Fairfield Circuitry The Barbershop Overdrive

First of all, looks:
I’ve seen the raw finish countless times, it gets boring.

Well …. As the owner of a Fairfield pedal, I have to re-evaluate raw finishes.
There is
A) I want to call it the “I’m a hobbyist and I have no clue how to get graphics on top of a pedal, and I don’t want to put on color because I’m not handy with a rattle can, I’ll just Dymo the names of the knobs and stick them on at odd angles” finish

and there is
B) The “Let’s try and aim for a minimal design approach and hope people will get it.” finish.

All pedals in B) try to emulate what Fairfield does with such confidence, it’s hard to put in words.
The pedal oozes quality. The texture of the knobs. The ‘all over the place’ lettering. The LED cover.
It’s something that does not come across on a photo. It’s stunning.

Starting off with 18V, I could not get much of any dirt out of the Barbershop, except when I starved it rather drastically with the sag knob – I yielded the best results with 9V.
Trying to dial in a sound, I found that it’s better to approach from the other side – instead of starting at noon or with a clean sound, I set the volume to unity and dimed both gain and sag, than worked my way back to where it felt good.

Noodling around, I tried to emulate the sound I got from the Beta DLX, which I found with the gain maxed and the sag at about three o’clock. Switching back and forth between the pedals made me realize that I liked better how the Barbershop treated the lows, then remembered that the Beta DLX has that toggle switch where currently the bass boost was enabled – setting that back to flat made the pedals sound very similar, only the nature of the clipping differs. The Beta is a bit harsher in that regard, the fizzle is trimmed to a higher frequency – Where the Barbereshop’s contribution of grind feels a bit more rounded off and organic.
I totally understand now why Fairfield Electronics offers the Barbershop in a smaller enclosure without foot switch, because I can see how one would like to have it running as an always on pedal. The dynamic range is insane. I’m still struggling with the fine tuning, because for my taste, I get too much sizzle on the lows and not enough harmonics when I pluck chords high up the neck, but the sag and drive knobs are quite interactive and I feel there is much to explore.

Tone controls:
You have multiple options to adjust your tone on the Barbershop. The little switch on the top can help you reign in the top end. The choices are Flat, Gentle Hi-Cut and Hi-Cut. I can tell you that the cut is happening in a frequency range that belongs to (fresh) roundwounds. My mellowed flats don’t do the high end that would be cut, so the switch does effectively nothing for me.
The other tone controls are: Absent. Perfect. Why? The pedal sounds just right as is. You don’t need to tweak tone if you’re hearing just the right amount of – well everything.
I don’t know if I’m imagining things, but it feels like the sound is a bit more focused, kept together, when I step on it and play in a manner that won’t yet release the sizzle. I guess there is a little compression going on before breakup and the result is what I’m hearing – at least I hope that I’m not imagining it.

In my environment, it is nearly impossible to achieve a tone that’s full on overdrive. Even with Sag and Drive dimed, there still is touch sensitivity going on and played softly, it’s still clean-ish.
The sizzle I get is, once again just right. It’s not bright. It’s not dark either.
It is not that easy to find a good balance where the low notes still have heft, but the high end is singing, because the high end gets a little less drive, but as I get more accustomed to the inner workings of the Barbershop, we’re coming together more and more.

I’m in love with how the Barbershop sits in the mix!
Playing it in a band setting, at first I was a little set back because I could hardly detect whether it was on or off because the effect was set so subtle. With both drive and sag at max and the tone switch in the middle however, I got a sweet warm grind that did not dissolve between the guitars and cymbals.
It’s a friendly drive, not much of an aggressive sound, but that suits my current pedal board very well, if not to say perfectly.

In short words: Had I, instead of starting this whole affair, simply bought a Barbershop, it would have become my OD and I would not have second guessed that choice.