Labsystems Duodrive

Easy to use - hard to get a bad sound, but playing with the two drives can give quite a lot of variation to your tone. Pre gain gives you that fizzy distortion that most pedals have, so I keep it as low as I can until I get enough top end. It' the overdrive gain that gives you the grunt. And two completely independent level knobs is a great idea! Level one is a real marshally rhythm type tone, whereas level two is fatter and more tubescreamerish. You can have either one louder or softer.

I use it with a P90 Les Paul, Strats, Teles, etc. Through Marshalls it can fatten and add "howl", and thru Fenders it can add bite and sustain. It's pretty quiet, and has a transparency that a lot of other pedals don't have. It's not a clean boost, but it sounds better on a clean amp than a Fulldrive or a Tubescreamer. In fact it sounds better on a clean amp than any other SS pedal I've heard (which is a lot!).

It also sounds great with an already OD amp - like a TS with more bottom end and less crap in the top-end. It really does sound quite natural. Gain is very smooth, but it doesn't have to sound as compessed as lots of pedals do.

The only quibble I have is with the cheap switches. I changed 'em for Carlings and they should come with them as standard. It's as good as a pedal can be, so deserves them. Plus it looks very cool!

Found them VERY helpful and friendly. Unfortunately I live about 3000km on the other side of Australia from them, so I changed the switches myself. Very nice people, and good on 'em for coming up with a world class pedal!

I have compared this pedal with Fulldrive 2, Ibz Tube screamers, Fulltone fatboost and 70 pedals, Boss blues Driver ( another good 'un!), oh heaps! One of the best for blues and rock. It can go from pretty light jangley bite to hardcore rock. It's one of the few OD pedals that I've kept!

It looks cool, sounds great, and is very versatile. Just wish they'd put better switches in it! It works with all my amps - Marshall, Fender and Matchless. Doesn't favour HB over s/c or whatever. Terrific pedal. Deserves to be far more famous than it will be!

The Duodrive pedal makes it a piece of cake to dial in a great sound. Its got two channels with independant volume controls - I use the 2nd one as a boost, and its a 'big' sound. The first one makes an awesome rhythm sound.

Its got two gain controls, and I'm still playing with these to get new sounds. (They've all sounded pretty cool) They could both be used independantly, but mixing them gives some great results. It doesn't take long to get a good sound, but it might take you a while to get the one you're looking for...

I've tried using it two ways - with the amp running pretty clean, and with the amp running dirty. It works both ways nicely, with the saturation on top of the (relatively low gain) cranked head giving heaps more grunt and the filter is a nice smooth way of getting the edge you want.

The best result was running the Marshall PRE on about 5-6, and cranking the master a bit more. Kick the pedal in front of that and WOW.. its awesome. Using the first channel gives a really crunchy and sweet rhythm sound and the second channel gives a massive boost that really cuts through.

Best thing I've found over other pedals I've tried is that it still sounds like my amp - its still nice and touchy, got nice edge without being harsh, and doesn't loose lots of bass when you kick it in.

I use this pedal running in front of an old Marshall JMP. I've got a Gibson Deluxe with P-90's and a 1960 Les Paul Junior (SG) with a P-90 in it. The amp itself sounds great. But being a single channel, it doesn't give you that many options. So I was looking for a complementary pedal.

It basically lets me make my old Marshall sound closer to the high gain Marshalls

The bypass is awesome too - true bypass.

I've been using it live for over a year and haven't had any problems with it whatsoever. I use it about 10-12 hours a week and the batteries (good ones) last me around 3 months.

Labsystems are a great company to deal with - service and advice is great.. mind you, I've never had to take any of THEIR products back there .. only other company's .. ;) A fellow musician plays a Labsystems 400B bass head, and they offer great regular servicing on it too.

I play rock of different sorts, and I've been playing for nearly 10 years. I pretty much have a simple sound (no effects apart from this sucker). I've used an EQ, DS-1, Marshall Guv'ner and Drive Master and never got close to this sound - I'd get another one (although I'm looking at getting a Labsystems Cage amp so I might not need it with that).

I like the look of the pedal (funky), and if there was anything I could change I would like for the channel selector light to stay on even when you have the effect off - but thats just cos I'm lazy and can't remember what channel I was using last.