Rock Fabrik's Mind Abuse Ultra High Gain Distortion is an All-Rounder Full Metal Monster!

Ever since I first came across Brett Kingman’s review of this pedal back in 2017 I’ve always wanted one. While various circumstances have conspired to get in the way over those intervening years. I’ve actually featured it on the site no less than 7 times - so I’m obviously a big fan!

I’m very honoured that Rock Fabrik deemed me worthy of the first and only polished silver edition of the pedal to date - the artwork is normally printed onto a black powder-coated enclosure - while mine shines like a supernova! The visual doesn’t really do the gleaming enclosure proper justice.

From the start things seem fairly conventional - with 3-Band EQ plus Volume and Gain - and a 3-way Gain Structure / Mode Toggle Switch which engages various parameters at the same time - including mid EQ shift / Scoop Depth, Gradient and Width.

The 3 CVM Modes are based on the output of 3 legendary amps - Classic Mode is a 5150 Brown Sound style, Vintage Mode is akin to a Hot-Rodded Marshall Stack, and Modern Mode has more of a Mesa Rectifier Scooped Distortion style.

The EQ controls though - despite their conventional labelling do not behave like normal EQ’s at all, and take a little while getting used to. These EQ’s impact on the balance and harmonics of the distortion - and significantly alter the texture and timbre of the output. For me the Middle control works closest to conventional while the Bass and Treble behave somewhat differently to what I’m used to. It’s a little like mapping over cause and effect as you sweep trough those dials - so where on conventional EQ’s I tend to have the Bass and Treble up at around 2 / 3 o’c, here it seems the EQ is set in relation to the Mode selected - meaning that different Modes will for most likely have quite different settings - and you can’t just flick the switch to change from one to another - you typically have to reset the dials to your preferences.

Rock Fabrik explain that it’s the structure of the distortion that you are changing with those controls - meaning often thicker and more compressed / denser when Bass and Treble are dialled up and more open when dialled back. The Bass control sets Low Bass Frequency Range, the Treble sets High Treble - or Fizz / Sizzle, and Middle seems to impact in a more conventional way for me - while as you can see by my Presets below - the settings are quite different for all 3 Modes.

Much like on the Blackhawk Sauron - each mode has an ideal EQ tuning, and you can’t always successfully flip from one to the next and expect optimal results. A great starting point here is with all dials at 12 o’c which sounds pretty decent right away. Then it’s just a matter of sweeping the dials until everything sound just right! This means sometimes lower the dials to get more sharpness and attack which for some can be counter intuitive. It’s very much a tune-by-feel sort of pedal!

Controls - Volume, Bass, Middle, Treble, Gain, Mode : Classic / Vintage / Modern.

Rock Fabrik report that the Mind Abuse has around 90dB of gain on 1kHz, which doesn’t translate to total volume gain. While every again stage has 20-30dB of gain, but after each stage that gets clipped or divided. So basically massive amounts of gain and volume as such.

Input Impedance is 1M, Output Impedance is 150ohm, Current Draw is around 80mA, and the Dimensions of the enclosure are typically BB-size - of 120 x 100 x 50mm.