Resonant Electronic Design: Graviton Boost and Manifold Drive pedals

Great River Electronics stalwarts Wes Kuhnley and Peter Bregman have been moonlighting of late, coming up with some promising guitar amp designs as well as a pair of fine guitar pedals. At first glance, the Graviton Boost and Manifold Drive stompboxes seem to be in danger of being variations of already-done-to-death pedals. But after putting these pedals through their paces, I found them to be beautifully crafted, major improvements on "the usual".

To check their fortitude, I took the Manifold Drive and Graviton Boost pedals out on a short Weisstronauts tour, replacing my usual Tube Screamer and Z.Vex Super Hard-On pedals, respectively. Boy, these are both super-easy to use and sound great; the Manifold Drive provides an unusually subtle, creamy drive/sustain with just gain and volume knobs and a three-way dark/bright/flat tone switch. Unlike a lot of Tube Screamer-type overdrive pedals, the Graviton Boost doesn't sound papery and ratty to my ears. It's one of the few I've tried that truly maintains my guitar's natural low-end tone, even when set to "bright". With just a single gain knob and discrete Class A circuitry, the Graviton Boost performs clean boosting chores admirably. But in addition, I found that by setting it to unity gain, it sort of "optimizes" my Telecaster pickups. I'm a big fan of this type of pedal - it's a subtle kind of effect that almost seems like compression and brings extra life out of single-coil pickups. Like its overdrive sibling, the Graviton Boost steers way clear of tinny, harsh tone. On single-note lead lines, my Telecaster cut through the mix, sounding brassy and twangy, not scratchy and plinky.

Both of these pedals are standard MXR-box sized - appealingly compact - and clearly built to last. All the components appeared to be of the highest, heavy-duty quality. They run on 9 volt batteries or by using a DC power supply. I was initially puzzled by the inclusion of a small, 3'' cable adapter that switches the polarity of the DC power input - necessary if the user wants to employ a commonly-available sleeve-positive 9 volt adaptor. The FAQ published on the Resonant Electronic website explains that Wes and Peter settled on a center-positive design because the beefy metal jack they chose for durability reasons can contact the grounded case. In practice, the extra cabling added to my already-crowded pedal board. A couple of times on stage, the bulky cable got jostled and popped out of the pedal, rendering it powerless (and useless). My inelegant solution was a swath of tape, which got me through the rest of the tour's shows. Aside from that, I found Resonant Electronic Design's first two pedals to be first-rate boutique boxes, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. (Graviton $165 MSRP, Manifold $200; www.resonantelectronic.com)