Yesterday, we looked at how well the new Marshall Origin sounds with affordable drive pedals from Boss. Today, it’s the turn of affordable drive pedals from TC Electronic.
TC Electronic are well known for their tone print pedals, especially the Hall of Fame reverb pedal and the Flashback delay. They also make a pair of drive pedals that you can find for around £40 each brand new at the time of writing.
For reference, here’s what the Marshall Origin can do on its own if you’ve got somewhere where you crank it loud:
Most of us are going to need pedals to get the amp singing at home volumes. Let’s hear how the TC Electronic pedals sound through the Origin.
The Mojomojo Overdrive
First up is the Mojomojo Overdrive pedal.
As an overdrive pedal, it gives us soft clipping with a fair bit of push in the mids. The active EQ is there to help you dial in this pedal for a wide range of amps.
The end result came out better than I was expecting.
Out of all the pedals I’ve used for this mega-Marshall Origin series, this was the only pedal I didn’t enjoy playing through. I wasn’t happy with how it felt or sounded during the recording. I’m unlikely to use this pedal again with my Origin 20W head.
The Dark Matter Distortion
The Dark Matter, on the other hand …
This pedal has been the one I’ve had hooked up to the Origin 20W the most. It doesn’t clip as hard as I was expecting it to – it’s almost soft enough to be an overdrive. It feels fantastic to play, really dynamic and responsive, and I think it counteracts the Origin’s brightness without sounding muddy at all.
Final Thoughts
The Origin is an opinionated amp, and any pedals you put through it are going to be very strongly flavoured by what the Origin sounds like.
For me, the Mojomojo didn’t suit the Origin at all – but the Dark Matter complimented it really well.
Those are just my opinions. Have you tried either pedal through an Origin amp yourself? How did you find them? Comments below!