The Carl Martin Quattro! – Tired of programming typical guitar multi effects pedals but really like the idea of having all your most used guitar effects in one place? The Carl Martin Quattro may be exactly what you’re looking for!
This guitar multi effect pedal packs all the best effects into one unit while maintaining the ease of use and familiarity of a stomp box. With firm analog switches and real knobs for each parameter (yep!) It’s just like having a nice collection of awesome sounding stomp-boxes that are mounted to the most convenient pedal board in the world. Read on to find out more about the Carl Martin Quattro.
Personally I’ve used many different guitar effect pedals over the past 15+ years (man that makes me feel old!) I always seem to go through a 2 or 3 year cycle that goes something like this…
Part 1: Wow I love these old stomp-boxes, they sound great, they look cool and man are they easy to use!
Part 2: Hmmm… plugging all these pedals in and dealing with batteries and the mess is a pretty big pain in the ass.
Part 3: Wow that new multi-effect unit sure looks cool, just think of all the stuff I could do with that!
Part 4: SELLS ALL STOMPBOXES TO BUY GUITAR MULTI EFFECTS PEDAL
Part 5: This new multi-effects pedal is awesome! Look, I can simulate the position of a Shure SM57 2.324218 inches away from this Mesa Boogie cabinet that is being run at half wattage. I’ve been playing with this thing for 8 hours!!!
Part 6: Hmmm… I don’t really care about positioning a fake mic in front of a fake cabinet, and with all this tweaking I haven’t really practiced at all. And man do the guys get pissed at band practice when it takes me 2 hours to find a decent distortion sound to go with that new tune.
Part 7: Why did I sell all my stomp-boxes?!? It took me so much time to collect them!
Part 8: SELLS MULTIEFFECTS PEDAL TO BEGIN SEARCH FOR NEW STOMP-BOXES
Part 9: REPEAT!
Sound familiar at all? I think it’s pretty normal to go through the multi-effects cycle. Most of my guitar buddies have done it at least a few times. But when I first saw the Carl Martin Quattro it really jumped out at me. A guitar multi effect pedal that doesn’t require computer screens, tweaking, digital modelling. It runs exactly like a stomp-box: “Adjust Knobs and Click”
The Carl Martin Quattro: Excellent Sound and Easy To Use
This thing is definitely for guys who have gone through the multi effect cycle a time or two. Sure, that new multi effect pedal has a zillion different effects and so many ways to combine them that your head will spin but when do you ever need that? The Carl Martin Quattro has FOUR ANALOG EFFECTS. A Compressor, A Delay, a Chorus and a Distortion! In the real world this is 95% of what guitarists use every time! Throw a cry-baby in the mix and you have a complete setup that is easy to transport, easy to setup and sounds absolutely awesome.
This is a no frills, heavily constructed guitar multi effect pedal masterpiece in my opinion. Carl Martin is known for producing great sounding quality effects (the plexitone anyone?). All four effects sound absolutely great and with no digital hiss or “amp modelling” you get nothing but pure tone. Super quiet switches provide clean transitions and the low impedance output means that it doesn’t get in the way of the natural tone of your amplifier.
Many young guitarists often overlook the value of a good compressor and for me this is where the Carl Martin Quattro absolutely shines! A compressor will basically give your tone that “full” sound that you are used to hearing at good live shows or even on a CD and it is the first building block you should use to dial in your perfect tone. The chorus and delay can be used to thicken if you wish and the distortion while a little plain jane does it’s job perfectly. This isn’t going to make your 15 watt squire amp sound like a Marshall Stack (note: NOTHING WILL GUYS) but when used in conjunction with a decent amplifier you can easily dial in a great distortion tone which can then be thickened or boosted using the other three effects.
Now while I realize that this pedal cannot do presets and if that is an issue for you than maybe you should consider other guitar mutli effect pedals like the Boss ME-70. For me this was not an issue. The Carl Martin Quattro is the perfect mix of stomp-box and multi effect pedal and I absolutely love it! It is definitely a little steep in price but with the Carl Martin name behind it you can be sure that it will maintain its value and provide years of quality service.
Check out the Carl Martin Website but make sure you come back here and buy the pedal from me 
I’m hoping to set this blog up as a great resource for guitar pedals on the internet and would love to hear what some of you have to say! If you have used the Quattro or any other pedal that you would like to talk about/review please email me or leave a comment below!
Cheers and enjoy your search for info on the Carl Martin Quattro!
