George Dennis The Tube Overdrive/Distortion

I don't have a manual - no need really, unless you're a novice with dist' pedals.
Just wait for the LED to start flashing (tube warm up) b4 you plug a lead in, and then you're way.
Basic setup -
3-Band EQ
Drive pot
Level pot
"Boost/Drive level(?)" switch (not really a footswitch)
Volume pedal built in
LED on when engaged

Yamaga SG300 - Hughes and Kettner Tube Factor - Crybaby - 'The Tube' - EHX Wiggler - Musicman RP112 hybrid SS/Tube amp. Yamaha DG Stomp 4 Dly/Rvb in FX loop of amp.

PROS - Wicked EQ - VERY effective.
Very quiet.
Superb footswitch setup - silent, and no clunking, just "lean" on it!
Geniune tube overdrive - round, and fat, crunchy, very maliable with EQ.
Best feature - how well it "cleans up" - superb with volume roll-off on guitar, or
playing dynamics.

CONS - "Boost/Drive level" switch is a bit wierd - I just leave it on "high" and forget.
Possibly not enough level available with the level pot, depending on your
application. Works fine for my chain, but may be an issue, depending on where
you have the pedal placed/how much drive your using it for.... Just that there isn't
loads available, so could be a question... Difficult to say... sorry people!

No real signal degradation in bypass. Volume pedal is excellent - better than my "stand alone" one!!

Overdrive is SO subjective, so difficult to rate. I would give it a 9 but I like the timbre of the pedal a lot. Even so, I'd still give it a 7 irrespective of taste, 'cos the quality is high. So 8.

Well built. Chunky metal. Solid pedal. No backup - maybe spare tubes just in case.

No experience yet. Website seems good enough.

Session player - playing for over 15 years.
Quality pedal if you like tubey overdrive - volume pedal thrown in.
I recommend it and if you get a good price - all the better!
Just a quick thanks to everyone who makes the effort to review stuff - I've used Harmony a lot recently - it's a great help when buying stuff on eBay particularly - cheers.
Email me if you have any specific q's!!

Very easy to use. Plug it in and go. I take a point off because it requires a wall wart instead of a battery, but that's true of any "tube in a pedal" effects unit.

You get REAL tube distortion with this unit. No white noise like you get with SS pedals. VERY strong with lots of compression. It doesn't quack and fart like an Ibanez Tube King or other pedals based on low current "starved" voltages. The sound seems pretty heavy but doesn't clear up to "just breaking up" sweetness very well. You can get that better with a diode distortion pedal like a tube screameror true pre-amp pedal like a Mesa Boogie V-twin. I think it's a good sound for metal or punk but not for other styles like Rock-a-billy, pop-rock, or surf guitar etc....Too heavy. A pedal that it reminds me of a lot is a Mesa Boogie Bottle Rocket but with a little less finesse in the lower gain settings. Changing out the Ax7 tube to lower gain tubes doesn't help this situation either. Leave an AX7 in there.

Extremely well built. Thick metal case. Chech built. I've changed tubes in it a lot with no problems.

No experience here

If you play REALLY hard metal or lead guitar with high gain this is a great pedal. If you want a more subtle breakup this won't deliver that. The one sound it does have. Heavy distortion with compression, is nice though.

This is a pretty simple unit with a effective eq, (bass, mid, and treble), Drive, and Level controls. It has a Volume pedal for swells, and a Moderern/Vintage switch for stepping up the distortion level or bringing it down to a softer clip. Very easy to set up.
I do have a manual, but "real men don't need instructions" according to Tim the Tool Man Taylor, and I second that motion with this pedal.

First of all, this is a very quiet pedal, espescially for the drive that it pours out. Very attractive to me. It really is amazing how quiet it is. This pedal offers sort of a Rat distortion with the dynamic responses of a tube drive. I find that it works well with every pedal in my arsenal. Currently it is in this chain: Peavey Predator with EMG SA's, (or Robben Ford Fender/Gibson Les Paul Standard/69 Thinline MIJ RI w/ EMG's/or Zion Classic with Anderson pups), Carl Martin Compressor, WH-1 Whammy, TS 9 brown mod, George Dennis the TUBE, Boss MT 2 , Ibanex GE 10, Electroharmonix Mircro Synth, and a Chandler Digital Echo, into a Kalamazoo Reverb 12, and a Fender Champ Amp. These amps, are for my living room level. When I want more power, I'll plug into my Super Champ and Princeton II. MORE POWER? Fender Quad and Marshall JMP 100 watt head but I rarely do the latter. I really don't care to sound like everyone else, but I do like the heavier sounds to have violin like sustains, and with the compressor and the TUBE pedal feeding the digital echo, I get a beautifully balanced distorted signal.

I bought it used, and I've had it for over a year with no problems. Well I would use the Rat for a backup, or the Fulltone Pro Distortion, so what can I say. I always go with a back up.

My style is an amalgamation of Country, Soul, Rock, Prog Rock, Blues, Jazz and Gospel. For Distortion/Overdrive pedals, I use a Fulltone FD2, and Pro Distortion, Rat, TS9 w/brown mod, MT 2 (Boss), an Analogman/Boss DS-1,and a Black Ross Distortion. Every pedal has it's own signature sound, and the TUBE is no exception. The major bonus with this pedal, is the tube dynamics and built in volume pedal.

It's very easy to get a good sound. The controls are Drive and Level similar to pre and post, Hi, Mid and Low as a very good active equalizer. Two sound characters can be chosen with the Effect Mode switch whitch is too small and hard to use with the foot if you wearing shoes. A LED indicates if distiortion is on which can be switched with a switch at the volumepedal. When distortion is off the pedal works as volume pedal.

The manual doesn't say to much, but you don't need it.

On thing I don't like but you have to do is to wait with plugging in the cable inti the unit until the tube is warm.

My Setup: Patrick Eggle "New York" (Pickups changed from Kent Armstrong's to DiMarzio fast Track and Evolution) --> The Tube --> Cry Baby Wah Wah --> Peavey Classic 50

There's no noise with this unit.

But I have problem with it I've not fixed yet. Most times it sounds terrible like an cheap transistor amp. It seems like the tube brakes down very easy. Then it sounds a little bit muddy and less clear with distorted sounds but the crunch sound is really terrible in this case. I've changed the tube and it sounded great but the next time the old problem occured. I still hope to fix this problem. My rating for this category is only for the case it works right.

My sound is changed a little bit when only using it as volume unit compared to directly plugging it into the amp, but not in a bad way. That is okay with an actve unit. Someone has written, that it is an extra load on the guitar. This is not true. It is an modern active pedal and normally this active pedals reduces the load compared to plugging it directly into the amp. This is one reason why they change the sound because the changed load changes the resonant frequencey but you can do this with cables of different length and quality, too. One other reason are the harmonics the active electrical devices have.

Built very solid.

I wrote an email to George Dennis because the sound problem. I got a fast answer with tipps for my problem. We didn't find it and for repair the german ditributor is responsible. This is ok, but the distributor didn't answer my email! I will try it again. Maybe they didn't get it.

Most time I play worship like Delirious, Lothar Kosse, Brian Doerksen and others. I play for 7 years electric guitar. I wanted to use it for my crunch sounds and use the peavey for clean and distortion but at the moment I can't really use it.

It's not that hard to use; it's a distortion pedal!

As far as low to medium-gain OD's go, it's pretty good.

Built solidly.

There's one huge rpoblem with this pedal - the volume pedal can't be switched off. You may think "That's ok, just leave it tilted fully forward and it's the same difference", but it's not. The volume pedal acts as an extra load on your guitar signal. Plugged into my tube amps, it definitely has a slightly lower volume on bypass compared to a signal not running through the pedal. Sounds like you've rolled down the guitar's volume 1 or 2 points (lwoer volume and less treble).

Easy to use, press down to activate, press down again to deactivate, apart from that the wash like pedal acts as a volume pedal. You can change high medium and low individually as opposed to one tone contro, which is nice and makes it easy to get a huge variety of sounds. Effect mode switch would be better if easier to activate with foot.
Manual very limited but you don't really need it!

Btw the boss style adaptors won't fit, you'll prob need a universal adaptor or something (doesn't take batteries).

Godin Radiator/Godin Artisan TC --> Jim Dunlop Crybaby Wah --> The Tube Distprtion --> EHX Small Stone Phaser --> Peavey Bandit

Sounds great! Very little noise, a bit if on very high gain plus high on the 'high' equalizer setting.

Made of sturdy metal, no backup needed!

Never needed it

Excellent for rock music.
Been playing for 2 years or so, had a zoom 505 II and thins is sooooo much better. See my setup above. I would buy again if stolen, probably. Love the volume pedal feature, the versatility of tone you can get.

- easy to use; very flexible

- use with a Hiwatt combo
- no noise at all
- sweet, sweet distortion variable with onboard EQ (nicer than just the single tone control on many other units)

- built like bull-turkey
- gig without back-up; no problem

- ???

- this thing is for pop and rock
- been playing for 23 years and only use GD effects now
- if lost, would get another
- I love the tone but am worried about tube life
- used to have Fulldrive 2 -- GD unit is much warmer
- the boost switch should be able to be activated by foot -- it is awkwardly placed as it stands

If you are 6 or older, you could probably figure this one out.

Let me start by saying this.. I've been trying to find something I like better and I keep coming back to this pedal. I own or have owned Big Muffs, Ts 808's, Mesa Bottle Rocket, all the Boss stuff and the GD Tube still sounds the sweetest. This thing just flat out lets you dial in the sweetest distortion. This pedal is the opposite of harsh sounding. It can give you all the distortion you need without sounding like the generic metal tube ODs out today. I wanna buy a second one just to have in case this gets stolen or breaks..
A volume pedal is built right into the GD Tube but I never use it.

The power supply that come with the unit is a bit suspect, but I made a sturdy one on my own and that's the only forseeable problem with this baby.

Never dealt with them..

I play original Rock in the style of The Supersuckers, Fu Manchu, Queens of The Stone Age etc.. This pedal works very nicely with my Les Paul Custom, 100w Plexi & Mesa 4/12 cab. I have played for about 15 years now. If this thing had a headphone and a DI output I would marry it.

Very easy, to turn the effect on, you need just to touch the top of the legboard softly against the body of the pedal, red LED light will start to light as a indication of the pedal being in use. Effect mode I and II is provided by little finger switch which is unconfortable for leg, but after little training I was able to turn it and spred the sound varieties of this pedal. This shoul be solved by heavier switch on.

Controls: Lo, Mid, Hi, Gain, Effect Level, mode effect switch, I or II - softer or stronger distortion, main legboard working as volume pedal in all three modes of this effect [bypass, dist. I, dist. II]. Jacks: input, output, AC . Overdriving efect created by circuit including one ECC 83 i.e. 12AX7 tube.

Reliability: Unit does work reliably, all parts are realised in a heavy duty design. Because of being tube inside and it`s power consumption there is no battery space inside, unit is recomended to buy with original AC adaptor. The wire of this adaptor could be stronger and longer.

Customer support:I tryied to use this pedal as for guitar as for Fender Rhodes piano as for Hammond organ. For all these instruments we found very good sound varieties. Bypass doesn`t change the original instrument sound, both effect modes they do have very nice real overdrived sound which seemed to me as one of the best ones for blues. These`s no time spent between the switch on of the effect and the start of proper sound in any effect mode. The Tube is very good overdrive for classical tube amp [I tryied it with AC 30, Silverface/ Fender TFL 5500 Bandmaster and Marshall 800] and works with Gibson Les Paul as with Telecaster very well

I play blues and rock. Iplay since 12 years old, I`m 30 years old now. I do own V-twin too. Yes, I would buy it again. I do love the sound which is very nice an trustable, without any chemistry and any bigger noise. Very good price for very good sound.