Fat tone from a (DDyna) Thinman
The second member of the DDyna Music’s ‘Creamer’ series of overdrives we’ve been able to lay hands on its the light-to-medium gain Thinman OD. We took a look at the Narlie! Dude high gain dirt box in January. The Thinman is a very different animal. The hand-built true bypass stomp gets its grit from the interaction of two separate limiters. More on that in a bit. According to DDyna, settings can accommodate various electric, acoustic or bass guitar styles and can even be used as a front end for other effects. We’ll stick with electric guitars for our look at the Thinman.
Unboxing the Thinman reveals the soft gray powder-coated enclosure with the pedal’s mascot – a long-haired skull – placed near the footswitch. The pedal also comes with an instruction pamplet that walks you through the pedal specs and how the stomp works, which we’ll get into next. The stomp also comes with DDyna’s illuminated controls. Each of the stomps three knobs are clear cased and house a green LED for easier viewing in low-light environments.
The Thinman has three control knobs – Volume, Limit and Bias. The Volume, of course, determines the level of output from the pedal. The tone generation of the Thinman comes by blending two signal limiter types. The basic overdrive function starts with a medium-hard signal limiter controlled by the Limit knob on the stomp. Turned down, all but the hottest signals will pass though unaffected. As you turn right, limiting reacts on ever decreasing signal levels. The second overdrive function works on the principle of bias limiting. As you turn the Bias knob, the signal bias rails are reduced to cause limiting on increasing signal levels.
With the Stratocaster, the Thinman fattens up the single coil twang nicely… though you’ll forgive the playing on this clip as I am battling a bout of the Christmas crud as I write this review and am not that good a player to boot. With the Volume dimed and the Bias and Limit controls at around 10 o’clock, here is a little blues strut… first clean, then with the Thinman.
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Bringing in the Les Paul, the Thinman does a fine job adding growl to a simple rock chord progression. With the Volume around 2 o’clock, the Bias around 4 o’clock and Limit at 9 o’clock, the Thinman brings the roar. Again, clean first, then the dirt.
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For a low gain dirt box, the Thinman has more hair on it than I initially expected… not a bad thing necessarily, but something to consider if you’re looking for something to add just a little crisp to your bacon. The Thinman is capable of that, but it can bring more as well. This is the second DDyna pedal we’ve looked at here at WTDP? The first – the high gain Narlie! Dude – received a bit of a lukewarm recommendation due to its lack of warmth. The Thinman can sound a bit gritty and ‘mechanical’, but spend a little time with it and you’ll find it does warmth better than its high gain bretheren. If you’re in the market for a low-gain overdrive, the Thinman is worth checking out. That’s our opinion… your mileage may vary.
PLEASE NOTE: All YMMV Review clips are played through a Reverend Hellhound 40/60 combo amp with 1×12 extension cab. No reverb or other effects were added to the clips. Guitars used in this review include a 1979 Gibson Les Paul Custom and a 1998 Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster.
