Guyatone OD-2

Two knobs, one for "leval" and one for "drive".

Obviously it's no high end Zvex or Fulltone. But for ??50, it???s the best in its price range. I played through Marshall, Ibanez, Boss, Rat, Digitech (to name a few) and came across this little orange box in Music Ground. I tried it through a Hiwatt Custom 50 with a wonderful Les Paul for about 10/15 minuets. It was clearly the best of the bunch IMO. Unlike the others, it was far more transparent and didn???t "coulor" the natural sound of the guitar or amp. With level on max and the drive on the minimum setting it???s a great to get the higher volume crunchy tones and bedroom levels, I use this setting the most. This why I was searching for and overdrive.

As you increase the drive from the minimum level, the sound does get compressed and it does make excess noise. This is why I???m giving it a 7. Though noise is expected.................

I'm playing a Japanese Tokai Les Paul with coil taps, Gordon Smith Gypsy 2 with p-94???s. These go through a few effects and into either an Epiphone VJ head or an Orange Rocker 30 combo (currently out of action :-( ) into a Vintage 30. I'm yet to try it with the Orange but it does sound great with the VJ. With the volume at 9:00 (clean and crisp) and I kick in the OD2 I get the same sound as if it was at 12:00 (crunchy and it puts a smile on my face).

I???ve only had it a few days so cant rate it properly. Metal housing, decent feeling footswitch. Time and use will tell.

I hope I don???t have to find out.

I play guitar, blues and rock influence my style of playing. My favorite bands at the moment are Wishbone Ash and The Who. My setup is written in the sound section. If it were stolen I would definitely buy another, but if I had more cash, I would problem look for something else. It is a GREAT pedal. I love its transparency and ability to give me higher volume tones at bedroom levels. It???s a shame about the noise it adds and ???compression??? when you turn the drive up. It looks and feels reliable. I like the fact if doesn???t have a tone knob, it does exactly what it says on the tin. If you???re 70 or 17 and on a tight budget (like me), this is the thing you want.

Very easy to use. The manual is minimal, but so are the options. I think a hatch for the battery access would have been easier, so I'll give it a nine.

I'm using a PRS Santana SE (old version), MIJ Fender Strat '86, Xaviere LP-type, DeArmond M-75T, and others through both a Peavey Audition 110 for small stuff and a Mesa-Boogie Mark I from '78.
With any combination, this pedal is a no-nonsense rock/blues box. The tones are raw and crackling with energy, not like a Marshall smooth sound at all. It's unique; no one else will sound quite like you on stage. I heartily reccommend it to people who love good old classic rock and blues, but want a sound all their own. I suppose I could sound close to my heros, but who wants to hear my second-rate version of their sound? Instead, this gives me a sound from which I can create my own musical identity.
It's quiet; more quiet than any other pedal I've tried.
I don't know why people gripe that this can't overdrive enough; with my PRS and other 'bucker quitars, this thing really growls. No death metal, but a good Angus Young type scream.

Looks tough, but the O-ring on the bottom: not cool, Guyatone. But other than that, it's a tank.

I've been playing for a long time, some semi-pro, mostly just for fun. I play blues/rock/occasional jazz/occasional punk. I feel that Keith Richards, Tony Iommi, early Clapton, and David Gilmour have the best tones in the world, and this pedal helps me get in that neighborhood, but in my own way. It makes me sad that some guitarists feel that they need to play exactly like their heros; where's the fun in that? If I wanted to hear SRV, Jimi, or any of the other greats, I'd invent myself a time machine and go watch them play. I'd like to hear something new from every guitarist out there, and this pedal IS something new. A classic, yet modern, sound. I really reccommend it to all the lovers of good RAWK n' ROLL!

Easy as can be. Only two knobs clearly labeled and a footswitch.

No.
The 'smoothness' of this pedal reminds me of the smoothness of white noise on a TV with no channel on. This is not how my tube amps sound overdriven, no way. Maybe the effect is different with solid state amps but there's no comparison with tubes.
I mod and sell TS9s all the time and this one does have some of the honking mid sound of the TS9 and it does have more bass, but it does not have the breakup that even a TS9 has. And a TS9 doesn't even have a good breakup compared to a real amp.
The lack of a tone control is a bad move because the pedal dampened my signal big time. I tested with a P90 Les Paul and my high end was lost in this pedal somewhere.
Very, very disappointed. See below for why and remedy.

Sturdy enough for me. Like all these micro pedals, be very careful if you go poking around inside to see what's what (I didn't on this pedal because it wasn't going to be worth effort) that you look and remember where the little wires connect because they will break loose for no reason it seems.

NA

I play blues and old style rock. Overdrive is what I like and I like to have only the barest hint available when I want it. I have distortion boxes for when I want a heavier sound. So I like hitting notes and having them sound pretty clean until I hit them harder. I like doublestops or chords to have some grind to them but not distortion. I don't like the OD-2.
I was disappointed because another of these micro pedals has a great, great overdrive that sounds very much like my tubes breaking up. It has a ragged, random sized crackle to it that the 'smooth' OD-2 (and the TS9) don't have. It sounds real. Really organic, not plastic. It is what I thought this OD-2 was going to be a better version of. It's the VT-3 Vintage Tremolo pedal if you can believe that.
The VT-3 has a great underlying overdrive to it that gives its tremolo effect the illusion of coming from a tube amp. That's the sound I'm lookin for Guyatone! If you set Intensity and Speed both to zero you get a wonderfully gritty, just barely there but powerful, tube sounding overdrive. But that pedal has too much of a volume boost built in and there is too much treble built in as well.
So, you can mod it. There's a resistor to change to fix the volume boost and a capacitor to add to equal the tone of your incoming signal. I ditched the tremolo portion of the pedal and reused the Intensity and Speed controls as an overdrive Level and Tone controls. Simply awesome.

A monkey can figure this out.

This is one of the best overdrives out there...maybe the best when you compare price and the fact that it takes little space on your pedal board. It actually reproduces the effect that you would get overdriving your tube amp. It's smooth and has great low end. Those who complain that it does not have enough gain should be looking at distortion pedals not overdrives.

Yes, to say that these are not built well is rubbish. Unless you are an elephant or that you abuse your equipment, these are built well enough. You can't argue with the size...it's the best part!

They actually sent me a folder with all of their products and stuff. other than that no contact.

I have owned this pedal for a few years and I am extremely happy with it. It has been a real main-stay in my effects board. Grate for blues and great for a little boost in gain as well. It will make your solid state amp sound more tubey and make your tube amp drive into heaven.

Just a comment...some people here are claiming the OD-2 has true bypass. Well, it does not. It, as well as the rest of the Micro Effects series, has "FET silent switching," as per Guyatone's own brochure, which I have right in front of me. See http://www.guyatone.com/microeffects/index.html and http://www.guyatone.com/reviews/ps_micromonsters.html.

Bought mine second-hand (maybe third-hand?) so there was no manual, but if you've managed to operate this here computer that you're tappin' on, than you'll have no problem with this pedal. People complain about the rubber ring to change, but I haven't had any problems with it. There's only a voulume and gain, so it's obviously pretty basic.

I realy like the gain that it gives. I don't use much, just enough to dirty up a strat tone or to beef up a humbucker. The only thing that I don't care for is that I find it takes away some of my low end, but that can taken care of by my amp setting easy enough.

Seems pretty well made, and I toss it around pretty good.

N/A

I really like this pedal. When I first saw it, I thought it was kind of too small to be taken seriously, but I liked the tone immediately. I've tried a lot of different distortion/overdrive type of effects in my 25+ years of banging, and this is definately a keeper.

This pedal is about as simple as it gets - two controls, one for volume and one for overdrive level. Very easy to control the range of sounds.

I run a Strat into this pedal, then to a Tube Works Tube OD pedal (for a higher level of distortion), then to a small amp. Usually, it's just this pedal and my amp - the amp's gain is fairly bad sounding, so i just leave it clean and use this pedal to add some grit. It provides a perfect bluesy overdrive, I can roll off the volume to clean it up for jazzier tones. I can get a Stones-y crunch to an SRV-type sound with no problems. I guess a tone control would be nice, but then again it's just something else to deal with. I'll give it a 9.

Owned it for a few years, and haven't had a single problem with it. I use a 9-volt adapter, some people have complained that the rubber casing is hard to get back on when changing batteries. It's travelled with me, moved houses in the back of a truck, and had just about everything spilled on it... still works great. I'll give it an 8, for the battery thing.

Never dealt with them, never had to. Hopefully won't need to.

I play mostly blues based music, as well as a little jazz and country. This works perfect, it adds a little bite to my jazz tones, and has a smooth overdrive for the blues sounds. If it were lost, I'd buy it in a heartbeat, it's the secret of my tone. I compared it to a Tubescreamer, some multi-effects, and a Big Muff Pi, and this one had the sound I was looking for. I leave it on almost all the time, it just lets my guitar come through nicely. Buy one.

simple pedal, extremely easy!

I hate reading through everyone's pedal/amp setup, I just want to know if the pedal sucks...this one doesn't! I use it primarily for just a little bit of dirt in solos. I hate distortion, but love tasteful overdrive. This pedal is the answer. My one and only gripe is that it doesn't have tone control.

I have owned it for two months, and it has not let me down. I do use it with a backup Ibanez TS5(an unbelievable pedal), but only because the Guyatone is brand new.

I have not required support.

I play mostly funk and jazz and I hate annoying overdrive or distortion. I do like a little overdrive for solos and this pedal gives me exactly what I want. You can get a lot out of this pedal if you want though. Like I said the only thing it could use is a tone knob. I love the size of Guyatone pedals, they are so cool!

Couldn't be easier to use.

Using this with a strat (s-s-s) and Epiphone (hum/hum) hollowbody. Both sound excellent through this pedal. Not particularly noisy for an overdrive pedal. Sounds great. Very nice overdrive tones, can get some ballsy distortion sounds too (too much for me - i prefer the lower drive levels). Not muddy and you can hear all then notes without too much break up.

no worries here.

no experience with customer support yet.

Excellent Overdrive. I like it better than the Boss OD pedals i've tried, and better than the MXR distortion + that i also own.

Easy to use - absolutely - just two knobs - Level and drive.
Think of it as another channel on your amp, for me it works that way.
Who needs an extra tone pot anyway, not me, not with this little OD anyway.

Very nice, transparent. I am able to acheive a nice overdriven tube sound that stays clean and varies with your attack on the strings (which is what I was looking for). It is great for lower volume practice, it enables you to get that cranked up sound w/o the volume. I'm using it with a Pignose Hog 20 and an Ampeg Super Jet, it seem to work well with both amps. Guitars with Humbuckers you have to play with your volume pots a bit, otherwise it will overdrive too much too soon,
but once you dial it in, it sounds great. Single coil guitars you can run full out with your guitars volume pots and it sounds just right.
This unit is also very quiet, so it sounds very natural.

Seems solidly built, I like it's smaller size, plus I think it is preety easy on batteries.

I had to contact Godlyke because I destroyed the first one I had with an external power supply (that should have worked). Let me say this, these guys are responsive either by phone or E-mail, just a great company to deal with, along with a great product (what a concept).

Bang for the buck, this one has it. I know I lot of people end up buying many many overdrive pedals in search for that elusive sound. Me I'm just happy I tried one of these little orange Guyatones first, I feel like I save both time and money. It just does for me what I expected it to do. I won't argue with anybody that spent big bucks on a higher end pedal, if the are happy that's cool. But I'd like them to try one of these I bet they be surprised.