California-based BMF Effects has become a bit of a go-to pedal pusher for the likes of some pretty damn good blues players… like Marc Ford and the guys in The Steepwater Band. While the Purple Nurple looks to be the company’s flagship, we were keen to get our hands on another, perhaps lesser known, BMF offering… thus we were hard pressed to say no when our friend Phil Vickman from Fat Tone Guitars offered to send us a BMF Great Wide Open distortion stomp for review. We were curious to see if this one-knob dirt box was a bolt from the blue, or an overdrive without a clue?

Single knob distortion pedals are not uncommon, but what is common is their ‘dialed to taste’ nature. With only a volume knob, it is important for any player to make sure the builder has tuned in other aspects – tone, EQ, etc… – to his or her liking. Such was our task with the Great Wide Open.

Unboxing the Great Wide Open nets you one unassuming single-knob yellow pedal and a simple instruction sheet that warns the new owner about the boost levels the stomp has on tap. The sheet says to start the Volume control from zero and rotate clockwise to taste as to not damage your amp. The pedal itself has just the one control – the aforementioned Volume knob… everything else is fixed.

Turning to the pedal itself, and with the Strat, we hit the neck pick-up first with a simple blues-rock riff. With the Volume at high noon, first you’ll hear the clean tone then the pedal.

The Great Wide Open offers up a thick grit to the Strat that is fairly aggressive. It offers good sustain with a fair amount of rumble that has a bit of a fizzy nature. Over to the bridge pick-up, we dial things up. With the Volume knob dimed, we dish out a little roots riff… first clean, then mean.

Appropriately enough, we liked the Great Wide Open most when it was… wide open! The fullness of the gain was notable here and offered a more airy, organic display of dirt than the pedal does at lower levels. Switching guitars – now the Les Paul – we dial the Volume back to around 2 o’clock for a little thunder from Down Under. First sober, then… have a drink on me!

We were also bigger fans of the Great Wide Open when pushing humbuckers. It added the weight we thought was a bit missing with the single coils at lower levels.

In the end, there is no doubt there is some meat on this bone. There was no lack of appreciation around the WTDP? camp for the little yellow pedal when it was let off its leash to roam. The BMF Effects Great Wide Open may be a one-trick pony in the eyes of most, but it’s a pretty good trick! That’s our opinion anyway… your mileage may vary!

Special thanks to Phil at Fat Tone for the loaner Great Wide Open pedal. Visit his store online here.