Mr Black Deluxe +

Mr Black Deluxe +

The Mr Black Deluxe + was a pedal that I had heard a lot about. It was my first delve into Mr Black pedals. Being a big fan of surf music, the graphics were right up my ally.

Now for the spring reverb side of things, I think they did a great job on the cavernous sound you get from 6G15 units. But it has 0 drip to speak of. But when you have this and the Tremolo engaged, it sounds surfy, and that's what I like.

Now one of the more common complaints on this pedal is that the spring reverb can get too cavernous to quickly across its range, and many people keep the reverb dialed in under 11 o'clock or below. So this may be a concern for you.

 Now Mr Black has several options with the "Deluxe" "Plus" name in them.

There is the Deluxe ++ which offers Harmonic Trem

There is the Deluxe + (This one) which offers Bias Trem

And there is the Deluxe DeluxePlus which is the same as the Deluxe + but has separate switchable reverb and tremolo as opposed to needing to have both on, or dial down one or the other.

Now the confusion is cleared up, we will focus on what this pedal offers. 

This pedal offers a slightly lopsided sine wave Tremolo. It is actually one of my favorite sounding Tremolos, like I said in combination with the spring reverb it sounds very Surf like.

Tremolo Depth At Various Settings

The pedal offers a good range of speed, but you aren't going to get ring mod like tones. This is meant to emulate around the limits you would fine in an amplifier, so the limits are pretty sane.

Slowest Speed: 2600 ms/cycle
Fastest Speed: ~98 ms/cycle 

As far as the noise floor. With nothing but the Trem in the signal chain, I can crank my Fender Princeton to about 4.5  on the volume before I hear any noticeable noise. There is no audible ticking, but you can hear the hiss getting modulated the louder you crank the amplifier. When the pedal is bypassed, most of this hiss goes away. So it is not the quietest pedal out there at higher volumes.

What can I say? I just love this pedal. I bought 2 of them. Is it the best spring reverb or Trem I've heard in a pedal? Not the absolute best. But it is so close up there, I'm not distracted thinking about how better everything else is. I'm more like...wow that sounds awesome.

Pro's

 - Spring Reverb + Tremolo

 - VERY nice sounding Bias Tremolo with some character

 - Very simple operation

Con's

 - Switch is a very hard click switch, Audible click may be heard in the signal

 - No separate switch for turning on or off reverb or tremolo independently. Look at the Mr Black Deluxe DeluxePlus for that functionality instead. 
 - Noise floor might be an issue if you play loudly

Mr Black Deluxe + VS Strymon Flint

 

1 Minute with the Mr Black Deluxe +

Mr Black Deluxe + VS Mr Black Deluxe ++ (Bias VS Harmonic Trem)

Spring Reverb Shootout Deluxe +