This month, I’ve picked up a couple of pedals from my local guitar store that were completely new to me. In their own unique way, each one has had a big impact on how I’m going to be approaching my signal chain for the rest of the year.
What did I get, and why did they have such a big impact? Read on to find out.
Ritual Devices Grey Overdrive Pedal
My local store AStrings are the UK stockist for Ritual Devices pedals. (The chap who runs Ritual Devices is also the amp tech for AStrings.) A friend of mine told me that these pedals are fantastic, so I bought the Grey Overdrive to find out for myself.
For the same price that many second-hand pedals are currently going for, I got myself a new firm favourite. I found the Grey Overdrive’s design to be incredibly flexible, giving me a fantastic level of control over its character and tone. It’s probably going to become my #1 pedal for my PRS Custom 24.
It also made me think about new (to me) ways to EQ the signal from guitar to drive pedal. Some of those will find their way into my next Axe-FX 3 pedal platform patch. Some of them will change how I talk about Klon klone pedals.
Orange Getaway Driver 70’s Amp-In-A-Box Pedal
AStrings has just become an Orange stockist. I don’t have much experience of Orange’s range at all, so I popped round one morning to try out a few things. In the shop, the Getaway Driver pedal sounded pretty good with a Les Paul and Fender Twin Reverb Tonemaster amp setup … good enough to bring home to try it through my own rig.
I’m glad I did. It’s a nice sounding overdrive, with a character that I don’t think I’ve come across before. I’d say it sits somewhere in the void between Fender tweed and Marshall bite, without really being either of those things.
But it also taught me that my overall signal chain is voiced right. It needs to be much brighter than before. I’m going to use this pedal (with others) as a canary in the coal mine, and get that changed for the better.