The BBE Sonic Stomp Sonic Maximizer "4th Gen"

The Maximizer! Not to be associated with the kind that involves trickery and deception to men. This one is a stomp box that makes a hell of a difference in tone. Like the manual quotes, "It's like removing a blanket over your amp". I first bought this pedal after reading many positive reviews over harmony central The BBE Sonic Stomp makes a crappy amp sound good and a good amp sound even better.



The Sonic Stomp has only two control knobs. "Lo Contour (Bass)" & "Presence (Treble)". I have always considered this pedal as THE MAGIC BOX. Some argue that an EQ pedal would be able to produce the same results but personally, It has that little bit of something that i can't really put my finger on about the Sonic Stomp. This pedal is a must have in my setup to boost my VOX AC15 Heritage to sound close to a modern Hi-Gain amp.

I had one of those "What the F**K" was i thinking!" moments where i blindly used a 110v 9v adapter that was provided together with the pedal to power up the Sonic Stomp and i'm living in a country with a voltage cap of 220v. The obvious happened and that incident left a void in my pedalboard. Big lesson learnt here on being conplacent. I had fried the IC chip and the pedal is now a paper weight on my desk. I thought i could go cold turkey and do without it but after months of not having it around, I felt that my pedalboard was really lacking a key ingredient so i had another one bought off ebay for half the price i paid for the first and this was the newer " 4th Generation" BBE Sonic Stomp Maximizer.

From Left: Old Version and the 4th Generation BBE Sonic Stomp

The 4G version sounds identical to the previous that i had owned. The main difference here for me is the change in it's cosmetics. It now spots new fonts and a new color. The new fonts somehow remind me of that 70's T.V show "I Dream Of Genie". The height of the housing is slightly higher compared to it's older counterpart. The Sonic Maximizer is also true bypass and runs on the regular 9v battery or dc power.

My final word on the BBE Sonic Stomp:

If you are using a vintage spec amp and looking for that little bit more versatility then the Sonic Stomp will really come in handy. It can also be used to boost the frequencies to bring out those solos and let that lead tone stand out in the band. Not only can this MAGIC BOX be used with guitars, it can be used with Bass, Keyboards and probably anything else which has a 3 3/4 inch jack that produces sound. It boosts the low and high frequencies very nicely and with a tinge of clarity to top things off.

I'll highly recommend this pedal to anyone looking for more "BOOMZ" in their setup.

Price & Availability:

I have seen the old version of this pedal at WoodWorkz some time back in the display window but it was only available for a very brief period of time. Swee Lee only has the rack mount version the last time i checked.

This pedal can be bought off Ebay at USD$69 excluding shipping.

Rate: 9/10