Am I using Brothers AM properly?
After much deliberation, I bought a Brothers AM last Sunday. I own other CBA pedals and enjoy them immensely. So I am wondering if I'm using the BAM properly, because it doesn't sound right and I'm not sure it is behaving the way it should.
It doesn't really sound much like it does in the videos to my ears. I can't claim to have a very developed ear for the differences among low gain overdrives or really know what distinguishes the KoT from others, but I did like the sound of the BAM on CBA videos and other demos, and I bought this pedal hoping to come to develop my ear a bit for what makes a good dirt sound, because the KoT/BAM sound is almost universally appreciated. But I'm just not sure what I'm doing wrong - either of my guitars (HH Strandberg Boden Essential, and SSS Fender Stratocaster) into it sound either too muddy, or too abrasive. The clean sounds of my guitar s sound fine to my ears, and I can get a nice sparkle and nice mid tones, but as soon as I switch from boost to OD the BAM is giving me muddiness with little definition, or a rasping breakup sound that doesn't sound pleasant playing either chords or solos. As far as I'm aware every way you dial it in the pedal is supposed to sound nice, but I'm having trouble finding any sounds that aren't really ugly to my ears. I'm using an audio interface and headphones rather than amp, and wondering if it needs to run into an amp to work? I have also put the CBA Clean after it and it doesn't really clean up the sound very much. Or maybe I just need to develop my ear to appreciate what I'm hearing?
On top of this, when I engage the Treble Booster circuit, there is horrible noise. It's very loud and sounds like radio static fed into a dirt pedal. You can hear it over moderate level playing. I can't imagine it's supposed to do this, and haven't noticed it in demo videos, so it makes me wonder whether I'm doing something stupid (sometimes happens with complex pedals) or the pedal is defective.