Flattley Revolution review

Gloucestershire, UK-based boutique pedal company Flattley Guitar Pedals specialises in hand-wired pedals that aim to use only the highest quality components. 

Designer and builder Paul Flattley offers meticulously hand-finished pedals with artwork created by his daughter Phoebe, a graphic designer, who often bases the art around Mexican sugar skulls.

There are other custom options available, but the Revolution overdrive pedal we have here is typical of those sparkly finishes. 

One cool feature of Flattley pedals is the Halo light ring that surrounds the footswitch and diffuses the light when playing live, avoiding the off-putting brightness you may get from standard LEDs. There are several colours available including the blue and purple seen here. 

One variation is the custom-ordered Halo Light Plate with the light emanating from a transparent section inserted between the pedal base and chassis.

Flattley describes the Revolution as being a “dynamic overdrive” and that’s absolutely correct: playing through it feels really good as it responds to your touch and cleans up nicely with guitar volume, too. 

It’s based around a Tube Screamer-style circuit, and an A/B test with our TS808 proved that it could nail all those TS sounds with ease and then some. The thing is, the Revolution goes beyond a standard TS by offering a range of clipping options courtesy of a three-way toggle switch for an op-amp integrated circuit, LED diodes or silicon diodes.

Each of the settings has its own attributes, completely warranting its inclusion. The upper setting of the switch has a lower output than the others and gives you the tightest sound with controlled bottom-end, whereas in the middle position things seem more opened up – louder, looser and more raunchy. 

The lower position of the switch may be the crunchiest of the lot with more compression and a spongier feel under the fingers as you dig in for sustain. 

Specs

• PRICE: £259
• ORIGIN: UK
• TYPE: Dynamic overdrive pedal 
• FEATURES: True bypass
• CONTROLS: Volume, Drive, Tone, Clipping Switch, Bypass footswitch 
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 
• DIMENSIONS: 72 (w) x 120 (d) x 55mm (h)
• CONTACT: Flattley Guitar Pedals