Artec: Rock 'N Roll

It's the in-thing now; mini pedals. The ones capable of populating your pedal board in terms of quantity & variety. The leading names to note: Mooer, Eno & Artec. Mooer is the standard to beat, uncompromising in quality, both tone & QC-wise. Eno is mocking Mooer in terms of price & selected models are sheer value-for-money. Coming on to Artec, these guys are serving you functionality with some acceptable compromises.

The Rock 'N Roll (RNR) pedal is a mild drive/distortion type capable of letting you have some smooth, boost-type push at lower gain settings while the upper end gain markings let you enjoy some DS-1 type distortion, nothing too intense. The overall controls performance are responsive but you need some patience with the mini GAIN & TONE knobs. Much of the cost-trimmings here involve the materials in use- plastic. The RNR sports a plastic housing & chassis so in terms of vulnerability, this one is outright fragile. The pedal simply fails if it's used unsecured so the best application here is to strap it down to your pedal board. I have only acquired this baby for about a week but it's working well, so much of the consideration would be to see how long it would last. 

Tone-wise, the RNR would appease single coil worshipers more than the typical humbucker fan. Given the right pre-amp to couple this pedal, some Malmsteen type, throaty single coil distortion is achievable. In terms of accommodating fat humbuckers, the RNR is a little wanting in terms of bottom end definition.

It's an interesting time to be dwelling in mini pedal goodness. Manufacturers are giving us players some good variety to work with & the competition has manifested a good range of prices as well. But with the goodness comes some compromise & this should be well understood & accepted. Purchase decisions are then at the behest of your learned investigation- cheap & good may not last you through & the upper end, more revered products may just be downright awful. Take time to shop & select what you need (not what you want). Keep in mind that these babies require power supply (no battery capacity whatsoever) so that would entail some supplementary expenditure.

Artec mini pedals are now avaialble at TYMC.