The Vilan Family is a small pedal company making “homebrewed guitar pedals from Mother Russia!” Their first offering sent to me is a take on a distortion pedal, but it’s actually much more than that. Hand-painted and enclosed in a cast silumin enclosure, the Seaside Monster Distortion has wide range and dirty tones.
Upon opening the pedal up, I discovered that the insides were extremely minimal, with a small circuit board and a few necessary wire connections. I assumed that this pedal would be fairly basic and a one-trick pony: not the case. Somehow, they’ve managed to cram a clean boost, warm overdrive and heavy distortion into one pedal, with huge gain range and nice tonal structure as well. The control knobs are pretty standard: Volume, Timbre (Tone) and Gain. The Timbre has a good range, from a deep, bass-y low end to a sparkling treble-boosted tone. The Gain is the real key to this pedal, though. When turned down and the Volume turned up, this pedal works wonderfully as a clean boost, a feat not many distortion pedals can achieve. Turn it to about noon, and a warm overdrive creeps over your sound, beefing up your tone and making your amp sing. Crank it up to 3:00 and beyond, and a lovely distortion appears, as if from out of nowhere, with crisp lead tones and powerful but not piercing highs. This is a really balanced pedal, capable of many sounds and textures.
Being such a small company, The Vilan Family doesn’t get too much exposure, especially being in Russia, but if you run across one of these Seaside Monsters, pick it up. It’s inexpensive and sounds great, everything we’re all searching for as guitarists! Thanks again to The Vilan Family for sending this pedal to us for review – go check out their Reverb shop and see what else they’ve conjured up!
Submitted by Mike B, Website
