ONE TO DRIVE. ONE TO PLAY. ONE TO LOVE.
True love is rare. And so is true overdrive that doesn’t just sound like tubes, but also behaves like tubes! A drive that you can ride steplessly with the volume knob on your guitar, going from sweet crunch to screaming mayhem without the obvious ‘change of mode’ that typically jumps in at a certain point.
Based on our cascaded gain stage approach, TrueOverDrive 1 does exactly that and even gives you the smallest footprint yet in a LunaStone overdrive pedal.
Full-On Overdrive
TOD 1 builds on the backbone of our most popular drive, Big Fella, and is the sharp-edged knife that, combined with a warm potent body and sparkly overtones, makes you stand out with any band on any stage.
You simply get the amazing Big Fella tone, but without a built-in booster. Instead you get a significantly smaller footprint and a beautiful Scandinavian design that just oozes stylish minimalism – one that also serves a particular purpose…
Foot-On Overdrive
The knobs are not only placed diagonally because it looks killer, it is also because we know that sometimes a quick tweak is needed mid-song.
With the Volume and Drive knobs accessible by the edges, you can tweak them on the fly with your foot. No more kneeling down, letting go of the strings, abandoning the groove and loosing the momentum.
Just tweak on the go and keep doing what you are supposed to do. PLAY!
TOD 1 or TOD 2 | How to Choose
HEAR FOR YOURSELF
OK. Here’s the deal. Nothing demonstrates what we mean better than a sound demo. Tune in, listen up and if possible wear some decent headphones. All of the demos are created by our founder and head engineer, Steen Grøntved, and before each clip, you can read his notes.
1) The first sound example is played with only one setting on the TOD1 pedal. And even though you can achieve an amazing palette expressive tones simply by riding the volume knob on your guitar, that is not even the case here. All that’s applied is natural playing dynamics!
- Guitar: Strat (neck pickup)
- Vintage noiseless pick-ups
- Amp: Mesa Boogie MK II 100% clean, (input gain at 3)
- Drive on TOD1 at 100%
- Volume on guitar at 80%
- Aston Spirit Mic
- No settings changed on the go
2) Non-Nonsense, Full-on Hard Rock Demo:
- Guitar: Strat (bridge pickup)
- Vintage noiseless pick-ups
- Amp: Mesa Boogie MK II 100% clean (input gain at 3)
- Drive on TOD1 at 100%
- Volume on guitar at 100%
- Aston Spirit Mic
- No settings changed on the go
3) Low Gain Demo:
- Guitar: Strat (neck pickup)
- Vintage noiseless pick-ups
- Amp: Mesa Boogie MK II 100% clean, (input gain at 3)
- All knobs on TOD1 at 12’o clock
- Volume on guitar at 100%
- Aston Spirit Mic
- No settings changed on the go
4) Well, it’s great to hear a pedal in isolation to really catch all of the subtle nuances in the tone, but hearing it in a mix gives you an idea of how it blends and cuts through. So we asked Steen to record a couple of tracks, plugging into TOD 1 and just jam out. Obviously, the TrueOverDrive 1 is made exactly to sound like he loves it, and you can just hear that on these tracks. Oh, and did we mention he also plays the bass!
TRUE OVERDRIVE VS ‘JUST’ OVERDRIVE
“TrueOverDrive 1 is characterized by extreme transparency even at high gain settings. Something you would normally only be able to achieve with good old tube amps driven hard and not from a drive pedal.
The characteristics of your beloved guitars, pick-up settings and amplifiers stay intact and will not get smudged by over-saturation, when you increase the gain/drive amount on the pedal.
Also, turning down the volume knob on your guitar will make TOD1 clean up your sound steplessly, thanks to the TrueOverDrive concept that is based on cascaded gain stages. I truly believe that TOD1 will grow with you and be your ‘always-on-the-board’ pedal. Your one true drive love.
And how did we make that happen? As mentioned, cascaded gain stages are key. The traditional approach from a tech perspective is diode clipping, and while this can certainly create some great full-on overdrive tones, problems arise when you play dynamically. For instance, the nature of the drive changes fundamentally when you allow the notes to actually ring out.
Beware, it may get slightly nerdy now, but this problem comes from the non-linear resistance, as e.g. half the amplitude of the signal does not equal half the resistance in the diodes. So, when the note rings out and the signal gets weak, the amplitude decreases to a point where the diodes simply shut down. That is why you can play at a very low volume with a diode-clipping pedal and get an almost entirely clean tone, but as you increase the volume you don’t get an organic and natural transition into saturation. When you hit that certain ‘threshold’, the diodes simply kick in and your sound changes drastically and all of a sudden.
That was exactly why I got obsessed with creating an overdrive circuit in a pedal that behaves like real tubes. A drive that you can ride and play naturally. A drive that behaves the way I love at any volume – including fully cranked yet at a fairly low volume on small stages without FOH support. To me that is key to be able to keep my eyes on the ball when on the stage. In that situation, I just want a sound that makes me play my very best. At the end of the day, this is all that really matters.”
– Steen Grøntved, LunaStone Founder and Head Engineer
HIGHLIGHTS
- TrueOverDrive in a small footprint
-
Sounds and behaves like a tube amp
- Adjust with your foot on the fly
-
All analog
- Beautiful Scandinavian design
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High-quality components
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True-bypass
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Soft switching w/ relay
SPECS & MANUAL
- Chassis dimensions (W/D/H): 2.9″ x 4.5″ x 2″ (73 mm x 114 mm x 51 mm (incl. knobs))
- Weight: 265 g. (9.35 oz.)
- Battery type: 9V
- Adaptor type (not included): Standard 9V DC (center negative)
- Power consumption: 75mA
DOWNLOAD THE TRUE OVER DRIVE 1 QUICK START GUIDE (PDF)
GALLERY
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2 Year Warranty
Our pedals rock. And they are rock-solid so we give you 2 years of warranty on your new pedal from the day you buy it. For details, please read the Terms & Conditions.