Rothwell Hellbender

The team's opinion: We have already had the opportunity to test products from the Rothwell brand, in particular the excellent F1 Booster. When we came across this overdrive, it was only natural that we wanted to try the experience again! The least we can say is that the British brand is worth the detour! The Hellbender, presented as an overdrive-type effect pedal, actually offers much more than that. It certainly starts on a rather soft Drive, ideal for U2-style pop arpeggios, but is capable of going quite high in saturation! The idea is to keep the dynamics of the overdrive with the saturation of a distortion. The saturation being "transparent" (although gravitating in the Marshall universe), the rendering will greatly depend on your amplifier! This is a good thing because on an amp of character, the grain of the latter will still be identifiable. We tried the experiment on 2 different amplifiers (an Engl and a DV Mark) and the rendering was incomparable. On the Engl we used it as Boost and on the DV Mark as the main saturation. A really interesting effect pedal, for any guitarist wishing to preserve the grain of his amp but looking for additional flexibility! Coupled with the F1 Booster of the same brand, the sound is just terrible!