Catalinbread Launches the Dirty Little Secret Red

November 28, 2019 · 6 sources

Catalinbread announced the Dirty Little Secret Red, an updated, hot-rodded version of its Dirty Little Secret plexi-style overdrive pedal. The Portland, Oregon maker described the new pedal as a modification of its flagship DLS circuitry, built to deliver "more of everything you love about the original."¹

The pedal keeps the two-voicing format of the original. "Super Lead" and "Super Bass" modes are switchable via an internal slider switch, and the maker says the three-knob treble-middle-bass control set reproduces exactly the tone circuits of the Super Lead and Super Bass amps it models. A presence trimpot, accessible by removing the bottom plate, fine-tunes the amount of presence or high treble frequencies the pedal produces.¹

Catalinbread's feature list for the Red:¹

• Two distinct voicings: "Super Lead" and "Super Bass," switchable via an internal slider switch¹
• A full three-knob treble-middle-bass tone control complement reproducing the tone circuits of the Super Lead and Super Bass amps¹
• A presence trimpot accessible by removing the bottom plate¹
• Hand-built in Portland, OR, with a 4 year warranty¹

The maker's own description of the change: "Featuring a more refined set of gain stages that cuts through the low-mids of the original and brings you an extended barrage of punch and clarity."¹

The Red follows a limited edition Dirty Little Secret Red Mod that Catalinbread announced in July 2019, which Guitar World likewise described as a limited edition version of the Dirty Little Secret and gearnews reported as a hot-rodded version with the same refined gain stages.²³

The Dirty Little Secret Red was available for $189.99 through participating retailers and catalinbread.com.⁴ The standard Dirty Little Secret carries the same core feature set, including the internal mode switch and internal presence pot, and runs on a 9-18V DC power supply drawing 5mA.⁵ MusicRadar's reviewer Trevor Curwen found the original's two modes distinct, with Super Lead based on a later "plexi" model having more gain and more upper mids, and Super Bass more akin to early Marshalls or the Bassman it was based on.⁶