Some weeks are about buying gear.
This one was about not selling it.
It began innocently enough. I pulled the MXR Custom Shop Il Torino out of the “for sale” pile and gave her another chance. What followed surprised me.
First came the headphone sessions with Lady, my Phil Jones Bass X4C, and a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphones. Then came the real tests through my Fender Pro Junior IV.
I asked the Il Torino to do three jobs.
First, be a clean tone shaper.
Second, be a musical overdrive.
Third, shape the thick, woolly fuzz from my JHS Legends of Fuzz Bender.
She passed all three.
In fact, she won the third test.
Where the ThorpyFX Team Medic cleaned the Bender into something more precise and clinical, the Il Torino left just enough of the Bender’s wildness intact. The fuzz became musical without losing its personality.
I was convinced.
The Team Medic was removed from DORCAS. The Il Torino officially took her place as one of the three core pedals at the front end of my travelling workstation. I even wrote a sales pitch for the Team Medic and received genuine interest from buyers.
Then I changed one thing.
Not a pedal.
An amplifier.
The Laney Cub 8 returned to my living-room workstation after a brief experiment with the EHX Howitzer. Immediately my ears smiled. The Cub 8 simply sounded more alive in that space.
With the Cub 8 sitting directly in front of me, I began hearing something I had previously overlooked.
Hum.
Not unbearable.
Not faulty.
Just… there.
Curiosity took over.
I removed the Il Torino and placed the Team Medic back into the exact same position in DORCAS.
The hum dropped dramatically.
Almost gone.
Then I switched on the Bender.
Still quiet.
I switched on the VOX Straight 6.
Still quiet.
Then I repeated the test with the Il Torino back in the chain.
Even while the Il Torino was bypassed, engaging the Bender or Straight 6 produced noticeably more hum than when the Team Medic occupied the same position.
That was the turning point.
The original comparison had asked,
“Which pedal sounds better?”
The new comparison asked,
“Which pedal makes the entire system behave better?”
Those are completely different questions.
The Il Torino remained everything I had discovered earlier: gritty, musical, wonderfully capable of shaping the Bender.
The Team Medic quietly revealed a strength I had never tested before.
She lowered the noise floor of the entire rig.
Suddenly I understood why she had always felt so refined.
The sale listing came down.
The Team Medic returned to DORCAS.
The Il Torino was promoted—not to the core—but to the honoured role of Guest Gain, ready whenever I want her particular voice.
The funny thing is that neither pedal lost.
The Il Torino helped me rediscover what she truly excels at.
The Team Medic reminded me why she became the heart of DORCAS in the first place.
It’s rather ironic.
Once before, I sold the Team Medic, only to welcome her back as the prodigal son.
This week, she almost walked out of the house again.
This time, she never made it through the front door.
It captures a week where listening—not buying—made the biggest difference.