Marshall GV-2 Guv'nor Plus

Getting a good sound out of it is easy. The pedal is pretty much straightforward device. What you see is what you get...gain, eq (bass, mids, treble) and volume. With this great thing called "Deep" pot (it was one of the reasons why I bought the pedal after being through bunch of reviews - it adds the deep stage-moving resonance).

I opened the manual once, just to see what's in it. There is a number of presets shown which could be a good starting point for getting your sound out of this pedal.

The only thing which I don't like is the access to battery compartment but if you're using power adapter it wouldn't be a problem...I mean, it ain't that big kind of trouble, it can just be annoying getting to the pedal's guts - that's all.

Actually, I'm writing this review because I just came back from a gig with GV-2. It was a sort of jump in the fire considering that I didn't care to try that pedal before the gig. I bought it two days ago...just based on Harmony Central reviews. I have been through every Boss OD, distortion pedal, modified Boss pedals, this and that, trying to nail as close as possible that Marshall sound...so it was an impulse buy. Eventually I was planning to finally settle on Fulltone's Fulldrive 2 but when I saw the price tag and reviews for GV-2, I decided to give it a shot.

So, back to the story - the amp which was set up on my stage place was the ugliest little piece of no-name device (It was little gig for friends mainly so I (again) didn't bother to bring my amp) and the first thought upon seeing that thing was "If this pedal gets halfway through what I read in reviews - it's going to be great. I plugged it in (pedal pots on 12 o'clock) and that was it! The Marshall sound!! After 36 seconds fiddling with pots on the pedal my sound was there, fat creamy overdrive with a bit of grit without hiss and noise. Mouthwatering bliss. I was stunned.

So, if you're looking for the JCM800 sound out of the pedalboard, this is the thing! If it behaved great on the above mentioned unknown amp, imagine it on the better amp. Another important aspect is that the pedal responds dynamically to your playing, from huge sounds of power chords to subtle overdrive on quiet passages...just depending on your picking dynamics. "Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee." (to quote the Great One). Overall, it kinda acts like a boutique pedal, plays along with you, and looks great on your board as well.

So now my pedalboard goes like this: VOX wah>EHX Small Stone>Marshall GV-2>Boss GE-7 Equalizer (used as solo booster). Guitar which I used was my Epiphone Crestwood. Now I just can't wait to try it with my SG, being much more darker sounding guitar than Epi it will be fun to hear the outcome.

Oh yes...works great with other pedals, wah and phaser go like butter through Guvn'or...and don't forget - this pedal will cover anything from blues to hard rock. Metalheads - run to the hills! You'll need something more aggressive (supposedly Marshall Jackhammer). If you're into grunge I believe you will love it (primarily because of the "Deep" pot). Blues, blues rock folks - go and get it! NOW!

After the gig, my band mates were talking about my new marshall-y genuinely natural rock sound. Complements nicely with the sound of the other guitar player who prefers to be on the "cutting sharp" timbre (Strat and DS-2 - imagine). I personally like that fat, thick layer of overdrive (and GV-2 delivers) which during solo (with the little help of my EQ) transforms into a bit louder and sharper sound.

It is built like a monster, heavy like a brick. Despite its "gold" pots and curved edges it ain't no toy and I definitely believe it is a trustworthy, dependable sidekick on gigs and on the road.

I got used to being betrayed on stage by pedals in most awkward moments but I don't expect it to happen with this one. Rock solid, simple construction - the only thing which could go wrong on stage with this pedal is if it magically self-combusts and evaporates. Other than that, I don't think even a straight blow with the hammer would kill it.

I would gig without a backup, definitely. Just feed it with electricity and off you go! You've got your own cranked up JCM in the stombpox.

Haven't dealt with Marshall people. Don't know, but they must be wonderful people because they supply us mortals with gadgets like this.

I'm somewhere between the blues, MC5, The Black Crowes, Stooges and The Rolling Stones. This is a Rock'n'Roll pedal and it covers that ground great. I've been through many of them and this is probably the best stompbox out there considering the price tag and overall quality.

It definitely stays with me, no matter what. Little overlooked gem it is. If it were stolen...well for this price I don't believe anyone would steal it. Why? Because it's a steal already when you pay for it in the store. I would definitely buy another one or eventually in that situation (staying without overdrive) buy Fulldrive, that's the only thing which can replace Guv'nor on my pedalboard. Before that I would find the guy who stole it and use the pedal on him (it is built like a brick I told you already).

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...