Final head-to-head rundown and personal ranking of favourite settings and pedals in the Keeley 4-in-1 Series

Oct 1, 202408:00 by

Stefan Karlsson

4-in-1 SeriesBest of BrandsBig Muff Style FuzzBlues Breaker Style OverdriveBoostBoost and OverdriveDistortionDriveFuzzKeeley EngineeringOCD Style OverdriveODR Style OverdriveOpAmp FuzzOverdriveRat Style FuzzSilicon FuzzTubescreamer Style Overdrive+-

So I’ve obviously covered each of these pedals individually and in real depth - so please refer to the earlier articles if you need more details. The purpose of this exercise is to pick out my favourite/s from the series - which is really about comparing those 4 pedals head-to head across my 2 favourite settings for each - pitting one against the other - back and forth - until we have a preferences.

Note - that if you want to skip all the preamble - you can just scroll down to the bottom picture below which reveals all!

So in order of how I reviewed these - my favourite 2 settings for each pedal were as follows :

Noble Screamer

#1 : OD + OD : Best balanced profile for the overall most satisfying output : [Tone @ 3 o’c, Drive @ Noon, Level @ 3 o’c]
#2 : OD + TS : Beefed up Screamer - More Treble, More Bass - sounds immense! : [Tone @ Max, Drive @ Noon, Level @ Max]

Blues Disorder

#1 : OC + BB : Beefed up more vibrant Blues Breaker - with more Bite : [Tome @ 3 o’c, Drive @ 2 o’c, Level @ 3 o’c]
#2 : OC + OC : Classic Crunchy Distortion (Marshall-esque), really well balanced : [Tone @ 3 o’c, Drive @ 1 o’c, Level @ 3 o’c]

Super Rodent

#1 : RT + SD : Beefed up SD-1 - more bass and treble, more edge : [Tone @ 3 o’c, Drive @ Noon, Level @ 3 o’c]
#2 : SD + SD : Beautifully balanced Classic SD-1 Profile, perfectly calibrated : [Tone @ 3 o’c, Drive @ Noon, Level @ 3 o’c]

Angry Orange

#1 : MF + DS : A more rounded DS-1 Distortion with extra low end punch (tiny bit Ultra Mod) : [Tone @ 3 o’c, Drive @ 3 o’c, Level @ 3 o’c]
#2 : DS + DS : Well balanced DS-1 Distortion profile - more neutral than the favourite combination : [Tone @ 3 o’c, Drive @ 3 o’c, Level @ 3 o’c]

So when I tested the pedals the first time around - I was really just interested in how each of those settings combinations sounded against the other - I only did the exercise comparing across pedals right at the end, and a couple come out a little more potent, and one sounds a touch ’thin’ in comparison to the others, as will be revealed below.

I gave each of those voicings a fair shake - and even tested the 3rd favourite settings for each - just to make sure I got it right the first time around. And for sure those same 2 settings rise up as favourites as before - which is good sign.

In any case - I went back and forth over a lengthy session spanning a couple of days in the end - to establish which of those voicings were the most special, and my favourite voicings in order of preferences are revealed below!

Final Ranking of Settings / Outputs :

OC + BB [Blues Disorder]
OD + OD [Noble Screamer]
OD + TS [Noble Screamer]
OC + OC [Blues Disorder]
RT + SD [Super Rodent]
SD + SD [Super Rodent]
MF + DS [Angry Orange]
DS + DS [Angry Orange]

So my favourite setting across all 4 pedals is the BluesBreaker Clipping with the OCD Tone Stack on the Blues Disorder - I really love that, while overall in the rankings the Noble Screamer ends up as top dog. I could have made the Noble Screamer and Blues Disorder joint first in some ways - but I was determined to have a proper ordered ranking here - and the Noble Screamer wins overall by smidge on account of the supremacy of both of its top voicings - which end up jointly being just fractionally ahead of the the 2 Blues Order ones - on a different day the Blues Order might have come first - they're both great in any case!

Funnily the two top ranking pedals both have a weak 4th Setting onboard, while the Super Rodent is pretty even across all 4 of its Settings - there is no noticeable weak link as there is for the others. In the early running I thought that the Super Rodent might be the favourite - but in comparing and contrasting those pedals back and forth - the Super Rodent only takes 3rd spot. The Noble Screamer and Blues Order are simply just more satisfying to me!

And when you're testing the Angry Orange on its own - it sounds pretty decent, but as soon as you compare it to the other 3 it falls a little bit short of those - they just sound better balanced, more impressive and overall more potent. I said that the MF + DS setting had a tiny hint of Robert's DS-1 Ultra Mod - but it's not really close enough - the Ultra Mod is significantly beefed up - which the DS-1 really needs when going into a Clean Pedal Platform setup - as it was original designed to push an already on-the-edge amp. The DS-1 was the first pedal I ever bought - and I was actually disappointed with it - until I found my way to Keeley Ultra Modded version of the same. I now have 9 versions of the DS-1 - 10 with Angry Orange - and all are better than the original - while the Angry Orange could have been even better with a more beefed up DS-1 voicing. Without the extra beef it sounds a touch thin and insubstantial compared to the other much better voicings.

So after an extensive cogitation and consideration - I found that my preference for those pedals was exactly as per the order I reviewed them! There's not a lot between the Noble Screamer and Blues Disorder - where even by some criteria the Blues Disorder is the better pedal.

This took a long deliberation - and I 100% stand by my deliberations - as per the final visual below - those are the best sounding voicings ranked in order, and on the periphery the position of the 4 pedals.

I hope you found this exercise as helpful and illuminating as me - I feel that all the 4-in-1 Series are worthwhile - where understandably - some are rather more worthwhile than others!

The 4 x 4-in-Series pedals are all priced at MAP / RRP $199 in the US, €259 in the EU, and £199 in the UK, of course available direct from the Keeley Electronics Webstore, and at all leading dealers!