DOD FX102 Mystic Blues Overdrive

This is a pretty typical distortion/overdrive pedal. It has a Level, Low, High, and Drive knobs. Unlike DOD pedals of yore, there aren't any cute names for the knobs. The manual is pretty useless and seems to be geared toward a teenager who wants to make obnoxious sounds, almost like it was written for the grunge or death metal pedals. This could be on purpose since you can't get a decent, moderate, overdriven sound of this pedal.

To put it simply, this pedal sucks. It's supposed to be a relative to the TS-9, but it doesn't cut it. I've tried for almost a year to figure out how to get decent tones out of it. I've tried it with my Peavey Bandit, Silverface Princeton Reverb, and Blackface Champ. I tried it with a power adapter and different types of batteries. I tried it with single coil, P90, and humbucker equipped guitars. I could never find a position where the sound was anything like I'd want. Perhaps the think I most disliked about the pedal was that it seemed to make the tone too trebly. I'd often crank the low up and the high down, but this seemed to also wipe out upper mids, resulting in a muddy tone. If the high was up slightly past 1/2 way, it always became too shrill. Kicking the drive up resulted in more of a distortion than overdrive sound and, when cut back, it never gets clean enough to use as a subtle, on the edge, boost.

It's built like most other DOD pedals, no better, no worse.

DOD needs to do something about their website. They've been promising to put additional content, most notably manuals, online from at least two years. Somebody should have gotten around to it by now. After all, how long does it take to scan in a document?

I play blues, classic rock, and rockabilly. I wanted an overdrive pedal and I got this one as a gift, probably based on my praise for my DOD EchoFX, which I like a lot. I'll have to continue my search for a "holy grail" overdrive pedal that doesn't cost a bundle, but for now I'm happy with my SansAmp GT-2 for solid-state amps and recording and my Peavey Hotfoot Distortion for use with my tube amps.

Simple, straightforward knobs do it all: Level, Low, High, and Drive. I didn't get it w/a manual (it was a gift, a music store demo -- that's the way to go to save $$$).

When using single-coil pickups (esp. neck, middle, and in between), this pedal will give you a VERY expressive, bluesy overdrive. It made both my el-cheapo Washburn Lyon (superstrat) and prized Ibanez RG more responsive than they've ever been with ANY distortion effect I've used. Though I'm not a blues player, I appreciate the pedal's ability to give me SRV, Buddy Guy, Hendrix, and Kenny Wayne Shephard tones. HOT TIP: set your Level knob under 50% because this baby is LOUD when engaged; if you don't, the volume boost will drown out even the loudest drummer and you may get a feedback problem! Otherwise, it doesn't suck tone or introduce any noticeable noise. I've only used this pedal inline between my guitar and Fender Studio Eighty-Five's clean channel (65W 1 x 12" combo). Sweet.
Downside: I'm a heavy rock player, so I'm always looking for a lot of gain. But if you're looking for a resonsive, expressive overdrive, this box is the sh*t, and has plenty of singing gain for blues, and works well for most rock rhythm backing parts. But gainheads be warned, this is not the pedal for you. No crunch to be found. (Makes sense to me with a name like Mystic Blues.) Don't waste your money on a vintage TubeScreamer. In a blind test, I bet no one could tell the difference -- and I have a great ear.

I've only had the FX102 for three days, but it seems like a sturdy metal box to me that will take some abuse (not that I condone that sort of thing!). I haven't used it on stage with my band yet, because I'll need time to work it into our songs and integrate it into the FX chain w/Boss ME-6 multieffect, HR-2 Harmonist, and Crybaby wah. My rating below relfects the comparision to Boss pedals I've used. I find the Boss pedals' switch isn't that reliable because of the adjustable screw on the battery door. Sometimes you really have to jump on 'em to engage them, or spend too much time playing with that plastic screw.

I can't emphasize enough what an awesome blues tone this will give your solid state amp. I'm sure it will do wonders with a tube amp, too. I think the word that best sums up this pedal is "expressive." I can't wait to hear it with my Peavey TransTube Express 112s, which is already has a pretty responsive solid-state overdrive (100X better than my fuzzy Fender Eighty-Five). If lost, I wouldn't buy it again because it was a gift and I rarely play blues, country, or rockabilly. But if my style changed to blues, I'd buy the first two I could get my hands on -- one for home and one for the gig rig.