Catalinbread Sabbra Cadabra Overdrive

When you think of the term “heavy metal” and it’s origins, what name inevitably pops into your head? That’s right, it’s Black Sabbath, and if you said anything else, you’re incorrect. And when you think of this legendary band and how it shaped the sound of heavy music today, who do you mostly associate that with? Nope, it’s not Ozzy, but you’re close: Tony Iommi. His dark tones and heavy riffs catapulted both the band and the genre into the mainstream, and it was largely due to his simple but very effective tone, which was a treble booster into an amp. Cut and dried, easy setup and take down, and about as powerful as you can get. Today’s pedal, the Sabbra Cadabra from Catalinbread, seeks to recreate that wonderful tone and sound, with a couple of extras thrown in.

The Sabbra Cadabra (excellent name choice, by the way, Catalinbread) is geared towards some lower tunings, Drop D and the like, but I found it worked well in standard tuning, too. This is thanks to a special Range control, where you are able to customize the treble-boost section of the Sabbra Cadabra, allowing for it to work in a bunch of different setup and configurations. The Presence knob will add a little bit of high-end boost to your sound, while the Gain knob will still give off a good bit of chunk and sludge even when turned down, and features a broad tonal range of distortion and doom. Vol 4 rounds out the controls with enough volume output to crush anything in the Sabbra Cadabra’s way, with authority.

To get this signature sound, Mr. Iommi ran a heavily-modded treble booster into his Laney amps, and that was that. Sadly, this special booster was thrown in the garbage (accidentally, I hope) in the late 70’s, so there’s been nothing that has quite captured his sound…until now. Plugging this thing in instantly makes you a little bit stoned, and your guitar automatically tunes itself a half-step down, without you even touching it. Sure to knock the socks off all of your sludge rock-playing guitar friends, the Sabbra will get down and dirty with ease, and get you as close to that classic Sabbath tone as you can get without a DeLorean, some plutonium and 88mph. I would like to send a big thank you to everyone at Catalinbread for sending the Sabbra Cadabra our way for a review – look for more of their gear in the future here, and don’t forget to support them and check out their website!!