Flattley’s The Ace is good-sounding boost pedal with plenty of whomp delivered with sensible tonal options. It’s ideal for giving you that extra push and emphasis for solos but is equally adept as an always-on component, adding a buffer and boosting signal strength with enhancement for your core tone.
Pros
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Good level of boost available.
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Sensible tonal options.
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Buffer.
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Halo light ring.
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Footswitch topper.
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Can be used as a kill switch.
Cons
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We’d have preferred a more compact version.
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The latest from Flattley Guitar Pedals, the Gloucestershire, UK-based effects company, is The Ace, a clean boost/buffer with the advantage of having a Tone knob to target the boost. It features a blue halo light ring showing its engaged status and a topper on the footswitch, giving you a bit more to aim for when switching.
The Ace’s tone stack is the same as that in Flattley’s Solaris Pro fuzz and boost pedal and is designed to deliver an effectively flat sound when the knob is central, with a bass boost to the left and a treble boost to the right. The most neutral position of the Tone knob isn’t totally flat, but kicking in the pedal yields a subtle change in the midrange that seems to thicken your basic sound.
The Volume knob runs from zero so you can leave it right down and use the pedal as a kill switch if you so desire. Its unity gain point depends on the position of the Tone knob, but it’s around the 11 o’clock mark with a fairly neutral tone, leaving plenty of further knob travel to set the amount of boost that you need.
You can add a touch of treble to the boost for extra sparkle, but, equally, if you want to bolster the sound with more body you can turn it the other way. Going further, fully clockwise on the Tone knob delivers an obvious treble boost that stays musical as it’s bright but not nasal or harsh, while retaining plenty of other frequencies so you don’t feel like your whole low-end has disappeared. You can set the Volume knob accordingly if you just want a tonal change without any increase in volume.
(Image credit: Future / Phil Barker)
The flexibility here comes from the several ways in which you can use this pedal. The front of your signal chain may be the most obvious, and it’s great for pushing a favourite drive or distortion pedal, but it can work equally well elsewhere inside the pedal chain or at the end directly before your guitar amp.
Trevor Curwen has played guitar for several decades – he's also mimed it on the UK's Top of the Pops. Much of his working life, though, has been spent behind the mixing desk, during which time he has built up a solid collection of the guitars, amps and pedals needed to cover just about any studio session. He writes pedal reviews for Guitarist and has contributed to Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Future Music among others.
