Musicplayers.com has reviewed TrueOverdrive 1 & 2 and slapped a ‘Wish I Had One’ tag on TOD 1, scoring 3.6 stars out of 4. But let’s take a closer look at what they have to say…
“Both pedals feel and play like real amp circuits. They both react to your guitar’s volume knob and clean up nicely as you decrease input to the pedal, much like our amps do. Unlike the overdrive pedals of yesterday, these truly do not sound like pedals in front of an amp.
Our first sound test was in our home studio with the purest-sounding clean amp we own, the Fender ‘57 Pro reissue. This is a no-nonsense tone type of amp and an excellent, pure-tube-goodness platform for an overdrive pedal sound test. We fired up the TrueOverDrive 1 with the levels at 12:00, and instantly turned 1957 into early ‘80s AC/DC, British-inspired awesomeness. At this setting, we were able to achieve early ‘80s Marshall JCM800-type tones. We loved it! The pedal also reacted well to an almost pure, clean tone when we decreased the guitar’s volume. More gain on the pedal brought us into a more modern sounding, modded British amp, kind of sound. This was perfect for today’s hard rock sound, with plenty of mids and sizzle to provide fantastic presence.
The sustain was also something to note, as the TrueOverDrive 1pedal let notes ring out beautifully and nearly endlessly. Furthermore, with the gain dimed out, the pedal was still quiet to a fault. This pedal makes a formidable tool for recording, and was one of the best sounding overdrives we’ve had the pleasure of testing in a long time.
Plugging in the TrueOverDrive 2 gave us similar results, albeit in a darker, heavier sounding pedal. Gone was the nice, big openness of its companion pedal, replaced by scooped mids, enhanced bass, more gain, and a somewhat quicker attack. We felt this pedal was better suited to a more modern, heavier style of music. This pedal was particularly nice to play shred lines on, given its sustain and higher levels of gain on tap. “In your face” is how one tester described the tone.
We took the TrueOverDrive 1 out to a local gig and used it to juice the front end of a Mezzabarba Mzero Overdrive 100w head mated to a Friedman 4×12 cab. We set the gain on the pedal fairly low, given we love the sound of this amp already and just wanted to use the LunaStone pedal to give us a little extra push and sustain for our leads. We found with the level a little past 12:00 and the tone knob around 5:00, we really loved how the pedal changed the feel of the amp for our lead work. This pedal is staying on our board for the foreseeable future, while one of our more prog rock-minded editors intends to find a permanent home for the TrueOverDrive 2. You really can’t go wrong with either pedal depending on your tone preference. But for overall versatility, we give the nod to the TrueOverDrive 1.”
Learn More About TrueOverDrive 1
Learn More About TrueOverDrive 2