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.

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.

Of course you get dizzy reading all the reviews, this one is for the Pure Sky OD, be sure when reading on Amazon that the review is in fact about the pedal you are considering!! Soooo the CP12 is the one on deck today, just gotta love it, no it is not gonna work for the Zak or EVH crowd, well maybe as a boost for a new voice in their custom built boutique amps! Ah but then there is the rest of us losers still trying to get our sound and style. The Blue Sky definitely can take us further along the way on our tone quest journey! Why? many answers there, but the biggie for me is the tube like breakup, sadly many modern players really have not heard or "felt" that in an amp or pedal! Let me explain, the natural tube breakup is a sort of electro/organic thang, often the cabinet resonance tone is in the mix as well; yes it is a type of compression and growl or thuddy buzz if you will, and much more; the result is a kinda touchy/feely expression the players experience when going into tube melt down and speaker breakup mode, am I making sense? Maybe not, one desired characteristic is the thickness and browness of tone that so many styles desire, yes the amplification is truly breaking up electrically, the sound is blurred as well as swollen, the waveform is pulsing and mushing out, but that chunky sustain and trail is what we are after here, and this over driven approach works well for what many players are seeking in their quest, and there are many variations of this phenomena indeed! Back to the Blue Sky, just trying to say the CP12 goes somewhat to what is described above and it surprised me, it renders what some call a clean breakup, with that thicker tone we need without the thin and harsh buzz and fizz I might add. Its funny how so many pedals tend to do the opposite of what most players desire in that regard. Of course your guitar and amp and EQ settings will influence the overall effect to varying degrees, but in my many years experience with a myriad of OD and Distortion pedals, the Blue Sky just has some real world tubed OD magic that most others do not! And again, it is not going to be a fave of the metal men, no disrespect here at all, but the CP12 will be more suitable for Blues, Rock and Country, I love my G&L Asat Telecaster with it, and there is a good reason for such compatibility, the separate bass and treble controls are very much in the tone shaping, this is a kool plus feature since the guitarist then may voice the dang thing any way he likes! Many of us are tired of fighting the prevoiced EQ curve in he vast majority of pedals out there! A single tone tone control simply cannot fully bring the player to his desired effect in most cases, not saying the Caline will always suffice in this regard, and certainly there is NO one size fits all OD pedal, BUT, you cannot go wrong with the CP12 at such a ridiculously low price point, a great change up for any axeman's pedal board, a new flavor or color of tone can take us to another creative place, for many the Pure Sky will do just that--it is a breath of fresh aire indeed--gotta love it!

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.

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.

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.

Edited review: OK, I'm leaving my original review intact below. However, after the better part of a year playing constantly through the CP-12, I've begun to sour on it. While I've mostly limped along on this thing since my "essential" CTO-1 died, I could just never quite get the edge or bite out of this pedal that I could get out of my old CTO-1; I'm sure a real Timmy has the transparent edge (and bite) on both devices. Worse, the CP-12 has recently begun misbehaving in a bizarre way that made me think I was losing my mind for a couple of rehearsals in a row. Symptom: as the pedal is left on over the course of minutes, the gain SLOWLY begins to grow in the direction of increasingly distorted, ill-defined, buzzy fuzzmush without increasing in volume... almost like I'm dealing with a dying battery, except I'm powering this thing off of a standard-issue Dunlop 9v wall wart. At the last rehearsal it got so uncontrollably horrid that I had to yank the thing out of my signal chain altogether. I REALLY like getting sleeper deals, and I stand by my statement that this is a good "gateway pedal" to the Timmy thing... but sometimes you get what you pay for, and so I'm off to sell some plasma or something and finally get the real Timmy I've obviously been needing for years anyway. Frankly, I'd now sort of recommend that if you like the Timmy demos and whatever else you may have heard, you just go ahead and do the same. It's a screaming deal for a great pedal and if you don't like it, even with the increase in Timmy supply in recent years, it seems from looking around like you can still resell the thing for basically what you paid. *** I have used a Danelectro Cool Cat CTO-1 Transparent Overdrive for several years as *the* cornerstone of my tone in several bands. This pedal was famously cloned from the Paul C Timmy; Dano got caught in the act and "voluntarily" dropped the pedal. A few weeks ago my CTO-1 got destroyed in an incident involving multiple amps and bad stage grounding, and of course you can't get the CTO-1 any more (I used to have a small stockpile of CTO-1s but I stupidly sold them all off, and the currently-produced CTO-2 sounds nothing at all like the CTO-1). My CTO-1 basically never goes off when I'm plugged in and had to be replaced immediately. I knew I should just finally go buy a Timmy but money is even more tight now than it was when I first got my CTO-1, so I thought I'd try the Pure Sky. It got to the US in about a week and a half. Compared to the CTO-1 the Pure Sky is in fact very similar but noticeably lacking just a bit of sparkle / edge / life. It also seems to have somewhat less gain / breakup available on tap than the CTO-1 - 50% / high noon on the Pure Sky's gain control, or at least on the Pure Sky *I* got, is about where I'd be ca. 25-30% / 9, 10 o'clock-ish on the CTO-1. None of this is to say that the Sky sounds bad at all. It's a very good, quiet, transparent OD that has tons of clean boost and sounds good by itself or before / after other distortion boxes. It's just somehow not as immediately whoa-inspiring as the CTO-1 (nor, presumably, the Timmy) in stock form, even though you can tell they're both very much in the same family. I've opened the box, haven't traced out the circuit of the CP-12, but it definitely looks at first glance like it is very heavily based on the v1 Timmy per the schematic I have. The single opamp chip on my CP-12 is socketed; this is neat, as it enables you to try out some different opamps in place of the (unlabeled / sanded-off) factory issue. (Edit: My original posted review suggested the CP-12 might be a good suggested mod platform for beginning to intermediate DIYers - I have found further online / anecdotal evidence to suggest that maybe the Caline pedals *aren't* so great for that, mostly because the double-sided "value-priced" PCBs therein may be prone to lifting / disintegrating lugs and traces when a hobbyist tries to solder / desolder components after the sale. So, review edited. The pedal does look reasonably constructed inside, and the socketed IC *can* be a source of fun if YOUR unit is also socketed. But you may not want to plan on easily being able to swap in diodes / "audiophile-grade" caps / whatever without also potentially replacing the entire PC board.) Bottom line, if you don't already have something like a Timmy in your arsenal, the Pure Sky is a great way to find out what everyone's talking about. However, if you can possibly find another hundred bucks and already know you want "the Timmy sound," just go for the real deal... although the Sky would definitely make a fine backup, or "Timmy-upon-Timmy stacker" option, for barely more than the price of a used DS-1. I'll probably be picking up a few more Calines in the future.

This is an outstanding pedal irrelevant of how affordable it is. I must admit I have no previous experience with the drive pedal it's based on, the 'Timmy' you'll see lots of direct comparisons on YouTube to see how it stacks up side by side, but in general this is an outstanding pedal, I've added it to my pedal board and used it numerous times live. There is a vast amount of drive on tap to make it versatile for whatever genre you play, you can use it as a boost or a straight overdrive pedal into a clean amp, to be honest I now hardly use my tubescreamer as this covers all the same sort of territory for my purposes. It does the classic rock/blues thing great. It's powered by a standard 9v DC cable. Don't believe it has an option for battery power but these days everyone uses a power supply. Overall this is a fantastic device, can't believe how good it is for the price, it's earned its place amongst all my significantly more expensive pedals. Admittedly the metal chassis doesn't feel the most robust, and I'd imagine the artwork would chip off if you dropped it but it's a minor inconvenience never in any danger of feeling cheap or likely to break. I also really like the actual footswitch, really easy to turn off and on. Would highly recommend taking the plunge and getting this to anyone interested.

Der kleine Overdrive von Caline ist hervorragend verarbeitet, was bei dem sehr günstigen Preis nicht unbedingt zu erwarten war. Klanglich macht das Pedal einen sehr runden Overdrive, der verdammt nahe an eine Röhrenverzerrung heranreicht. Die Verzerrung lässt sich hervorragen dosieren, ist sehr dynamisch und erzeugt einen sehr runden und dabei niemals nervenden Klang. Durch die integrierte Klangregelung lässt es sich nocht sehr fein anpassen. Wenn man die Verzerrung auf Minimum dreht ist das Pedal auch gut als Booster mit Bass-/Höhenregelung einsetzbar. Ich bin wirklich zufrieden mit dem Pedal und es wird sicher einen Stammplatz auf meinem Pedalboard erhalten :-)

Decidí adquirir este pedal por las buenas reseñas que he visto en internet. Si algún efecto me entusiasma este es el overdrive, tengo varios pedales de este tipo y quise conocer el sonido del famoso Timmy, aunque sea en calidad de clon. El sonido me gusta, me parece discreto pero con carácter. Es lo que han dado en calificar como "transparente". Esto último puede ser bueno, malo o regular, porque si el equipo es de gama media (como el mío) el Pure Sky simplemente amplifica y enriquece la señal que produce el ampli y la guitarra. En este sentido no hace milagros, no enmascara y simplemente potencia y enaltece lo que el guitarrista y su equipo son capaces de generar. En resumen, mientras mejor sea el equipo, mejor es el resultado. Dicho esto, para mi equipo de gama media y mis escasos recursos como guitarrista, este efecto ha resultado un gran aliado. He grabado algunas piezas y el pedal por sí solo le añade un carácter interesante al sonido de la guitarra. Si lo potencio con un compresor el sonido mejora notablemente. Por la relación de precio y calidad le doy un 10/10

Unbelievable value. Transparent. Heaps of headroom. Amazing EQ. No artificial hiss or colouring. Had the Nad Monkey - junk Had the Moskey Golden Horse - junk. Get this.

Why is this pedal so good?! $40 is wild for such a great sounding and useful pedal. The bass and treble knobs give extra versatility tonally and I can't recommend it enough. I've had everything from this to custom made ODs and this holds its own no problem