Marshall GV-2 Guv'nor Plus

Concentric pots mean more control in a smaller space.You will get used to them quickly.Strangely dual gangs can be moved quite intuitively with one hand after a while.The controls behave like an amp but with more range.Good stuff.Be MINDFUL of the gain ;small movement = noticable change.In truth this is as much to do with the small diameter knobs 'high geared turning ratio'...oh...you know what I mean.

JCM 800/900 in a box...honest i have the 50w 900 combo...but you can achieve the same impression of authority at lower volume.Drive a single ended Champ alike amp(EL84 or 6v6 circuit) just on the edge of break up with the Guv and you will NOT get any better for real recording at around 6 watts.YOU are not STUCK with ONE sound..we can have Mesa weight or Fender stinging Bassman blues.Incredibly versatile.

Rock solid.No noise issues.

No need to use them

This is a first class device.Superb value.

Its been a great pedal for 3 years,Listen -you have to play it through a clean or semi overdriven amp to get the sound you want, it is not a super distortion pedal, it will crunch your rhythms, and sing your leads, i have a digitech Bad monkey in front of the guv'nor, and play thru an Orange AD-15, with a 2-12 purple vintage 30 bottom, its woman tone baby!

I use George L's for patch cables, and Monster rock guitar cables, and all my guitars are shielded, absoutely No hum or buzz, period, amps , a Orange Ad-15, Reverend Goblin 5/15, Roland BC-60 Blues Cube, 1964 Gibson Skylark, Epi Vj head, 2 cube 30's, and a Vox pathfinder, guess thats it, I play pro, dumped all the loud amps, im 53, been playing 41 years, fave artists Clapton, Alvin Lee, Ronnie Montrose, Johnny Winter, i still piss off the bar owners, the first 3 amps i put up they do not make anymore,I have a 91 Les Paul(RIP LES) a 2000 G@l asat classic semi-hollow, a Reverend Slingshot custom smoked chrome with 3-P-90's, and a Ibanez RT-450 With a real cool TV Jones Classic plus pick-up on the bridge, and i can play 'em all and quite well thank you(:

Yes i can depend on it, i'm 6foot6 and weigh 320 pounds, i always bring back-up amps, and i have a solid pedal board, Bad Monkey-Guvnor-Aphex Guitar exciter-on all the time, Dan-Echo-on slapback all the time, and a Boss Super shifter mostly for 12 string sounds, it works for me, the longer ya play the more you know, trust me yunguns(;

No

i've done it all, i like to rock up older music, and watch the look on the young kids faces, they crap their panties-41 years-started with a Sears Silvertone electric guitar Christmas 1968, never looked back, owned so many amps and guitars i could start a music store, as i said play the Guv through a clean or semi-drivin amp--if you put it up against your amps distortion, it sucks, man you dont need all the fuzzy crap, i never took a lesson, but i listened, and i am well known, and play a very fiery axe, Hot Bluesy, and quick, keep it movin brothers and sisters!

one thing worth mentioning here is that I noticed that the EQ knobs almost respond like the marshall tube amp would, so don't be afraid to use extreme settings here such as completely cutting or boosting the high, bass etc.

If you're looking for a marshall sound, this is a 10 but if you're looking for anything else, do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. I love this Pedal but to me it seems like it's a one trick pony (which is not a bad thing at all). The marshall sound to a large degree is the definitive sound of hard rock and some early metal also. I noticed some early reviewers hated what they called the layer of fizz on top of the sound that they couldn't deal with! Well those who like the marshall sound call that hair, so it sounds hairy! That's a good thing for sure.
This pedal tends to warm the sound siginficantly which could be good or bad, so for clean overdrive this pedal won't compare with any decent overdrive pedals as it doesn't have any sparkle (if used for clean overdrive. For heavy drive this pedal is magnificent but don't go past 7 or eight on the drive knob as it seems that you would be adding more noise than anythig else.

A very important thing to note here: when the pedal is baypassed it still colors the sound significantly which means it will mellow out your high frequencies significantly, but let's face it, in hard rock there really is no need for crystal clear sound.
In a nut shell if you don't like to play marshall amps, you want like this pedal. This pedal doesn't do clean overdrive; its usable range of sound is from dirty marshall overdrive to heavy saturated hairy distortion when used with an amp that's breaking up.

Seems solid so far

Don't know

The way marshall marketed this pedal as capable of heaviest distortions known to man etc is misleading. This pedal will give you a thick overdrive/distortion and will push your amp over the edge. If you want a verstile overdrive look elsewhere. don't buy this to get SRV or Buddy guy sound. Make no mistake about it though, this pedal does one thing extremely well. It gives you the marshall tube distortion sound. If you want a convincing marshall hard and heavy distoration sound but don't want to buy an amp, this is your ticket!

Six knobs to tweak. Pretty easy to find what you're looking for once you've played with it a while. The bass knob is overkill, and gets muddy fast. I keep it dialed back about 10:00. The deep knob helps fill in the tone nicely, making up for the fact that the overbearing bass must be dialed back. Plenty of mids on tap. Treble needs to be cranked.

I just spent that past few hours comparing this pedal to the dirty channel of the Slash signature Marshall at loud jammin volume. It gets close. Real close. The pedal is a little muddy in the lower mids and a bit harsh on the top end. It doesn't get that sweet, hollow sound of the real tube distortion. But it gets very close. Absolutely nobody would be able to tell in a live situation. That was using the pedal through the clean channel of the Slash head. The tone becomes somewhat fizzy when played through my 65 blackface Fender Dual Showman, using the same 4x12 cab as when testing the Slash head. Some tweaking of the knobs after changing amps got me back in the ballpark, enough that the Slash head is up for sale. This pedal is that close.

no issues, but i haven't played it out or do any regular gigging anymore.

dunno

I have to say, this is probably the best distortion pedal I've used to capture Marshall tone. It gets a person in the ballpark with non-Marshall amps, and allows a person to get Marshall distortion through a Marshall amp at lower volumes. This pedal is a no-brainer if you're looking for Marshall tone in a box. Better that Rat, Keeley DS-1, Dano Fabtone. Great value for the money.

okay people, i've read lots of reviews here saying 'stacked pots are hard to use', or, 'there's too many controls.' these people are morons. the ultimate sound is one you find by tweaking that lets you be you. itis easy to find the sound in your head (as long as it's a marshall rock sound). just centre in on the sound and it's there.

i also read reviews saying stuff like, 'i play a (insert name of crap cheap guitar here) through (insert name of cheap generic multi fx etc) into a (insert name of cheap, crappy amp)', or 'this doesn't do metal' and 'the deep is too muddy'.
if you play through rubbish guitars and amps, any pedal will sound awful. if you play this through a decent guitar and a nice tube amp or pretty much any marshall, it'll sound killer.
if you want to do metal, buy a bloody metal distortion, not a heavy rock overdrive! marshall have never been about metal, they got famous doing rock, and they're bloody good at it!
as for the muddy deep knob, some amps and effects sound good at bedroom volume but really nasal when competeing with drums and a band. the deep can counteract this. plus, just because you don't happen to want a darker, sludgier tone doesn't mean no one will. i can't believe people are marking down for having extra versatility of sound and tone!
as it is, this is a quality, rich marshall sounding od that gets into mid distortion range and reacts well with a good set up whilst being pretty tight and controllable. if you have nice equipment, this pedal will repay you and let you save money compared to some over priced boutique effects, and take it from me, after trying 30-40 od - distortions in the last year ranging from cheap to quite expensive, this is a good one for a good price.

these things are built to last. there can be an issue with batteries - i don't know if it's just mine, but if you have a battery in and choose to use an adaptor, if the battery dies, it doesn't work even with the adaptor in. i have to remove the battery to get the adaptor to power it, but that's not a problem cos i rarely use batteries.

no idea

it's a good workhorse of a sound and a decent pedal to have in your arsenal. in front of a clean amp it's works well, if you hang back a bit on the gain it's good used with an amp with a bit of overdrive, it likes good equipment, loves marshall amps and is dead cheap.
also, if you don't have a lot of experience of effects, don't go leaving rubbish reviews for something you don't understand because this doesn't deserve bad reviews, it's great.

the double potis are a bit tricky first, but after some minutes I have the sound i want.

Strat, Paula, Tele over a Engl screamer + 1x12 V 30 cab or original 69 Plexi with a 4x12 Greenback cap.
Holy Grail - Digidelay ( old ) - Visual Sound Route 808 - Marshall Guvner - Crybaby Fasel - Korg Bitchblack.
I love the "old school" sound I can get with the Guvner. That is the true sound. Yes I love it ! The Plexi alone with anything up sounds unbelivable pure amazing, that can only get a 10. But I dont play in Football Arenas so at a normal Gig volumen I need some Stompboxes, ( its a 100 Watt Plexi and I dont give a **** put two valves out ).
So the Guvnor is a good 8.
Hes fat, crunchy, punchy without noize or to "steril" compression, I cant belive it sometimes how great this cheap little bastard is.
I play something influenced from; Hendrix, Slash, Aerosmith, Soundgarden, AIC, Pearl Jam, Metallica. And the Guvnor works for that sound.

Have it since 4 years without any Problem.

?

Yes I buy another the next days just for a backup.
I compared it to my other "Overdrives" that are gone on ebay like :
Maxon Od9, Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde, Boss OD3, Fultone 69, etc.
And for 59 bucks the Guvnor beats them all. 9 Points.
I play since 15 years, have experience in Studio and Live situations.
The only situation it dont works is a s a booster.
No, It dont helps my spirit, its just a tool.

Not that easy to use difficult to see and make minor adjustments mid gig due to fiddly double adjustment knobs adjustment knobs. Manual is pretty good but you have to get your set up right before the gig or just fiddle in the break

I use a Blade Strat and A Gibson Les Paul through a Marshall 40w JCM 2000 DSL 401. Using the pedal its been difficult to get exactly the right sound i want as it always appears too muddy and no crunch. Ive tried to adjust to suit but ive just got an average sound at the mo. I also use the Bluesbreaker pedal which is actually quite good but not heavy enough distortion wise. All in all i was alittle dissapointed.

I dont know why but i dont trust these pedals at all. Ive done a few gigs with pedalboard full of 6 marshall pedals and theyve let me down three times. Once they all just switched off for some reason and after the gig decided to work even though the power supply was ok. Also the reenerater pedal decided to stop working at practice the other night. I removed it from the pedal board and opened it up with no visible faults. Plugged it back in and it worked. Weird! As my mate uses Digitec and Boss his set up never lets him down maybe thats a lesson for me.

I did e-mail Marshall once with a question and they did get back to me within three days. I think thats exceptable.

I play in a covers band and we do generally cover a wide variety of different songs i.e blues, rock, indie etc. I do use the pedal every gig but if it broke i certainly wouldnt buy another and would go for a boss next.

The pedal has a gain, deep, bass, mid, treble, and volume knob. Easy enough to adjust those to your liking. They are a bit close together, so you've got to watch you don't move other knobs when adjusting one. If you know what you want, it shouldn't take long to find that sound. If not, you may be fiddling around for a bit before you find it. Once you find that sound, it's more than likely going to be good. This pedal runs off of either a 9V or a 9V barrel adaptor. The manual that came with this had a description of what each knob did and a list of suggested settings.

I use this with a Washburn X-50 Pro Q, a Peavey Predator Plus EXP with a GFS Power Rails in the bridge, and an Agile Ghost III with a Power Rails in the bridge. All those go into a Vox Pathfinder 15R.

All the controls work well in terms of having an effect on the incoming sound. Gain knob can go from a blues style crunch to screaming metal. The gain is never muddy unless you have the deep on. The deep control really flattens and eats up your bass and mids. Does mud up the tone a good bit. I tried to get it to work without those side effects, but in truth it's better to just leave the deep at 0 and the pedal will sound great. The bass, mid, and treble controls all work well with each other. You know what those do to the tone and they act just like any other eq's, nothing special.

Pretty much, with the right settings and a good set of peikups, this pedal should be able to cover anything. From AC/DC crunch, to Van Halen, to ZZ Top, to Dethklok distortion, it's all in there.

It's never given me any problems. The switch feels a bit so so, but no problems as of yet with it. The knobs are all smooth when turned. The pedal is made out of metal. As long as your not smashing it off of concrete, it'll last you.

As of now, I have no backup pedals. So I've had to play without backups to this but I've never worried about it.

Never dealt with customer service. If something were to go wrong with it, I'd just fix it myself. Unless the case cracked in half or something.

I play old school metal and rock. This pedal matches perfectly for me because it does what I want and sounds good doing it. I listed what I've got up there and as for how long I've been playing, I don't remember. I really am considering buying 2 more so I can have one for each guitar, since I use different ones for different styles. If it were stolen, yeah, I'd buy another no question.

I really love how it sounds, really captures that JCM 800 sound while keeping your amps own character intact. I just don't like the deep control. It's just no good for the tone. I looked at some Rat pedals when figuring out what to buy. I got this based on price and reviews. It's got all the features I could want in a pedal. Definately is a key part in my music. It sounds good, so it makes me want to play.

Very easy to get a great sound out of this pedal. Great sound with my marshall jcm 900 and 4-12 cabinet !! Real Marshall Distortion~

I play a deluxe Strat, a Tele (Am. Stnd), and a Les Paul. The Tele and Strat zing like screaming women. On the bassy pickup settings, and with a little bass boost from the unit, the Tele can sound like a Strat. Left alone, though, you get a Telecaster sound like no other. Especially in the mid switch position. No bumble bee fuzz, but a nice clean and decisive crunch.

The tone controls on the Guv'nor (stupid name, mate) are very sensitive and well done (and deceptively sophisticated). This is Brit technology at its best. The Les Paul, wonderful entity that it is, praise be to Gibson, goes way over the top with this thing. What a sound! It really has that old Marshall crunch and thump.

Fender Deluxe (Ash) ==> BOSS TU-2 ==> Ibanez TS-9 ==> Marshall GV-2 ==> BOSS DD-3 ==> Marshall JCM 2000 DSL 100

This is one tough pedal. Very Heavy. All metal constrution.

Never had any trouble with Marshall products~!!

This is as close as anything I know to a "Marshall-in-a-box", not more or less... there are even less op-amps in this thing than in a JCM900 "tube"-amp. Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Whitesnake, AC/DC, Badlands etc...

The Guv'nor GV-2 Plus has 4 knobs; Gain, Bass + Deep, Treble + Mid, and Volume. It was pretty easy to get a good sound pretty quickly out of it, about 10 minutes of fiddling and I had my preffered sound. I bought mine second hand so there was no manual, but I've been playing for around 13 years so it wasn't an issue not having a manual. The positioning of the knobs wasn't that great, the words are at the top of the knob which makes it harder to read due to the angle the pedal is viewed at while standing. They (the knobs) are spaced quite close together too, not good for big-ish fingers.

My version has been modded by Dextermods in New Zealand, so the sound is different than the stock gv-2..the high mids have been refined, and the deep/bass is clearer than before (a common complaint with this pedal). Also the clipping section has been changed for more dynamics, and a bright blue led has been added. I had a Keeley modded DS-1, got sick of the 80's tone it had, and after much research got this...waaaay better in my opinion. It really does sound like a cranked stack, it's the kind of overdrive you just want to hear more and more of. I'm running an Atlas custom w/slash alnico 2 pro p/ups - dimewah - G2D morphous - Guv'nor 2+ - Keeley modded TS9 - boss TU-2 tuner - Fender Hotrod Deluxe, and it sounds fantastic and crucnchy, the quality is good. I want to get the treble adjusted though, for some more sparkle, however i'm getting that with the morphous too, i think it may be my slash pickups, dunno. Can go from bluesy breakup to Alice in Chains-ish grind.

Very solid metal housing. The switch is dodgey (another common complaint with these), i'm gonna get a true bypass with a better quality switch installed in it. The knobs are on a lower shelf which is good, it means you can't really stand on and break them. However the knobs themselves are gold w/black position markings, not good for visability. The blue led is way too bright (no fault of marshalls; that's part of the mod) so i'm gonna get that changed so I can actually look at the knobs.

Never dealt with them, and anyway if I ever have a prob with a pedal, I just take it back to Beggs musicworks in Nelson, nz (if i've bought it new). However I did look at their site, which had some great samples to listen to, I think that counts as, what, pre-support? :) I better no-opinion this one though.

Sounds great, if you buy the stock just get some mods done and replace the stock switch and your away laughing!