Color: Chorus Delay Reverb Distortion
I got this because I'm a Worship Leader at a church and lead while playing guitar. Been using an older Line6 Flextone but we're all on ears and have no stage volume so my amp was literally behind a wall with the volume off, just going direct. Since I'm leading worship, rarely do any solos and am conc
entrating on singing and lyrics at the same time, I just wanted something simple with a few buttons and just a couple sounds. This does the trick with just a few negatives. Let me get into it: The overall quality of this is excellent. All metal, switches that feel good and knobs that are lit up and easy to maneuver. The cab sim is actually really good and works well when going direct. Button by button, here is my take on it: Reverb: This is actually a really good reverb and sounds to me like an old spring reverb. I just like a little so my knob is almost to the "off" position but this effect sounds really good! Delay: While the delay sounds really good, the adjustment of such is not very user friendly. The "time" for the delay is set with the same turn knob as everything else. It is very sensitive and I think hard to find exactly what you want. If you were trying to match with a certain rhythm or speed, it would be very labor intensive to get it perfect. What would have made this perfect is if the footswitch was also a tap tempo. While the effect sounds good and knobs are sensitive, this is very much not user friendly. I will probably find an eighth note delay I'm happy with and just leave it. Rock Amp: If anyone is playing metal or anything with lots of gain/distortion, this is not for you. While there is plenty of gain, it doesn't "chug". This is more like a Boss Distortion pedal or a Tube Screamer. It might sound nice as a boost or additional distortion to your existing amp but is a little lack-luster on it's own. For me, I'm just using it mainly for chords in this worship setting so I have the gain really low just to add some dirt to my sound. This will work for my purpose but I wouldn't see me playing out with that distortion sound. Chorus: I think this is were this pedal shines. The chorus effect sounds great and the adjustments again while very sensitive go from just a little to crazy. This to me sounds as good as any chorus pedal I've owned. While it may not rival $500-1000 pedals, the effect is great sounding and does the job. Final thoughts: Construction is good and for maybe a beginner that wants some effects, a practice solution or someone like me that just needs a couple cheap effects at your feet with easy setup, this is a winner in my book. This will NOT be the same as buying say a Headrush, Helix etc by a long shot, but I'm pleased with what you get for under $100. While this isn't exactly what I'd want and some of the sounds are just decent, I believe this will work well for what I'm planning to do.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2023 by Kevin J. Brennen
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This Twiggy's small size disguies its Huge sound
Color: Overdrive Compressor Delay Reverb
My first exposure to Sonicake was to purchase their Vol-Wah pedal. I had been using a Fulltone Clyde Deluxe from 2003 which I bought new direct and have used on stage and recording. However, I was not entirely happy with it, and it did not play nice with my other effects like Keely compressor and Cus
ack Fuzz Screamer. I wanted something new and smaller, so I tried the Vol/Wah even though skeptical. It sounds every bit as good as the Fulltone, and even some better, so that was that. Now, I never understood why pedals are so damn big. The Fuzz Face and Big Muff, and all these pedals—even the standard TS pedals and Boss, etc. With integrated circuits and miniaturization of everything I could never understand why the paltry few components in most pedals still needed a big enclosure. It’s only electrons after all. I have built several BYOC pedals successfully, but honestly, I don’t know why all those few parts had to take up so much empty space. Then these mini pedals started coming out, but I already had tons of older, some vintage stuff, so I let it go. Then I decided to give this Twiggy Blues a try, and I am way beyond impressed. I did try to take it apart to see what’s inside, but it’s a bit more involved than just taking out a few screws, so I will let the secret be kept for now. I don’t know what’s in there, but it does everything I want and does it really really good. I had a Blues trio about 10 years ago, and we gigged quite a bit, but anyone in the biz will tell you fronting a band is great while it’s fun, but inevitably the fun wears off and it’s just not worth the hassle anymore. To me, at least. So I started doing a solo acoustic thing with a dreadnought and a LoudBox Mini to do small bars and house parties, and that works just fine. But I wanted to use a looper and do some electric blues into the LoudBox, but it’s a full range amp, and you need an amp modeler for the electric guitar for which I used a Behringer TM300. But now the pedal board is getting too crowded and heavy to take to a casual party and not appear pretentious. One of the many great things about this Twiggy (besides being crazy small) is that the Cabinet Sim behaves just like an amp modeler running clean, and then you kick on the overdrive, and it sounds fabulous. Now, I have never heard a Dumble Overdrive except on Stevie Ray and Robben Ford records much less ever played through one being a mere mortal, but if this is anything like they are supposed to sound then I am down for that. Having the compressor in front of it makes it ever so much more so, and the creamy sustain is what we all long for. Sonicake seems to have found the sweet spot for all these controls that we tweak forever to accomplish and just goes straight for it. I am not a tweaker and do not enjoy fiddling with knobs endlessly, so if that’s what you like, then this is not for you. But if you want to cut straight to the chase and get great sound immediately this will do it. The Delay sound every bit as good as my new MXR CarbonCopy, and not being a big fan of reverb in general I have found that I really like this one. Again, just right—not to much, not too little—Air. At first I was a bit disappointed in the Tone control of the Drive section in that it seemed voiced very low, and you had to turn up the high end almost all the way, but now that I have used it a while I find it has grown on me, and maybe that is part of the Dumble Thing? Don’t know, but it sure sounds good. This one is a keeper, and I’m looking forward to more of this. Love me some Sonicake.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2020 by Mark W. Rhodes
Color: Chorus Delay Reverb Distortion
This thing packs hellacious bang for the buck in a tiny box you can throw in your guitar case or backpack to use as a fantastic fly rig. It has all of the basic time-based FX you need to play most styles of rock and pop, and they all sound great. Not a lot of parameters to play with, but again, enoug
h for what you need 95% of the time, and the layout is extremely familiar to anyone who has used FX stompboxes over the past several decades. I thought the tonal options would be very limited with it, but if you take the time to tweak parameters to match your axe's electronics, you will find you can create many different and very useable tones. The palette of tones you can get out of it using an HH axe like a Les Paul versus one with single coils like a Strat or Tele is huge. I'm very impressed with the build quality. The RockStage is built like a tank, in a very sturdy metal case with quality footswitches. The parameter knobs are small but work fine, and they light up with colored internal LEDs when the FX is engaged: blue for reverb, green for delay, red for the amp model distortion/OD, and yellow for chorus. The cab/speaker sim is fantastic; you can really hear the difference as you switch it on and off when running it through an FRFR, which I did through one of my Headrush 112s. The amp model sounds like a hot rodded 80s head such as a JCM 800 or Soldano; very much hair metal, but you can also back it off to get lighter breakup OD sounds and even some very nice cleans. The amp sim is also very responsive to your guitar volume and playing dynamics/pick attack, and you can clean up a raging overdriven tone effectively by rolling off on the guitar volume knob. The reverb only has one flavor and one knob to control the amount, but it's a very useable large room ambience that really opens up and thickens up the sound and is also perfect for 80's hard rock. The chorus sounds like a sweet vintage bucket brigade unit and so does the delay, though the max delay time is pretty short; I don't think above 300 ms. I don't think that is a big loss; again, very usable for a wide variety of applications. This unit is marketed as an 80s hair metal machine and it does do that extremely well, but it can also tackle 80s' new wave and pop single coil sounds with lots of sparkle and shimmer amazingly, and you can even set it up to crank out some very convincing earthy blues "edge of breakup" sounds and chicken pickin' country twang with a Tele. I spent a few hours having a ton of fun creating lots of different tones with different axes and I have no doubt it would be great to use live in a situation where you don't need a lot of presets and space is at a premium, or you don't want to haul a pile of gear to a gig. All in all, for well under a hundred bucks, this is a terrific value and a great tool to add to your bag of tricks. It won't replace my Helix Floor, but it sure makes a fantastic emergency backup rig and could easily serve as a main rig in a wide variety of situations. This would also be a great first rig for someone just starting out on guitar FX since it's so simple and intuitive to use versus a pro unit like a Helix that requires extensive knowledge/experience to operate fully. 5 stars and kudos to Sonicake; I highly recommend the RockStage.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2020 by Carlos Baez
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Perfect for a DI fly rig or for a lightweight multi effect unit on a budget! It likes guitar too!
Color: Bass Preamp Compressor Boost Fuzz Octave
This is def a working bassists pedal. It easily hangs with my Sans Amp Bass Driver clone as a DI (there are both XLR and 1/4 outs - yay!) plus it has the added feature of having not just a Preamp section but Boost/Comp, Fuzz, and Octave fx on tap as well. It's both a very cool multi-fx unit in front
of an amp and great to just grab when I know I'm going to be using an unfamiliar amp on a backline or the beater at the rehearsal space. It's also PERFECT a solid stand-alone DI rig when I want to leave the amp at home if I'm gigging with a band that is using IEM's. I played around with this a bunch and I think the best thing to do with this pedal is to use the Preamp section to set up my general tone profile and then set up the other sections after as they interact with each other in a lot of ways and depending on how the Preamp is set the Boost and Fuzz can get messy if you're being thoughtless with the gain and tone. There's a lot of versatility in the Preamp section and even a fair amount of drive available so I recommend starting with the tone controls on the lower side of the dial because they're pretty responsive even on the lower settings. It's a feature I like but it's easy on this pedal to dial in loads of bass or highs and mids so a heads up not to overlook the sweet spots here! The same goes for the Fuzz section - it's Muffy and wooly and cool, so turn up the sustain and tone knobs up a bit at a time because I found many of the best tones on this are at around 9-12. After I've set up my pre-amp tone then I hit this section so it interacts the way an amp would. I suppose you could treat them as two different pedals in front of an amp but I felt the pedals played better together using this way of going about it because the gain stages played better together like this. Next I set up the Boost/Comp and this effect is exactly that - a big old boost with compression. My fav setting is a boost that has just enough compression to give me the sustain I want to push a line up in the mix a bit without too much distortion. You can actually get loads of compression out of this section and it's WAY quiet even when being pretty aggressive with the comp - plus this section is super fun for chicken picking on guitar lol :) Now the octave section on this is the reason I didn't go with a five-star review. Is it usable? Yes - but it doesn't track well enough on my bass on the low notes to give me the synthy sub octaves I personally want with an octave unit on bass. BUT, you can however get perfectly usable sub octaves that sound great up the neck if the settings aren't dimed and the 2nd lower octave is used sparing (this is two octaves below - no option for a low and high). This leads me to to the other great thing about this pedal that has been mentioned but I'll cover it again... This pedal is a blast on the guitar too! That synth suboctave thing I was talking about? The fuzz and the octave sections are magic on guitar and using them together I can get really close to the Blue MXR box thing with this pedal and it's sooo fun. The comp section can do chicken pickin or it can be set up for a super sustainy boost. You can even use the preamp section as a drive pedal of sorts in front of an amp - it's not gonna give you a fly rig DI vibe but more like a cranked Super Reverb kinda thing. So don't forget that while this pedal is fun and functional for bass it's also equally as useful for guitar!
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Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2019 by The Dietsch The Dietsch
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Five pedals in one; great for bass and really great for guitar
Color: Bass Preamp Compressor Boost Fuzz Octave
The media could not be loaded. I have a P-bass that I used to play in a band with about a decade ago, but it hasn't seen much use since then. That all may change now that I have this pedal. I wanted to get some basic effects to make bass playing fun again, but I didn't want to have to sell a kidney o
r take out a second mortgage to do so. Pedals can be insanely expensive, so I wanted a multi-pedal that was quality but inexpensive. After some research, I found this pedal, and I am glad I did. It has octave, preamp, fuzz, boost, and a compressor. It like a nice space-saving brick with four sturdy push buttons, which is great if you need to save space on your board or just don't want to have a billion different cables and power cords. The more simple I can keep my rig, I find the more fun it is and the more I want to play. Right out of the box, I noticed it was in quality packaging, not like some of the other stuff I order from China. That is always a good sign and bodes well for the brand. It comes with its own power supply which is actually UL rated surprisingly. Most pedals I order from overseas don't even come with a power supply at all. It also has a helpful guide as to what all the effects and buttons do if you are not familiar with pedals yet. I first tried out the boost, and really dug it. It's like a nice clean boost that easily gives you 10 to 20 db. I also like that it is a simple one knob. I next tried the compressor, and was pleasantly surprised. I wasn't expecting much at this price point, but the compressor actually worked as well as other units I've had that were more expensive. The more you turn up the knob, the more it evens out your sound so that soft and loud playing are at the same level. Very useful for bass. The fuzz is pretty wicked awesome, and is probably the most fun effect. At lower levels, it gives you a nice vintage "Spirit in the Sky" type sound, and it higher levels, it sounds very metal or hard rock. Good versatility overall. The preamp, I've got to say, is probably worth it alone. It really gives a nice color to the town, it is like an on-board EQ. Plus you can also add gain; something I found very useful. The preamp really improves the signal and warms it up a lot. The octave effect was also very fun to play with and, I think, quality. You can do one octave below or two octaves below. It's nice that it has a mix knob as well. Perhaps the biggest surprise to me, was how awesome this pedal sounds with my guitar. I have a metal/shredding type guitar, and I hooked it up to this pedal just for the heck of it to see if it would work. Man, was I blown away! I almost feel like they should market this is a guitar pedal instead since it is equally suited to both. The boost and comp work awesome on my guitar, and the fuzz sounds decent. The octave is also good on guitar, but the preamp perhaps is the best. I could dial in a really killer classic rock type of sound using the preamp section. TL/DR: Great build quality and great sound and effects at an affordable price. Very versatile and great for bass or guitar. Would definitely recommend.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2019 by Rich Y Rich Y
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It's a good basic tool at a cheap price
Color: Chorus Delay Reverb Distortion
In full transparency, I haven't used this a lot yet but I have gigged with it a couple times and it did fine. I haven't hit the amp drive at all yet, but the chorus is decent, the delay and reverb are useable. I wish the reverb could be tweaked. It's a preset sound with on/off options only; you can't
shape it yourself. But it does it's thing and fills the sound out some. Obviously having that option to adjust the reverb and adding tap tempo for the delay would make this a much better tool, but for a guy like me who is a singer who holds a guitar and strums chords, this pretty much gives me enough color on what I play to satisfy the situation. For the price point, you'd be hard pressed to find a better option. Just recognize that at this price point you can't expect it to sound amazing. It's a decent sound for a cheap price.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2022 by Amazon Customer
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It sounds as good as effects 5x the price and it is TINY
Color: Chorus Delay Reverb Distortion
they probably should have put a three band EQ on it but as it is it is an extremely good sounding and versatile little unit. it is small enough for you to carry in your pocket and you can just plug it into a mixing board right into the front end of an amp that doesn't have the overdrive or affects th
at you're looking for and you will definitely be able to get by. The delay and reverb is very similar to what Digitech was putting out in the late 80s and that is a very good sounding delay for playing solos. The chorus is good. The overdrive is good. It is a real bargain.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2023 by Eduardo
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Super portable great sounding multi effects pedal
Color: Overdrive Compressor Delay Reverb
I just got this SONICAKE Twiggy Blues multi effects pedal and like it so I'm writing a quick review to share my initial thoughts. I should first say that I'm a gigging musician (waiting to gig again!) and have a full size pedal board that I really like. That said, I got this Twiggy Blues pedal for a
few reasons. The first is that I was looking for a single small multi effects pedal with 1 adapter for a super easy way to practice and have a good sound without having to have my whole pedalboard set up. The second reason is that I have forgotten at one time or another just about everything to load in my car for a gig. This pedal is so small it could easily fit in my guitar case or accessory gig bag stuff so that if I ever forgot my pedal board I would have a great sounding back up. Another reason is just to have a quick pack and go pedalboard for get togethers with friends without overwhelming them with a pedalboard. All of which is great, as long as it sounds good, which it certainly does! It has the basics I use - reverb, echo, and overdrive. These all sound great. I play mostly roots rock, jam band, blues type music and the overdrive sounds really good and is very adjustable from slight breakup to full on overdrive. Sonicake makes other models more suited to hard rock/metal, etc. The reverb and echo sounds are really good too. I've never used a compressor, but it is there as well and seems simple to operate. There is also an amp simulator, so you could leterally just pack your guitar with this in your case and play through a PA and have great sound. Each effect is fully adjustable and each section is light with a different color. Very useful for a dark stage. I don't tweak much on the go myself, but it still looks cool all lit up. :) The price is right too. I've paid 2-4x the price of the Twiggy Blues for single function pedals. The value for the money is great. There are other multi effects pedals out there and they might be excellent also. I would add that the people at Sonicake are very nice, and I've never had a problem, but if I did, I feel they would do whatever they can to make it right.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2020 by Paul Wolff
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Excellent small multi effects unit for use with an amp or direct to PA.
Color: Chorus Delay Reverb Distortion
The media could not be loaded. This is an excellent small multieffects unit. It's made of metal, the footswitches feel sturdy and work flawlessly, the knobs turn very smoothly yet stay in place, they include rubber around the knobs so they're easy to grip, the 9v power adapter is actually included an
d there are simple instructions. Please check out my amateur video (iPhone quality) for my comments and usability. Features: Reverb: The single knob reverb goes from mild to very springy suitable for surf. Delay: The 500ms delay sounds great and the controls are easy to operate. I like that the repeat level can go high enough to self oscillate which is a cool effect. You can hear it in the video. Chorus: I'm particular about my chorus sound. Picky really. Give me a vintage analog Boss CE1 chorus and I'm happy. I liked this one right away and later read in the ad that it's voiced like an old bucket brigade chorus. Love it! It can get quite warbly too. Check out the video. Distortion/Amp: I was really surprised how good this sounds. From low gain to 80s high gain, this thing rocks. Does it Djent? No, you'll have to get the heavy metal version for that. But it will handle everything from Tom Petty to Poison. Check out the video. Cab Sim: This is a very cool feature. With cab sim on, you can plug directly into a PA with no amp at all. I tried this at an open mic this past week and it really sounded great through a Bose L1MII. I typically gig with a Helix or a Kemper, so this will make a great backup or even main rig for a too small stage or a fill in gig or open mic. It worked great. Cons: The delay does not have tap tempo. Overall 2 thumbs up from me. A good value as well. Free returns makes it a no brainer to check out too.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2021 by Ohio and Florida Customer
Color: Bass Preamp Compressor Boost Fuzz Octave
Remember to be realistic... this DI gave me what I needed. Lightweight, low profile, simple effects, and to my ear doesn't sound too digital.
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2023 by Randy B
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Preamp alone is worth the money I think
Color: Bass Preamp Compressor Boost Fuzz Octave
Received this today. Was able to mess around with it for about 30-45 min thru my rig and I would say the preamp alone is worth the money. But with that said, the rest of the effects are a bonus. The octaver is meh and doesn’t track well, unless playing above the 12 fret but I was able to create some
cool sub-bass sounds with it. The fuzz is fuzz. I don’t use it. The boost/compression sound best all the way down otherwise it starts sucking the life out of your bass tone. It will still give you a slight boost for that needed cut in the mix for a solo though. The effects loop is a fantastic added bonus since I use a few other pedals. Overall, I would rate this 4/5 stars. For the price point, you can’t beat that preamp but the other features are give/take. I bought this to try and if didn’t like, would return, but I’m keeping it!
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Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2022 by Matthew S. Hilferty
Color: Bass Preamp Compressor Boost Fuzz Octave
I had played with this a while ago and thought I had reviewed it but turns out, nope. So here is the deal. Sonicake are clearly a budget minded company making stuff similar to other companies for less cash. So all of these pedals and reviews can be tempered with this thought. Having said that there w
as already one pedal that I find to be legitimately good, and this one joins that one. (The other pedal is the Twiggy Blues, that is just a good pedal.) This pedal is in the same vein as that pedal, meaning that they are both a sort of one stop solution for a gig. Both are in the "fly rig" mindset where all you have to do is set it down and plug it in and you are ready. This concept is great. I play a few gigs like this each year and being able to pack everything and carry it on the plane simply, or just have quick setup and set change times, is important. Ive now tested it with two different basses, a baritone and an electric guitar. One of the bass' has active pickups and it did not get along that well with the pedal. The passive pickups work better, especially humbuckers. I also ran a Hohner Pianet T through it (Rhodes like sound). Can be cool there too. What I like: Aside from the simplicity, the fact that this unit has a DI output is very cool. I sorta wish the other pedal also had this. The two knob compressor is great, goes form fairly clean boost to squish and pump simply. The preamp is great. Just great. You can get a wide array of tone shaping quickly. Awesome for when I'm moving quick in the studio. Just these two effects are worth the price of entry. In addition there is an effects loop to put more pedals in between if you wish. What is okay: The fuzz feature can get buzzy with certain pickups. In fact with my active bass it was not good at all. BUT with my baritone guitar it was money! I just don't use octave much... All in all. Great pedal that has a place in my pile of helpful tools for studio and gigging.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2020 by S. Kent
Color: Chorus Delay Reverb Distortion
The Sonicake efx strip is compact and versatile. Great for rehearsals and small venues when you might not want to bring a full efx floor board...
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2023 by Bruce Loeffert
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Where have you been all of my life ?
Color: Chorus Delay Reverb Distortion
I bought both the rockstage and the blues sound modules without hearing either one, figuring that the reviews that I had seen on Amazon were all pretty good, and it was less than $200, so what the heck. I was pleasantly surprised at the sound quality of both of the units. They are super easy to set u
p and adjust for tone and volume levels between the patches. The units hook together seamlessly, with no buzz. When using a single digital processing unit live, it seems that you are always fumbling around changing banks in order to get to the next sound. Not so with coupling these two units, each of which have 4 separate effects. You get more than a dozen different sounds just by turning the 8 different foot switches on or off, and by incorporating various combinations of the effects found within the two separate units. So without having to first program, and then when playing live having to change banks within a processor, you get various combinations of compression, reverb, distortion-overdrive, delay, and chorus simply by clicking one of the 8 foot-switches, making the changing of your guitar's tonal output, and the coloring of your sound to fit the room, an easy task. There are mini control knobs on each effect to make adjustments to the individual effects. It took me all of 5 minutes to set up both of my 2 units.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2022 by Robert Lindeman
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Best bang for your buck, but sound quality is meh.
Color: Bass Preamp Compressor Boost Fuzz Octave
This is the cheapest bass multi-fx that includes octave that I've found. It definitely gets the job done, replacing my entire bass pedalboard (haven't used as DI, can't vouch, my MarkBass combo is too great). Very simple to use and seems durable. Stomp switches feel good. I would never in a million y
ears record with this. The comp is decent, but the Ampeg-style preamp makes my Ibanez Soundgear sound weird (therefore I only use it as a lead EQ for fuzz). Fuzz is subtle and quite good. The octave tracks like butt below the 12th fret on A string. However, this would be great for live gigs, which is what I use it for. It also only draws ~60mA of power so you could conceivably run it off the battery in your tuner, for example. I wall-wart my TC PolyTune 3 and power this out from my tuner. My only other gripe is that the LEDs are hella bright and you can't see where the dials are when it's lit. Tl;dr: Definitely 3.8☆, which rounds up to 4. Great bang for not many bucks, but don't sell your pedals. You'll need them for studio work and high class gigs, because the sound quality on this puppy leaves a bit to be desired.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2021 by Dave
