What is it?
Jack White’s appetite for collaboration has yielded some weird and wonderful designs in recent years. When his Third Man Hardware brand shares R&D time with another brand you just know we’re in for something completely different, a little bonkers, and more often than not truly inspired
With Eventide, it was the Knife Drop, octave-fuzz and analogue synth, “bone-rattling distortion and generous heaps of sonic chaos”. With Gamechanger Audio, it was the multi-modal octave madness of the Plasma Coil, an octa-fuzz designed around a xenon tube.
There was the TripleGraph digital octave pedal, designed with Coppersound, not to mention the MXR Double Down, the no-knob Bumble Buzz made with Union Tube & Transistor, and let’s not forget his Fender collection which brought us one of the coolest guitar amps we’ve seen in years, the Pano Verb, the Triplecaster – i.e. Nashville Telecaster through the looking glass – and the Triplesonic’s radical reimagining of the acoustic electric guitar hybrid.
In other words, Jack White and his Third Man team do not lack for imagination. They tend to present us with something we have never seen before.
The Triple Threat, then, is a little bit different, because we actually have seen something like this before. Yes, distortion, phaser and echo is a lesser-spotted combo, but it is Donner that gets the credit for combining them.
The Chinese budget gear brand established the proof of concept for budget-friendly threefers such as this, collecting distortion, chorus and delay in one pedal on its Alpha Force and Alpha Crunch.
The Triple Threat takes this concept and gives it the Jack White treatment. At $99, it is also a real bargain. You’ve got dirt, modulation and a delay. What else do you need?
Specs
- Launch price: $99/£95/€112
- Type: Distortion, phaser and echo pedal
- Controls: [Distortion] Volume, Gain, Tone; [Phaser], Level, Rate, Depth; [Echo], Level, Feedback, Time
- Features: High-gain distortion, phaser adapted from Donner's Pearl Tremor, "Analogue-voiced" echo with self-oscillation, soft-touch footswitches
- Connectivity: Input, output, power supply (included)
- Bypass: Buffered
- Power: 9V psu (included)
- Dimensions: 25mm x 195mm x 60mm
- Weight: 12.5oz/0.355kg
- Options: Also available in black at same price
- Contact: Third Man Records
Build quality
Build quality rating: ★★★★½
The Triple Threat feels indestructible in the hand and comes out of the box feeling anything but a cheapo guitar pedal (and in monetary terms this is definitively a cheap pedal, 33 bucks per effect), reassuringly heavy, with soft-touch footswitches for each effect and a green LED to let you know when they’re active.
But the overall first impression is of relief, because the pictures you see of it make it look massive. It’s anything but. Of course, if you’ve used Donner’s Alpha Cruncher you’ll know what to expect. The Triple Threat is as wide as three Boss pedals, and as deep as a Boss pedal is wide. Finding some space for it on your pedalboard is not that difficult. It even comes with its own wall wart for powering-up immediately.
The question is more how to integrate it with your other effects. Where do you place a pedal that has distortion, phaser and echo? Would you stick it through your guitar amp’s effects loop? Maybe you’d do that with the phaser or echo, but not the distortion. There is no option to change the order of the effects. We’re running distortion into phaser into echo.
But then the Triple Threat is for those who are uninterested about those higher-order concerns; just plug it in betwixt guitar and amp and have at it.
The R&D process would have been a little more streamlined than other Third Man collabs. We’ve got the aforementioned Alpha Cruncher aluminium enclosure, resprayed in taxi cab yellow (or black for the similarly priced Standard edition) and decorated with Third Man signature details – e.g. lightning bolts, stripes and so forth.
The phaser is based upon Donner’s Pearl Tremor. The echo is adapted from the Yellow Fall Delay. But under the hood the construction has been beefed up, while the controls have been expanded.
Where the Pearl Tremor was a single-dial phaser a la the MXR Phase 90, this has Level, Rate and Depth. It presents itself as a serious piece of kit. For many players, who only need a straightforward set of sounds, this could be their pedalboard.
Usability
Usability rating: ★★★★½
Those who have no time for manuals will love this. Those who are new to guitar effects will have no trouble getting to grips with it. Sometimes simple is best.
Each effect has three dials. They’re small, a little bit fiddly and might remind older sweet-toothed readers of Dolly Mixtures thanks to their protective bumpers. You’ve got Level, Gain and Tone for the distortion. Everything you need to dial in a tone.
And above all this is a pedal that is easy to use. It is a cinch to dial in a sound when using each effect individually. Things get a little more tricky when you have all three effects on the go. Also, without presets you will want to keep a note of your favourite settings with a pen and paper. Old-school.
What the Triple Threat lacks in modern functionality it makes up for in its straightforward plug-in-and-play appeal. Those who have no time for manuals will love this. Those who are new to guitar effects will have no trouble getting to grips with it. Sometimes simple is best.
Sounds
Sounds rating: ★★★★☆
Third Man promises that the Triple Threat will deliver a “wide-range, high-gain” distortion but it didn’t mention how bright it would be. The bridge pickup on my Telecaster was taking no prisoners. This uncompromising treble can easily rolled off – on your guitar, via the tone dial – and it gives this distortion a pugnacious energy that will serve you well in a mix.
A lower gain levels, it’s a nice hot drive. Sparky and gritty, it sounds great for old garage rock skronk. There’s a lot of gain under that dial. There’s a lot of output on the Level control, too. Both give you a lot of options for how you like your drive, hitting the front end of your amp with some extra decibels, giving it some more saturated distortion.
As you might expect, the voicing is more anarchic a al Jack White than über-tight 21st-century metal guitar chug, and it brings out the beast in the phaser.
Distorted tones make the phaser more intense sounding. And yet, with the phaser on, the distortion loses some of its attack and aggression. It’s a symbiotic relationship that requires a little tweaking before you find the sweet spot for your sound. Set the rate slow, the depth high, and distorted chords will make you wish you popped a couple of Dramamine before practice.
Clean tones reveal a nice simple, retro phaser, swirl that can be used for Byrds-esque psych-jangle, or dial in a bit of dirt for reggae chords. There’s a lot of room to experiment. Try it super clean with a shallow depth but fast phaser and you’ll get a modulation that’s not that far away from chorus/vibrato.
The echo is the Triple Threat’s ace in the hole. Though labelled as Echo it is more of a straightforward analogue delay than a tape echo emulation, where you would typically have a control to dial in wow and flutter to the repeats.
Nonetheless, it is a hard-working and practical effect that can also be as wild as it comes, with spiralling self-oscillation when the Feedback knob is all the way up.
It has a brilliant slapback sound that thickens your tone and gives it an old-school rock ’n’ roll energy. At those milder settings, it can do a similar job to reverb, albeit a more two-dimensional sense of space. It has a respectable 600ms maximum delay time. Set it long and it decays appreciably.
Verdict
Think of Jack White’s most recognisable electric guitar tones and you might octave-fuzz, tube amp distortion mangled by the Electro-Harmonix POG – the sound of electricity turned feral.
It doesn’t seem to exist to forensically replicate White’s sound. It’s not what you buy because you just want to nail the sound of Seven Nation Army
In a sense, the Triple Threat is not like a traditional signature pedal; it doesn’t seem to exist to forensically replicate White’s sound. It’s not what you buy because you just want to nail the sound of Seven Nation Army.
That said, the Triple Threat is built in Jack White's spirit, with abundant potential for dialling in sounds that range from the practical and useable to wild and anarchic.
MusicRadar verdict: The Triple Threat is a sandbox for experimentation that reminds us of the basic pleasures of having an uncomplicated single path with three essential guitar effects, and just how many different sounds you can get out of them. Three is the magic number. So, too, is the price.
Test |
Results |
Score |
|---|---|---|
Build quality |
It is a budget-friendly pedal that feels anything but cheap. Solid with quality footswitches. |
★★★★½ |
Usability |
Might be a little tricky integrating with a pedalboard or your amp's effects loop but the WSYWIG controls are super-easy to get to grips with. |
★★★★½ |
Sounds |
Punchy, wiry, distortion. Retro phaser with good intensity. Analogue delay that does self-oscillation. Lots to explore here. |
★★★★☆ |
Overall |
The Triple Threat is a compelling concept with three quality essential effects in on pedal. It's ideal for beginners, could be a lifesaver for any player looking for drive, modulation and some delay from a unit that'd fit in a gig bag. |
★★★★½ |
