“You may just want to leave it on all the time”: ThorpyFX Electric Lightning review

Anyone who watches Chris Buck’s always entertaining Friday Fretworks videos on his YouTube channel will have already heard this ThorpyFX pedal, as it’s been on his pedalboard for quite some time now, albeit in disguised form, making it the subject of much speculation. Now revealed as the Electric Lightning, it is, in fact, the Cardinal Black guitarist’s signature pedal. 

The brief for the pedal was to create an overdrive with an independent clean boost so that Buck had a one-box solution to deliver his own sound, no matter what backline he had access to. 

To achieve this, Thorpy has come up with a valve-based overdrive circuit with a three-knob EQ similar to a Marshall tone-stack, and combined that with a high-headroom clean boost. Both are independently footswitched, with the boost feeding into the drive.

The boost side of the pedal is capable of attenuation or boost. With unity gain at around one o’clock on the dial there’s plenty of scope for both. The associated Lows knob keeps your bottom-end intact at its fully-clockwise position, but as you wind it back it gradually rolls bass off for something leaner and tighter, and more of a treble boost functionality.

ThorpyFx ELECTRIC LIGHTNING - Chris Buck signature Valve pedal and Boost - YouTube

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We liked it with a touch of boost dialled in, and the Lows knob set accordingly, enhancing the sound of a clean amp. As such, you may just want to leave it on all the time, although its performance capability as a kicked-in asset is without doubt, not least when taking the Drive section to another level with a richer sound.

The Drive section’s Treble, Mid, and Bass knobs offer loads of scope for finding the sweet spot to suit the guitar and amp that you’re using, including a Marshall-like glassiness in the top-end that you can embrace or dial back. The Drive runs from a just-beyond-clean crunch right through to full-on heavy raunch – but always with crisp string articulation.

What’s more, the pedal’s dynamic response is excellent, cleaning up with guitar volume and reacting sympathetically to touch, letting you coax out the cleaner sounds with softer strokes while digging in for the dirt.

Specs

• PRICE: £429 (approx $535)
• ORIGIN: UK
• TYPE: Drive and boost pedal
• FEATURES: True bypass
• CONTROLS: Volume, Treble, Mids, Gain, Bass, Boost, Lows, Drive footswitch, Boost footswitch
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: Supplied 12V DC adaptor 
• DIMENSIONS: 108 (w) x 130 (d) x 55mm (h)
• CONTACT: ThorpyFX