The holy grail - My Nocturne

Hi there,
As promised a little review about that wonder-machine by Tavo

First of all, a huge thank you for excellent customer support and super-fast shipping. It arrived in only 10 days from USA. Just right before Christmas.

It's really plain awesome what this little box can do for your tone. It adds plenty of thickness, balls and really tightness to your guitar sound. With the master volume on my gretsch I can now do so many things before I couldn't do without the pedal. Running the master volume of the guitar on full tilt with the bridge pickup activated it's like stomping on a extra "boost" (I know that word is EVIL hehe) which is great for soloing. Backing it up just a little bit and switching to the neck position gives you that nice, smooth jazzy tone we all know and love from the Dirty Boogie record. The middle pickup position is -thanks to the Nocturne- just pure "Fishnet Stocking" tone... I love it. The gain knob on the Brain Seltzer is also very versatile and has a direct respone how hard you dig into the strings. It has a range from early Stray Cats sounding over the Ignition tone - to "Psychobilly Freakout" guitar growl... Also, the bass roll-off is pure miracle. It cleans up your overall guitar sound - and prevents getting to dark. For shure you can turn it back on for some nice bluesy crunchy tones... Nevertheless the instruction manual was very helpful to hit the right spots and making things easy.

To make a long story short: I LOVE IT!!! It will never be turned off and all you guys have to buy one!

I'm attaching a few pics of my rig. I'm running my Gretsch HotRod loaded with TV Classics > Nocturne > Watkins CopiCat (British Tape Echo machine with a built in preamp) > Laney Lionheart 20 W All Tube Head.

Specially with the built in preamp of the CopiCat AND the Nocturne I can get into Setzer-madness already at Volume 2-3 (if I plug into the Hi-Input jack of the amp) !!!

holy crap.. how did we miss this POST???!!! Freakin awesome CB.. thanks for the pictures too. It would be a privi to see a video of that copicat in action with it too!

I'm working on a vid... I promise!

I'm also trying to make a picture of the ukulele I bought for my daughter. She's 3 years old and already loves guitars (but she use them as a doghouse bass ). So she got that ukulele and the first thing we did was putting the Nocturne sticker on the back... Now it looks perfect. And BTW playing the ukulele is much fun!

great gear CB,

so if i understand you right you`re using the Nocturne permanent.
Not as a Booster for some special parts.

No its always on... The funny thing is that I always thought that my guitar tone has a fat bottom end before I got the Nocturne. But now, its a difference like day and night. When its on its soooo much better. I'll never turn it off again - till the battery is gone

Brett wrote:

great gear CB,

so if i understand you right you`re using the Nocturne permanent.
Not as a Booster for some special parts.

Youll find that once you put the Nocturne on, your whole sound becomes "special" and you wont be turning it off until the end of the gig.
So, no its not a pedal Booster, more like an 'Ego Booster'

Definitely Nocturne = ALWAYS ON.

And then, for more '68 CBS tone, TURN IT UP! Voila!

For Gretsch players, the Noc really is a must-have item. Gretsch should buy the design from Tavo & pay him a licensing fee, and sell it under the Gretsch name. Tavo has really "stumbled" (not really... tons of research) onto something here.

Has anybodt gotten one to Brian yet I wonder?

Thx, tomorrow i gonna pick up my Nocturne (at the local customs office)