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

Breaking the £400 barrier, Thorpy’s Electric Lightning represents a sizable investment, but it’s a very flexible pedal that’s perfectly suited for pairing with just about any clean amp to deliver all the drive sounds you’ll need.

Pros
+

Usual solid ThorpyFX build quality.

+

Compact for a twin-footswitch pedal.

+

Wide range of boost and drive tones.

+

Touch‑responsive.

Cons
–

Some may find the 12-volt power inconvenient.

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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.

(Image credit: Future / Neil Godwin)

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

(Image credit: Future / Neil Godwin)PRICE: £429 (approx $535)ORIGIN: UKTYPE: Drive and boost pedalFEATURES: True bypassCONTROLS: Volume, Treble, Mids, Gain, Bass, Boost, Lows, Drive footswitch, Boost footswitchCONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard outputPOWER: Supplied 12V DC adaptor DIMENSIONS: 108 (w) x 130 (d) x 55mm (h)CONTACT: ThorpyFX

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Trevor Curwen has played guitar for several decades – he’s also mimed it on the UK’s Top of the Pops. Much of his working life, though, has been spent behind the mixing desk, during which time he has built up a solid collection of the guitars, amps and pedals needed to cover just about any studio session. He writes pedal reviews for Guitarist and has contributed to Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Future Music among others.

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