George Dennis King Bee

5 knobs; Gain, Level, Bass, Mid and Treble. Easy to use.
I got no manual with mine but it didn't matter.

I've played it with a Mesa DC3 combo with a 1x12 Boogie cab, a Peavey 5150 with a Marshall 4x10 cab, a 70s Plush 100W head and a small Orange Crush combo amp using a variety of guitars and pickups.
This overdrive is very smooth and pick-responsive
with generous gain and plenty of control over the tone. It drives high gain, normal gain and clean channels into overdrive, easily tailored to taste. Great harmonic character throughout the full tonal range and excellent detail, not too compressed, with singing sustain. Controllable feedback is a breeze with this.
Noise level is very low even in the high gain channels. Cleans up by rolling off the guitars volume and still sounds sweet.
Optical full-bypass switch is easy to engage.
The overall tone is a bit more 'pleasing' than the naughty George Dennis Distorted Mind Rock OD, which I'm also quite fond of [I have 2 of them].

Very sturdy chrome-plated steel case is like a tank; switch is covered with a thick rubber dimple that houses the LED. Totally dependable;
gig with confidence. I've used GD overdrives for YEARS and they are definitely dependable - never had one let me down.

Never contacted them; they're in the Czech Republic.
On the bright side, I've never HAD to contact them either; their effects are THAT good.

This is a good match for classic and hard rock tones, bluesy material, any music requiring a great lead tone without excessive coloration and a amicably crunchy breakup for rhythm playing. It is a flexible and useful addition for any good tube amp and sounds like 'part of your amp' too. I get complements on the sound.
Compared to other overdrives, you can spend a lot more but you won't get more; certainly a greater value than most of the better-known models out there. Compared to a TS-9 it has a sweeter tone, more usable gain, better definition and far more flexible tone controls. Plus true bypass switching.
I would buy another if it was lost by all means.
I've been playing guitar for 32 years.

3-EQ pots give it a decent spectrum of sound. Easy usage.

Absolutely delicious overdrive. I use a LP Custom thru' my Fender Blues Jr and the King Bee comes in perfectly to drive the Blues Jr to its full potential. The Treble, mids and bass pots come in very handy to help scoop the mids when required. The sound is transparent with no colouration.

I've had it for a year now, no issue whatsoever.

Never had to.

I play a lot of blues and Cream-esque rock. The King Bee is a great pedal at an amazing price.. I've been thru' various ODs (at least 30) in the past and the King Bee is now my resident OD pedal. For the price, I have no problem replacing it right away should it be stolen or lost.

5 minutes of tweaking around is all you need

I use this with a Strat into a Jazz Chorus and I'm really really blown away. The distortion is thick and meaty with amazing transparency at mid to mid-high level gain. I play anything from Silverchair to LimpBisket to Black Sabbath and it even for neu-metal. This pedal is extremely versatile.

I've gigged with it for almost 4 mths now and it still works great. I don't think I'll need a backup. All parts seem to be of very high quality.

Georg Burgenstein replies to his emails very promptly. Even for the most minute enquiries.

You can't believe how good it sounds when you plug it in. Trust me, I couldn't believe it either. I don't think there's any other distortion pedal out in the market with true bypass at this price. The eq pots also gives it an amazing amount of versatility.

For the type of music I play, this is a great pedal. It is able of getting so many guitar tones, though it might take some tweeking. The controls are simple enough, its just that the variety of knobs (gain, bass, middle, treble, level) provide for lots of variations. The only problem is the stupid way the effect is turned on. I honestly dont get it (if someone does let me know). You can turn it on of course, but its like a small button type thing within a black bubble and it never feels really solid when you turn it on. I always have to seen if the light indicator is on. I really like the intuitive pedals like boss pedals, just a big lever to step on.

I use a Mexican Strat through a Music Man 100 RD Hybrid head into a Marshall 4x10 (1965A). I keep the gain relatively low and the bass and treble a little over half with the middle down and the level up. This gives me a great biting and hot tone. This setting is great for blues and White Stripes stuff. It can be very "raunchy" at this setting. If you turn up the gain... well lets put it this way, this thing has gain to spare for sure. I never play with my gain all the way up because it is just too much, but some people might really like this. The only real qualm is that the sustain is lacking. If you play a high note you would expect it to sing, but it dies off and turns into almost a clean tone before the note is done ringing. Other than that this is a great pedal. And it is in fact very low noise, not a lot of extraneous humming and buzzing.

This is very reliable, and if the battery runs out you've still got your clean tone (because its true bypass) and it wont cut out completely. It will never leave you stranded. I would gig without a back up. One thing that I'm merely concerned about is the stupid way you turn on the pedal. It works fine but it feels frail, maybe i'm just being silly, but it seems prone to malfunction, although I've really had none.

I havent had to deal with them, but I'm sure George is super nice.

Its a good pedal, I've got nothing more to say.

Using this pedal is quiet easy. It has basic controls (Bass, Mid, Treble) to build your sound and nothing seems useles or strange. Those controls are very sensible and natural in cutting tones. The only problem is that you can get so many different good sounds that you hardly can find a personal sound whitout trying for a long sound.

I use it between a strat and a Fender Pro Junior, whitout any other effect. Noise is very low when the pedal is bypassed and, when you turn on the distortion, you can ear the classic strat hum. Even if you use a low-output guitar (strat, tele...) you can have a heavy distortion for hard and heavy sounds. Turning down gain control a good overdrive sound can make your sound quiet clean but aggressive. I think it can be also a good booster adding a bit of bass and mids making your amp's overdrive very HOT. It is esy to recreate sounds like Vaughan's overdrive, Blackmore distortion or Hendrix fuzzy leads. I tried to play some Queen's solos and i felt I was Brian May. Some Sabbhat's riffs sounded good. The only sound I wasn't able to recreate was Clapton's fuzz on Cream LPs. You can get whatever you want from this pedal. if you use it for a while.

I think it is the first pedal that doesn't give me any problem in the first week of use, but i don't know if it is very resistent.

Before buying it I used a Big Muff for a while. I think that King Bee is more versatile and useful than the Big Muff, but it has a little lack of personality that can be repaired in two or tree days. It seems more resistent to my weight. It has no background noise. It has TRUE BYPASS. It's great for playing blues-rock (Led Zeppelin, Hendrix)and hard rock (Aerosmith). I wish I had 10 King Bee because I found so many beautiful sounds that it's a pitty using only one.

easy to use... consists of a gain knob, bass, mid, treble and level.
minimal tweaks will change the texture and response of this pedal. but dialing in a good sound is easy with it.

used strats and les pauls with it. how do i describe this pedal... it's one of the best overdrives i've played. i can get it to sound like my ts-9 or 808, but it has more gain, plus the added benefit of full 3 band eq. so you can eq it for more mids or scoop the mids for a thicker overdrive. it sounds good as a ts clone, but also sounds incredible with the gain turned up for thick distortion sounds. the pedal is extrememly versitle. hard to get a bad sound out of it.
ran it through fender twin, groove tube amps, and george dennis amps, sounded great through all of them... worked well with my slew of other pedals too. sounds awesome with my black cat fuzz. highly recommended

never had a problem. it has an optical switcher so no worries about the switcher going out. also it's called a "failure free true bypass" so if you're using a 9v battery, and the battery somehow dies on you, the pedal automatically goes to true bypass... this thing doesnt kill your tone.

very good... though the george is in the cech republic...
local support is great.
i dont think i'll ever really need much support for these pedals though.

i play mostly bluesy rock. this pedal is great that style, would work great for rythmn or lead tones. with humbuckers, you can get this thing to scream for heavier rock sounds. i've had a slew of other overdrives, ts-9, OD808, black cat OD-1, budda, hot cake, boogie, roger mayer, vox, etc... this thing replaces them on my pedalboard