A few weeks ago, I bought a Grey Overdrive by Ritual Devices.
What do I think of it? Read on for my (lengthy!) First Impressions. There’s a lot of good things to talk about …
Table of Contents
- What Did You Buy?
- Why Did You Buy It?
- What Is It?
- Asymmetric Clipping All The Way
- My Rig Today
- The ‘Naked’ Sound
- Exploring The Grey Overdrive’s Relationship With Bass Frequencies
- Adding The Sauce
- Using The Klon To Sweeten The Tone
- Final Thoughts
What Did You Buy?
I bought a Grey Overdrive pedal, made by Ritual Devices. I got mine from my local guitar shop (and Ritual Devices stockist) AStrings.co.uk.
Full disclosure: Wub Wainwright (the guy behind Ritual Devices) also works at AStrings as their amp tech, so I kind-of know him a little bit. I did pay full retail price for the pedal; Wub didn’t even know I’d bought it until I saw him in the shop a week or two later; and he’s had no say at all in what I’ve written here.
I’ve never written a blog post before where I actually knew the people behind the gear. This is a first for me, and it’s always possible that some bias has crept in somewhere. That said, I’ve created plenty of audio demos so that you can hear what this pedal does and make up your own mind.
Why Did You Buy It?
Curiosity. I was in the shop for something else, talking pedals with Kris, and he told me that he thought the Ritual Devices pedals were really good. The price was nice – less than a lot of second-hand pedals I’ve been looking at this year – so I thought “why not?”
What Is It?
Whenever I see a pedal called a “grey overdrive”, I always expect its circuit to be based on the DOD 250 family of pedals. A bit like how “green overdrives” are normally based on the Ibanez Tubescreamer.
Unfortunately, I don’t know much about the circuit in the Grey Overdrive. I believe it’s based on the Electra circuit. That’s the same circuit that Lovepedal used in so many of their pedals over the years, and also Earthquaker Device’s Speaker Cranker drive pedal?
If so, then I believe that the name ‘Grey Overdrive’ is just a co-incidence, and this pedal does not belong to the DOD 250 circuit family. Correct me if I’m wrong in the comments below!
The Grey Overdrive is incredibly simple. It only has three controls:
- level (controls volume)
- drive (controls gain)
- and a clipping mode toggle switch
In particular, note that there’s no tone control of any description inside or outside the pedal. Keep that in mind; it will play an important part in the audio demos that I’ve made for you.
Asymmetric Clipping All The Way
The Grey Overdrive has two clipping modes. I’ve tried both, and found myself sticking with the ASM (asymmetric) clipping mode all the time.
It just gives me a more amp-like feel when playing.
Speaking of which, let’s get into the tones. There’s a lot to talk about with this pedal.
My Rig Today
For the audio demos in this blog post, I’m playing:
- several guitars
- into the Axe-FX 3 (for both tuner and EQ toys)
- out to my pedalboard
- out to my PRS Mary Cries compressor pedal
- back into the Axe-FX 3 (for amp, cab, delay, reverb … and plenty more EQ & FX toys!)
- out to my audio interface
- and into my DAW
The only post-processing in my DAW is some level-matching, to try and avoid any louder-is-better pitfalls.
I’m playing a number of guitars today, to highlight different aspects of the Grey Overdrive. You’re going to mostly hear Lagertha (my PRS Custom 24), along with my PRS Silver Sky and a brief appearance by Mirage (my Fender Journeyman Telecaster).
On the pedalboard, I’ve got both the Ceriatone Centura and Ritual Devices Grey Overdrive pedals in separate loops on my trusty Gigrig G2. I’m using the G2 to take the Centura completely out of the signal chain when it’s not in use.
The signal runs out of the G2 into the PRS Mary Cries compressor pedal. The compressor is off most of the time, but the signal is still running through it.
In the Axe-FX 3, I’m running an experimental version of my own pedal platform patch. This new patch is a lot brighter than my older patch that I’ve been using for previous demos, and I haven’t finished dialling it in yet.
The patch also includes some EQ toys and some other post-amp FX for the first time. By default they’re off (to match my older patch). They were inspired by the Grey Overdrive, and I’ll talk more about them when I get to the audio demos below that use them.
The ‘Naked’ Sound
Let’s start with the ‘naked’ sound: guitar, pedal, amp with no EQ or other toys. This will be how most people start with any pedal.
The ‘Naked’ Sound Is Perfect For Strat Bridge Pickups
This pedal’s raw sound (ie without me doing any EQ anywhere in the signal chain) is big and fat. I think it’s perfect for single-coil bridge pickups like the one in my Silver Sky:
One thing that sets the Silver Sky apart from most Fender Strats is that the bridge pickup isn’t all treble; it has a bit of low-end too. I think the Grey Overdrive really brings that out here.
Listening back, I’d be tempted to roll the bridge tone or volume back just a touch, to take the edge off that top-end. Equally, that could be done by adjusting the presence control on the amp. I might also (reluctantly) roll the bass back a bit on the amp.
Overall, I think this is a real winner. It’s practically a plug-and-play pedal for playing on a Strat bridge pickup.
The ‘Naked’ Sound Works Really Well With Tele Bridge Pickups Too
I think the Grey Overdrive sounds pretty good with my Tele bridge pickup too:
Oooh – that midrange! Yes please!
Every now and then, I’ll find a tone that sounds okay in the room when I’m playing, but (for some reason) sounds far better to me when I play back the recording afterwards. This is one of those tones.
If I was being critical, I’d say that the top-end’s lacking just a little bit of bite and excitement, and that’s definitely what I was missing while playing. But you know what? That’s probably the guitar, not the pedal. I like Mirage because it’s quite mid-focused, and I think that’s what the pedal has captured faithfully.
Things get a little more challenging when I switch over to humbuckers …
The ‘Naked’ Sound Is More Of An Acquired Taste With Bridge Humbuckers
I’ve gone and grabbed Lagertha – my PRS Custom 24 – and I’m on the bridge humbucker. The tone pot is on full, while I’ve turned the volume pot down to around 8. This, for me, is the sweet spot with a Custom 24.
And here’s how that sounds:
Through my rig, the Grey Overdrive is starting to get very raspy indeed now. The note attack is now more like a buzzing bee than the sharp cutting edge of a plexi tone. I’m not used to that, and you might hear that come through in my performance.
I think it’s also sounding very big and very bold. Listening back to it, the sound is really filling the room. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another pedal I’ve tried that does this.
This guitar normally has excellent string separation between notes, but the more I listen back, the blurrier the chords sound to my ears (for lack of a better description). The effect is even clearer to hear if I listen back on my laptop’s built-in speakers.
If anything, this sound might be a little too dense for my tastes – but I can see how other guitarists could love this pedal for exactly that effect.
Where is that blurriness coming from?
There’s clearly something going on with the bass frequencies and the way they interact with this pedal. So let’s start playing with those, and see what gives.
Turning Down The Bass On The Amp Can Help
I’m still on Lagertha’s bridge pickup here. The only difference is that I’ve turned my amp’s bass control down from 6 to 4.
This hasn’t changed the buzzy bee nature of the note attack, but it has taken away some of the fullness of the overall tone. That’s not a bad thing; this might fit better into a mix than before. It definitely sounds more defined / less blurry on my laptop speakers.
I think this pedal’s already sounding interesting and different (in a good way). Let’s start throwing some serious toys at it, to see just what I can get out of it.
Exploring The Grey Overdrive’s Relationship With Bass Frequencies
Low-End Filtering Is For The Birds
As I understand it (rightly or wrongly), most overdrive pedals filter out some of the low-end before the signal hits the overdrive / distortion stage of the circuit. If there’s too much low-end, then that will overdrive / distort sooner than the top-end can – producing a fuzz-like tone that lacks definition.
To my ears, the Grey Overdrive is either doing as little low-end filtering as possible, or perhaps even none at all. And I’m here for that.
Here’s why. Listen to this little piece, recorded with Lagertha’s neck pickup. The amp is back on its usual bass setting, and everything else is untouched.
There’s so little note attack in that recorded tone. It’s more like a synth tone than a guitar. I love it! (And I have a need for this sound too.)
Adding My Own Low-End Filtering Gives Many Options
What happens if I do the low-end filtering myself? And what’s the “best” way to do it?
(I’m going back to Lagertha’s bridge pickup for all of these demos …)
When I’m dealing with a bass-heavy guitar (like my PRS Paul’s Guitar), my go-to solution is my ‘USA 4 Darker’ pedal platform patch. This patch adds a multi-band compressor + a top-end EQ boost between the guitar and my pedalboard, to filter out low-end from the guitar signal. It also uses different impulse responses to reduce the amount of bass that makes it through the virtual cab.
Here’s how Lagertha sounds with this patch:
Next, I’m back on my regular ‘USA 4 Most Guitars’ patch that I’ve been using for all the other demos up until the last one. This time I’ve engaged a simple EQ cut at around 220 Hz between the guitar and my pedalboard, again to filter out low-end from the guitar signal.
For a third option, I’ve kept the EQ cut between guitar and pedalboard, and now added another low-frequency EQ cut between pedalboard and amp. (Turning down the bass control the amp is another option here.)
At this point, with all that low-end emphasis gone, I think the top-end is starting to sound a little too much for my taste. So for the fourth option, I’ve also switched on the Mary Cries compressor to smooth out the top-end a little and I’ve rolled the tone back on the guitar to about 6.
I’ve deliberately thrown a lot of different options at you in rapid succession, without discussion.
Why? I wanted to demonstrate that the Grey Overdrive’s design gives us so much control over shaping the tone that suits our own taste the best. That lack of a tone control (or any obvious internal fixed EQ) means that the pedal isn’t dictating the shape of the tone. We get to do that.
The great thing is that you don’t need a flagship modeller like the Axe-FX 3 to do this. Any modern digital modeller that supports the 4 cable method should be able to do these EQ cuts just as well.
And that leads me to my preferred tone …
Adding The Sauce
In the Axe-FX 3, I’ve started experimenting with some additional post-amp FX, to add just a little bit of extra sauce to the overall tone. And here’s how that sounds with the Grey Overdrive:
I’ve kept the EQ cuts, Mary Cries compressor and rolled back guitar tone from the previous demo, and added a couple of parallel delay effects too.
- a little bit of ‘1210’ multi-tap delay (into a Tape Distortion block to mess it up) to widen the guitar tone a bit, and
- a little bit of ‘Dissolving 16ths’ plex delay to add some late reflections without sounding like I’m drowning in hall reverb
Both of these parallel effects are really dialled down, and they’ve both got ducking enabled too, just to make sure that they can’t distract from my core tone while playing notes. Additionally, the 1210 has a pitch modifier attached to the level control, to gradually phase it out completely as I work my way up the neck.
By design, the end result is subtle when heard in isolation. But if I go back to the first demo I did with Lagertha’s neck pickup, with all the EQ and FX toys disabled …
… hopefully now you can clearly hear the difference.
Using The Klon To Sweeten The Tone
If you haven’t gone digital – or you don’t have a modeller that supports the four-cable method – you can still manipulate the Grey Overdrive’s character by adding other pedals to your board.
In my case, that normally means a Klon clone of some kind.
Today, I’m using my Ceriatone Centura. This is my go-to Klon clone for my demos, because (to me) it sounds identical to my real Klon KTR. But – as I’ll explain in a moment – most Klon klones will probably do the job just as well.
I’m running the Centura into the Grey Overdrive. Man, the Grey Overdrive stacks really well with other pedals. Fantastically low noise-floor (something I can’t say about every boutique pedal I’ve tried over the years). And again, that lack of an input low-end cut really helps here too.
After some experimentation, I’m not running my usual clean boost settings on the Centura. (I imagine that Hell is freezing over at the news!) I found that they didn’t cut enough low-end from the signal for my taste. Many other Klon klones do cut more low-end, and might work just fine here.
Instead, I’ve turned the drive control up to above 9 o’clock. This has the effect of reducing the amount of dry signal going through the Centura, and therefore cutting back on the low-end. I’ve also turned the treble control down from its usual 1 o’clock to below 11 o’clock. I felt that this helped to balance out the tone quite a bit.
And this is what it sounds like:
Mmm. I’ve read that the Electra circuit can give some nice tweedy tones, and that right there comes very close to qualifying. Maybe it needs a slight push in the upper-mids, or just a more vintage-voiced guitar? I’ll have to try that another day.
I think the Klon klone has gotten me very close to the tone I got when using EQ inside my Axe-FX 3:
I don’t think I could tell which was which in a blind test challenge.
Finally, just because I can, here’s the Ritual Overdrive with the Centura, the Mary Cries compressor, and the post-amp FX sauce:
The first time I dialled that in, I just spent days playing guitar. It’s the reason this First Impressions is so overdue!
Final Thoughts
What a fantastic overdrive pedal.
I love the character of the filth that this pedal provides. I know it’s a cliché, but it really does feel amp-like under my fingers. I love that I can shape it to be anything from wooly to cutting(ish). It takes post-compression very well. It takes post-amp FX very well. And it works really well with every type of guitar that I’ve thrown at it so far.
The Ritual Devices Overdrive isn’t just a keeper for me. It might well be my #1 to pair with my Custom 24. It also really suits my Paul’s Guitar, which is another huge win for me.
I’ve figured out exactly why I love it so much: the Ritual Devices Grey Overdrive gives me the guitar tones that I wanted (but never got) from the (now discontinued) Mad Professor Amber Overdrive.
I could write a whole blog post on the Amber Overdrive, and how it’s haunted me for the last 12 years or so because I just couldn’t get the tones I hoped for. Perhaps I should? I haven’t revisited the Amber Overdrive since I got the Axe-FX 3 …
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