Budda Zenman Distortion Pedal

Could not be easier! 4 easy to read "pointer" knobs: GAIN, BASS, TREBLE, VOLUME. Very simple to get the tone you want after a couple minutes of experimentation. Very easy to change-out the 2 12AX7 tubes to whatever compatible tubes you like...if you wish to.

Just AWESOME! I usually play a Schecter 006 Blackjack in front of a solid state Marshall Valvestate (clean channel) and also in front of a 50's vintage all-tube Eico amp. Sounds great with both and responds to the slightest changes in picking. Fat, rich and controllable distortion similar to vintage Marshall tube amps. Think 60's "Cream" tone! I put a JJ Tesla ECC803s Gold (amazing tube!) in the first slot and a vintage RCA black plate 12AU7 in the second slot for a tone I liked best but the stock tubes are good too. Not noisy at all.

Seems nearly indestructible but I have never gigged with it as I play mostly at home or in the studio. It is heavy and solid.

Haven't had a need to contact Budda Engineering but from what I have heard they provide excellent customer service and support!

I have looked far and wide for a pedal with vintage overdrive tone like the Zenman has. Distortion tone is very subjective so this may or may not be the pedal for others but I just LOVE the more subtle, blues/60's tube tone this gives me! Find one of these discontinued pedals for a great price like I did and give it a try!

with the new mods there is one small niggle, and all you out there who have owned a marshall or other high powered amps already know this one...turn all knobs down. dial in mids. bring treble and bass up. adjust presence and drive. good to go! otherwise, with the gain all the way up, its tough to hear any mids at all. remember these are tubes, not diodes. its like turning on a faucet. all the way up is wide open, and thus less eq controlled. otherwise, fantastically easy to operate. plug in, tune pedal, wait for it to warm up a little, and begin.

ok so here's the real kicker...with the current complement of tubes, (2x 12ax7 JJ's) think of a jcm 800 marshall with a fender 1960's presence control and you got it! but wait theres more! i was also turned onto another tube that changes the tone, and if i didn't already have 5 on hand, i wouldn't even speak of it because they are a little rare. change the first tube out to a 5751 tube and it changes the whole character of the pedal. to words like creamy gushing and fountain. yes. all in the same sentence. think 68 marshall head. i'm tempted to play the national anthem through it. seriously. way more my style, bluesy stuff! lights up my two vibrasonics, tears a hole in the magnatone 260, and makes the 55 deluxe snarl harder. love it! thanks jim west for the hot tip. i owe you one for that one.

i have full confidence in this pedal and its mods. i would most definitely gig without a spare.

jim west did mods to this pedal. replaced crappy caps, added jj tubes, added a mid knob and a 60's style presence control...oh yeah now this thing sounds awesome! i didn't bother with budda's support, although amp wise i hear they are very good. they have better things to do than fix a used pedal, like build amps. from the mods end, support was fantastic!

the pedal i have now is not just the zenman pedal, it has also been modded by james west of bonepickers...although i played it a little before i sent it out to be worked on...per everyone else, you know if you've been reading these things that this one has three knobs...blah,blah,blah....but here's what they don't tell you. this pedal is designed mostly as a marshall style preamp, the phatman as a fender style preamp, made with pretty good parts, with quality control being the main issue in a few of the bad reviews (can't count out operator error in some). i've been playing for more than a few years, tried every pedal, and this one initially reminded me a bit of the mesa v-twin from a few years back. treble side was a bit wiggy, gain was slightly mushy and anemic...cracked open the case and saw the culprits...sovtek 12ax7's! ok so out with the old....better. found jim west from reading these things, and contacted him. had a good talk about what could be acheived with this pedal, and what needed to be done, he was very knowledgeable, and i know a few things about tubes! sent it off, got it back, and wham! tone heaven. i keep the gain around 10 o'clock, but i play mostly blues and funk, but, loaned it to a friend in a "horror rock" band and he dimed it because, well thats what he does. he loves it too. over all a great value...with the mods!

4 knobs, very easy to get your sound, just type the amounts of treble, bass, gain, volume you like. Depends of your setup.

This is a high gain tube overdrive. It is possible to do metal with this pedal, the guy who gave a review of 1 point is simply ridiculous. First, the noise: tubes are noisier than solidstate, but its noise when stop playing, not while playing(like solid state). So when not playing, roll off your volume.

This pedal has a great sound, if you need a overdrive pedal, this is the one, except the fact that you can't have many controls like on solid state that you ''get 20 knobs and could dial for hours for shit''. It has a great tone, very fast and easy to get.

To play metal with this pedal, you must have high output pickups...i mean VERY high output pickup, myself; I got a livewire metal(duncan) and I can do metal easy.(prog rock/metal) you can't do death metal with this, but you can play heavy metal, or things like that.

I play metal with this pedal and its possible, I play it on a randall solid state, sounds great, but I've tried it with a valvestate and it was a bit better.

Seems solid, built like a tank.

I always have a special care to my gear anyway.

didn't have yet

I play metal, without my livewire metal, it would sound more like overdrive than distortion. I'm not playing for too long but I'ved came across many amps, pedals before getting good stuff.

I own a Randall Rx120 head,kustom 4x12 cab, BBE stomp maximizer, line 6 uber metal, washburn wg600 w/livewire metal humbucker

if lost or stolen, ill get one back,the tone is great due to the tubes, its a great pedal, got a great tone. I taken this pedal because I was playing on the overdrive channel of my randall, and i wanted a better sound and I remembered this one...

Its a good pedal, but you must know how to use it, its not like every solid state pedal.

Drive, Bass, Treble, Volume. As easy as could be.

This is realny goud sounding overdrive pedal. Some guys bellow tried to compare it with diferent distortion pedals. But it is completly stupid. This is overdrive pedal. Pure Vacum tube. And it sounds like vacum tube. If you want bone crussing noisy metal sound, don???t buy it. But if you want nice nwarm contour sound like Tube Screamer, but more natural and dynamic, you should try this one.
Really great overdrive sound.
It is even better than Mesa V-Tvin on blues mode.

I can depend on it. Very good chassis.

Very good overdrive pedal.

The Zenman is easy to use. I got a good thick sound right out of the box using a Les Paul and a silver face Fender Champ. It took a little more time with Some amps, but I alwys found a sound that Iliked pretty quickly.

I use the Zenman with a '57 reissue strat, an EC strat, a '62 reissue tele, a 50th anniversary b-bender tele, and a les paul. The amps are a champ, a DRRI, a Peavey classic 50/410, and a Mesa Mark III blue stripe. The pedal gives me a sweet, tube drive at low gain settings and fattens up quickly as the gain is turnedup. The bass and treble controls don't seem to have much range, but I find them useful for fine-tuning the sound.

I haven't owned it long enough to evalute reliability.

I haven't needed to contact Budda yet.

I play blues and country. I use this and a Fulldrive 2, a Bad Bob, and an EMMA compressor. I tend to use this more than the FD2 for a thick bluesy tube sound.

Usual suspects: volume, bass, treble, gain. Dial in to taste.

I have owned the Zenman for a few months and like it's smooth, somewhat upper mid-hump distortion. I have been reading some of the reviews here and think that some of these guys either got a faulty/bad unit or are looking for something else (like a heavy metal distortion or a boost pedal). The Zenman is absolutely quiet, even when engaged and cranked gain. I think that some of the people that are complaining here have sorry equipment to begin with. This pedal is best used for a smooth solo sound (increased gain and upper mids that cut through). I don't particularly like it as a pedal that would be engaged all the time, I kick it in and add a compressor boost and it rocks!

Works for me....

Nice and helpful...

For a tube distortion pedal this is what it claims to be and nothing more, fairly transparent with a slight upper-mid-hump. Smooth and quiet. If it's not your thing don't buy it!

Just for those who rated this a '1'.

To those trying to use it on fenders to turn your amp high gain metal monsters - you don't get it. This is a transparent gain pedal to further push the sound you already have!

All the negative reviews are always the pedals fault and not them.
Change the tubes, use a power conditioner/filter NOT A K-mart power strip, Learn what the pedal is REALLY for, make sure you don't try it out with an import guitar with internal crappy electronics and korean pickups.

Scot got me to try AT7's and I think it is even better. Smoother type of gain but still enough for just about any application.

I have tried this pedal out in front of about ten different amps. it shines in front of pretty much any EL-34 based power section. In front of a plexi it is just incredible...it was made for that. One of the best lead tones ever.

scot is unreal

pricey but it very well might be exactly what you are looking for in which case its a ten.

i'm pretty sure the circuit is based on the twin master but i'm a huge fan of the superdrive. the superdrive is one of the best amps out.

Its a nine but I gave it a ten to counteract the 1's. The people who gave this a 1 should kill themselves.

Definitely the best OD pedal out there that I've tried. Mine has no noise problems to speak of. Sounds like it has true bypass. This pedal likes to be dimed. The best way to describe it is if a dual recto takes the bass and drives that frequency, this takes the mid and drives that. It definitely is Marshallesque but different somehow. Anyway, highly recommended.

Scot is cool, I've been up to the shop in San Raphael for some demos.

I think it sounds great in front of a Fender...unlike some other reviews. Definitely the best OD out there. It will almost do palm mutes but it is THE BROWN SOUND!

Simple, monkeys can operate this.

Depends what you are using. If you try plugging it into say a twin reverb it WILL sound awful. This is a preamp pedal. Use good pickups too, Duncans, Dimarzios, Emg's would probably sound super amazing because it is high gain. Plug it into a good power amp with a resonance control or through the return (don't use the send) of say a Marshall to by pass the preamp it will sound awesome! easily compares with a boogie or high gain marshall. Scot at Budda said it's not really made to work with a fender it's more geared toward a Marshall.

Not sure, probably would hide in back of rack to be safe.

Very good, emails you back

If you use this the right way it sounds awesome but I'd give it an 8 because it is only one channel and is therefore very limited.