Tube Overdrive Distortion Plus
The TODP is a toolkit of distortion and overdrive. It ranges from smooth germanium diode crunch to transparent tube distortion sounds, via some rather tasty silicon and LED clipping options.
Its internal chain is: drive -> clipping / control -> tube -> recovery amp; any or all of these can be made to overdrive.
They come in a range of finishes – each one is unique. There are “standard” printed versions, and “custom” versions, with one-off hand-drawn illustrations by Frome based artist, Mutartis.
To profile the distortion, there are switches to precondition (cut) the bass response, modify the clipping symmetry, recover (boost) the bass response, and boost the overall level. At the end of the chain are Low Pass Filter and Volume controls, so that the bite can be gently carved in and out.
A full review of the pedal* can be found at: gigsandguitars.com/
*This was an independent review at the time of publishing, and the rights since acquired.
“I’m really enjoying playing around with it. The Shawbuckers on my Tele sound really good and growly when I push it a bit through the Deville 4×10, and crystal clear when I calm it all down. It loves the Hotrails and the last remaining single coil on the Strat as well, and the different tone on the ‘Rails is much more obvious than with anything I’ve used previously. And the old Epiphone Riviera (which has always sounded amazing) has discovered new areas of aggression and (most importantly of all) brutal feedback at low volumes when I have been playing around with the cut. Basically I absolutely fucking love it.”
Gethin Willetts
Control Specifications
A lot of the fun with these pedals happens when we flick the switches:
- Precondition LF cut: B/P or 220Hz
- Clipping / Control – germanium, silicon and LED / 2, 4 or no anti-blocking diodes
- Load / symmetry – 47KΩ hi clip, 200KΩ low clip, or 100KΩ middle
- Recovery LF boost: B/P, 220Hz and 80Hz (1st order)
- Recovery boost: 6db / 0dB / 12dB
Only 3 potentiometer controls:
- Drive – smooth transition (some models have a wider range)
- Filter – Low Pass Filter (2 ranges available, standard or bright)
- Volume – Recovery boost allows this to go pretty loud
Reviews
More reviews and demos of the pedal can be found in the ‘videos’ section.
Construction
The current standard builds are completely hand-built and hand-wired. Most of the smaller components are assembled onto a PCB. The pots and switches are added, and then the board is fitted into a wide BB style enclosure. Then the jacks and on/bypass switch is hand wired.
The standard clipping device can be replaced with a different low voltage miniature pencil valve (tube), once the pedal is built, at the customer’s request.
Prices Start from £230
Price based on PCB / printed version. Hand painted versions start at £275.
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