The tail end of September brought a bit of a surprise: PRS now makes pedals! And the initial demos made them sound really, really good. Fortunately for my bank balance, they haven’t hit the stores yet over here. Well … except for one …
PRS Horsemeat Transparent Overdrive
PRS launched three pedals at the end of September. This one (the overdrive pedal) was the only one to actually turn up in the shops here in the UK at launch – and then, just in the one shop.
It’s marketed as a Klon-killer that sounds like an amp. Not a klone: a different circuit that can replace your Klon or klone on your pedal board. That’s quite a claim, and one that I won’t have time to explore properly until November. Look out for a #CoffeeAndKlon on this.
What’s it like as a regular overdrive pedal? And is it worth the steep price of entry? Spoiler alert: I think this is the best tweed-tone pedal currently in production.
Tone City Dry Martini Overdrive Pedal
Earlier this year, Fulltone finally closed down. Definitely mixed feelings about that: while I deeply oppose the owner’s personal views, he did design great pedals. The question is: are there viable alternatives to his pedals?
Over on Guitar Twitter, I saw someone recommend the Dry Martini as a viable OCD alternative. The OCD is a much-copied pedal, but (to date) none of the copies that I’ve tried have come close to capturing the sonic quality of the original OCD.
Will the Dry Martini buck that trend? Find out in my First Impressions post.
Tone City Bad Horse Overdrive Pedal
The premise of Klon klones is that they claim to sell you the Klon’s capabilities at a fraction of the price. Such is the demand, there’s a klone to suit just about every budget.
Tone City’s Bad Horse is one of the pedals that gets mentioned a lot, because it’s one of the most affordable klones on the market. It’s also been around quite a while now; it was originally released back in 2014.
I’ll do a full comparison against other klones at a later date. For now, here are my First Impressions of this pedal.