“A fun, affordable way of adding extra sounds, or getting to grips with three of the major pedal food groups”: Third Man Hardware x Donner Triple Threat review

Given Jack White’s slightly elusive and incredibly hip reputation, when it comes time for a partnership between his Third Man Hardware brand and another pedal company, you’d be forgiven for expecting him to team up with an underground builder for something equally exclusive. 

Not so. Because for the Triple Threat, Mr W has thrown his hat into the ring with Donner, a Chinese brand specialising in affordable gear.

The Triple Threat houses three analogue pedals in a single aluminium chassis. These circuits are based on Donner’s own effects pedals, including the Pearl Tremor phaser and Yellow Fall delay, with the form factor borrowed from its Alpha Cruncher multi-effects, and White and Third Man beefing up the components to ensure better sound and sturdier build quality. 

Our review model comes in the limited-edition Yellow finish, but the standard Black edition costs $99/£95, with the finish being the only difference. 

It’s a simple affair. The three ‘pedals’ are arranged in a fixed order from input to output, starting with the distortion, then the phaser and finally the echo.

Each circuit comes equipped with a metal footswitch, complete with an LED to indicate when the pedal is engaged, and around the parameter control mini-pots are protective bumpers to keep them safe. Aside from that, there’s an input, output and connection for the included PSU. 

You’ll quickly notice that the Triple Threat is pretty small at 25mm x 195mm x 60mm, making this a great grab ’n’ go pedal if you’re in need of a simple set of effects. Each effect has three controls – gain, tone and volume for the distortion, rate, depth and level for the phaser and level, feedback and time for the delay. 

The distortion starts off at a crunchy overdrive, and with the gain control bumped up you’re into heavy overdrive that’s thick and harmonically rich, while also being surprisingly dynamic. The phaser can do swirling, Van Halen-style modulation at the slower speeds, and, with the rate control increased, we get watery, almost chorus sounds. 

With the distortion engaged before it, the sweep of the phase becomes incredibly accented, to the point where you may need to dial back the depth settings, but this is a good thing, rather than not being able to have the effect as intense as you might like.

Jack White's Third Man Hardware and Donner's Triple Threat pedal - demo - YouTube

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Finally there’s the echo, and if you don’t have an analogue delay in your setup, this one is a delight. Slower delay times with fewer repeats may not quite reveal the degrading grit that analogue delays are known for, but crank up the feedback control and you’ll hear how it begins to thin out with each pass.

Push it all the way and it’ll go into self-oscillation, allowing you to bend the time control for some cool noises to boot. 

There’s no way of rearranging the effect order, and the preset/mixed pedal nature of the Triple Threat means that using it in an effects loop might not be ideal. But, it’s a fun, affordable way of adding extra sounds, or possibly even getting to grips with three of the major pedal food groups.

Specs

• PRICE: $99 / £95
• TYPE: Analogue multi-effects unit
• EFFECTS: Distortion, phaser, echo
• SOCKETS: Input, output, power supply (included)
• BYPASS: Buffered
• POWER: 9v psu (included)
• CONTACT: Third Man Records