cool third LTD version available for players seeking a “flatter voiced” LTD…*very* faithful to your guitar and amp’s unprocessed spectrum.”

This pedal first came to my attention when the original owner, a good friend of mine, started using it live. I loved his low-gain sounds and he told me about the LTD SR. It is a much flatter-voiced overdrive and perhaps the most neutral sounding overdrive I’ve ever played.

Like most Barber pedals, this one also has internal trim pots. I have not touched them, as I have this strange superstition that I will mess with the mojo of the pedal if I so much as open the pedal!

Since I also run a second overdrive and a fuzz, I tend to run my LTD first, and the cleanest, with very little gain at all. It adds a nice amount of dirt, and is so wonderfully voiced, even at it’s highest gain setting, I can hear the nuance of even the craziest chords I may play.

I’ve gone through many pedals and I’ve tried many pedals, but this one has been the most consistent overdrive pedal I’ve ever owned. I know many people swear by the green one… and the overpriced one touted by a member of The Police, but for the price… this blows both way far out of the water.

I’ve included two links. One is to a demo of the LTD SR with an les paul. It is a great demo!

The second link is to a clickable MP3 song of my band, The Common Men, playing one of our newest songs “Impulsion.” I use the LTD SR almost exclusively (with my fuzz in the choruses) and it is a great indicator of how lovely it fits in a “real-life” situation.

Thank You!

– Kevin Ian

Kevin Ian goes through pedals like most people go through underwear. However, once he finds one he likes, there’s no letting go! He is a multi-instrumentalist and internet radio DJ, and occasional blogger. He hosts “The Mad Owl” on sacrockradio.com which airs local and unsigned alternative/electronic/ambient acts. He is primarily the singer/guitarist for Norther California’s post-punk trio The Common Men. You can find everything about The Common Men at their new official website, www.thecommonmen.tk

The Barber LTD Special Recipe is available for $139.95 at Amazon.com