Blackstone Appliances MOSFET Overdrive

There isn't anything to this baby. Just two switches. One is a bypass switch. The other switches between the two channels. Brown is a lesser rhythm channel and red is more gain for solos. There are two adjustments on the outside for input level and output level. These adjustments can really make your sound. I have only had it two days and just used it loud for the first time last night. I was so excited about this pedal that I had to come and write a review this morning. There is also a boost that is designed for if you are playing with a humbucker or sing coils. Great idea here because with single coils, it reallys boost the bottom of the sound.

I don't like to give 10's unless it's deserved but this thing is definitely a 10 and I would give it an 11. First, inside the box, there is a little blue knob you can adjust that adjusts your drive. This is also key to getting your sound. Jon said he wanted to make a product that you can set and never have to worry about again. That works great for a lot of players but I would prefer the adjustment on top because I use a lot of different levels or distortion. I was kind of worried that this would be too much of an overdrive. I was looking for an overdrive that had more gain if I wanted. Don't question the gain on this thing. It will crunch and scream with the best of them. Much, much, much more gain than a Full Drive, TS9 and all the others. But, does it still retain it's true sound? A full YES!!! Chords ring through and you can make each note out perfectly. I have played a lot of the drive boxes. Full Drive, 70s, 69, ts9, burn unit, hotcake and nothing comes close to this thing. What Jon Blackstone has done is quite remarkable. I can classify most drive boxes in two catagories. First catagory is a box that has a sweet overdrive for nice blues tones but doesn't have much gain if you want it to go to the next level. The other catagory is a drive box that has much gain but loses your tone and feel in the mounds of distortion it exudes. What Jon has done is make a box that has the sweet tones of a overdrive that clean up sweetly when rolling off the volume and be able to add drive that can crunch as loud as any alternative band that is out there and still retain it's true tone and ring through. I don't know how he did it but this is the most versatile pedal I have ever bought and the best distortion I have ever bought. For fuzz, it's the creamy dreamer from Sustain Punch but for distortion, you WILL NOT find a better box than this. One other VERY important thing is how sweet this thing cleans up. I roll back to 7 and I have my original tone. Now, that won't happen if you have your drive up high. It won't be the same tone, it will be a much brighter slightly overdriven tone which is better for me. If you have a thick humbucker or are playing a tele, I can't tell you how nice of a sound it is. Jon also includes some capacitors and resistors to adjust your sound. You can interchange them to create the sound you are looking for. I am not good with electronics but it looks fairly easy to do if you have a steady hand and some patience. I just e-mailed Jon and told him what I was looking for. I explained to him the sound I was looking for and asked him to set it up that way. I aint adjusting nothing. This is the sweetest sounding distortion I have ever heard. The guys in my band were floored how much better it sounded than my other boxes. I had tried many times to find a better sound than my Marshall but always kept coming back to my Marshall for my distortion sound. For crunch and fuzz, I use the creamy dreamer. I use the hotcake into my Vox and I was looking to improve my sound on the Vox. When I got it and plugged into my practice amp, I had a feeling I would not be using it with my Vox but with my Marshall as my main distortion. Anyone who owns any other drive box should go buy this thing right now. You will not be disappointed.

The box is small. It's very well built and probably the most professional looking out of all the boxes. All components seem very well secured and you could tell that Jon wanted to create a product that everyone could count on. I can't say if I can depend on it but I would bet money I can.

You have to send a money order or cashiers check to order one. He doesn't have credit card service yet so it might take a little longer. He had one ready to roll for me and I paid extra to have it overnighted. Haven't talked to him but he seems very helpful and customer service oriented.

I have to say that this thing is amazing. I play trippy alternative music but delve into a lot of sounds and styles. I like playing blues and some of the songs in our sets are more mellow and need a nice smooth sound for the solo. The sound where you can feel every note and not just a mountain of notes played at light speed. I never play that way anyway. I tend to be a less is better guy when soloing so my notes have to have feeling and great sound. This thing is great for sound. It's also great for sounds of modern rock. I listen to a lot of bands like Pavement, Pixies, Promise Ring, Janes Addiction, Modest Mouse, Soul Coughing, Radio Head and all the bands in this style. At the same time, I love blues and many other sounds. Hendrix, Ben Harper, BB King, Indigenous, Chris Duarte, SRV, Trower, Kenny WS and many other players. This pedal is so versatile that it can find all of those tones. Jon gives you a money back guarantee. Some people do that in hope that you will be too lazy to send it back. Jon does it because he knows it aint coming back. I encourage anyone that has a full drive, hotcake, klon, burn unit or any overdrive to buy one of these. The only pedal I haven't tried that I think might be able to hold up to it is the Matchless and it's quite a bit more money. You will get what you want in the Klon but have much, much, much more gain if you need it. This is the jack of all trades in distortion and you really should check one out. I would have paid another $100 for it after I heard what this can do. If you have any questions, e-mail me.

one wheel for overall volume, one for brown channel gain, a bypass switch and a channel switch. very easy to use and to get a good sound out of it. manual is very nicely done.
however there are internal adjustments to be made which are more complicated than they could be.

57 reissue strat-teese rmc3-sustain punch creamy dreamer-blackstone overdrive-boss dd3 delay (sometimes)-blackfaced '75 twin reverb w/12au7. Its not noisy at all. very smooth natural sounding overdrive. i played the jekyll and hyde, hotcake and fulldrive but i prefer this one to all 3 of those. it doesnt have a clean boost but like the other reviewer said, it can be configured to do that. the brown channel can go from very sweet sounding bluesy overdrive to the more saturated setting of the red channel. as aforementioned it has incredible sustain. ive made some sound files of this pedal to give to some sites and tonefrenzy.com so email me if you want them. i play everything you can possible imagine and im pretty much covered with this pedal and the creamy dreamer ithink.

VERY well built. id definately use it live but at the moment ive just used it in my personal studio for recording.

very helpful. prompt emails. did tradesafe with me so i could use credit card. pedal took 2 days to ship.

i play everything from blues to ambient music to neopsychadelic rock to shoegaze...this pedal is great for all of my overdrive needs. since it takes more than the turning of a few knobs to configure it for a clean boost, i may look into a klon or something for that purpose but its incredible at what it does. better than the fulldrive in my opinion.

Pretty simple to operate. There are two channels, an output wheel that reduces volume as it increases gain and a real nice button for adjusting the pedal for single coil or Humbucking pickups. There are internal adjustments that can be made also. The pedal is very small but truly packs a wallop.

I wanted to get a review up on this pedal as soon as I had spent some time with it because Jon Blackstone was real nice to deal with and this is a quality pedal- So, I'm writing this review with only two of my setups- a Bill Lawrence Wilde guitar into my'68 Super Reverb and a LP w/ P90's into a '62 Blonde Bassman. This is a great overdrive which, true to its billing, is not fizzy or plunking like the tubescreamers and their copies (not that those are bad pedals because I have owned virtually all of them).
This is an entirely new design that does not use op-amps for the distortion. Blackstones goal was to eliminate the plinking of the Tubescreamers and let the pedal respond to your guitar's volume knob. All I can say is that it is much smoother and natural sounding than any overdrive I have used and I have almost everything- Fulldrive II, ts9/808 mod; Jeckyl & Hyde, Way Huge Red Llama, SD9, MXR Distortion +, Marshall Governor, Rangemaster. Jon told me that he modeled it after a tone that he was trying to get out of his modded Marshall and found that this did it best after years of experimentation. IMHO I believe he succeeded in making a pedal unlike anything else out there.
I'm not the kind of person that reviews everything in great terms (take a look at my AC15 Review!),but this is a great pedal. It cleans up unbelievably when you back down the guitar volume without a huge loss in volume or highs as with other pedals.

The gain on the brown channel can be adjusted with the wheel and the red channel is basically max gain(handy for solos). Because the pedal cleans up so well I find that I use it on the red channel all the time and back off my guitar volume for rhythm.

This pedal will change your sound and is not simply a transparent boost which can be done with a FDII or Klon. John claims it can be configured to do this, but I don't know why anyone would- you'll miss out on some real nice overdrive.

The pedal does not seem overly compressed either, like a TS9. The bottom stays pretty solid, not farty or nonexistent like the Governor. The sustain is outstanding. None of my other pedals give the sustain along with the harmonics that this thing gives.

I'm not going to tell you that this blows everything else away because I have not had enough time to A/B it with enough different pedals, rigs and guitars- I'll try to post a follow up review for that because I believe this pedal deserves it. I will say that overdrive is a very subjective thing as Mr. Blackstone candidly admits on his website. To my ears it is the most natural sounding OD pedal I have heard. There is none of the fake plinkiness, irritating overtones, missing bottom or lack of sustain I have noticed in other pedals.

I would direct anyone to visit his website, read the information and download the audio samples. I have found his information to be accurate,lacking in hype and very informative. The sound samples are dead on! I am picky and will not give a 10 because they have been so overused in these HC reviews that they are suspect. That being said this is excellent overdrive folks. I don't have any connection with Blackstone and bought the thing out of curiosity for the different construction, sight unseen.

One caveat- I have not used this pedal in combination with any other effects. John sent out an e-mail that explained that due to its innovative construction, there may be problems if you put it in front of pedals that do not have true bypass. I can not speak to that situation. I didn't have any problems when I used it at the end of the chain while A/Bing it with my other overdrives.

I'm not an engineer or techie but the construction appears better than anything else and certainly on a par with the Fulltone stuff, which is of great build quality. It is deceptively small but heavy. I forsee no problems but really can't give an opinion because I have only had it for a few months.

Jon has been great to deal with and has answered all of my sometimes inane e-mails promptly. There are a lot of things you can do to further mod this pedal internally. He has made some suggestions and I will follow them once I get some time to play around.

One thing- Jon took some heat for increasing the price of this pedal from the initial $200 to $225. The increase was due to added construction costs that he did not forsee. He admitted to me that his company was a little "clumsy" in handling the price increase- talk about honesty! I can tell you that based upon the unique and solid construction, great tone and everything else, I would not hesitate to pay the asking price for this pedal. He put a lot of research and development into this thing and came up with something totally different and built like a tank. Everyone has to make a buck and I don't think this guy is gouging anyone for a US made boutique pedal of this quality. I you want to shop price go buy the crap that's made in Commie China or similar country!

I think I covered everything above. I will continue to compare it with other pedals but at this point I am more than pleased with the tone I am getting. I have a Dr. Z Ghia that I can't wait to use with this because that amp seems to give you a true comparison with everything else you put in front of it.

comrs with manual 1 switch 2 channels low overdrive hi overdrive internal adjust trim to increase drive 7 or 8 further adjusts ie:see blackstone appliances website for ver in depth explanation of unit

sound quality-11 no other words can decribe this sound i have had all the major overdrive units on harmony central except klon which i should be receiving soon (2 months wait) including barber,boss,rat, danelctro mesa twin,prescription,sib,j and hyde,mentatone,way huge, and on and on. believe me this one is the best order it dont like ship back for refund can not lose. this overdrive even beats my overdrive settings on my mesa tov head on vintage gain and clean plus i added testlas in pre amp section this sound is soooooooooooooooooo clean no DIRT AT ALL!!!!!!!! singing notrs,endless sustain(8 or 9 seconds on notes)expressive guitar playing inspired sound got to try one now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

the BEST CONSTUCTION OF ANY!!!!!!!!!!! PEDAL I HAVE EVER OWNED(at least 200 or more)great paint finish,logo.switchs.wheels,. VERY SMALL SMALLEST PEDAL I HAVE EVER OWNED.

jon blackstone is the best just like his product prompt e-mails, even used tradesafe with me so i could buy with visa

everything can be played except heavy metal. what more can i say? playing 30 yrs prs strat, mesa,budda,sweetsound,clone-clone,wyllie fuzz,lexicon . makes it fun to play again