Marshall GV-2 Guv'nor Plus

Straightforward pedal, has Gain, Lows, Deep, Mids, Highs, and Volume controls. All controls are very responsive. My only complaint about this pedal is that the controls are difficult to read and the knobs are a little crowded, therefore I rate this 8 out of 10.

I don't know if this pedal is for everybody, but if you love that classic Marshall tone, you will love this pedal. I have used it through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Marshall DSL401 (clean channel), Epiphone Valve Jr head, and Peavey Bandit and you can get a good Marshall tone through them all. It does sound better through a tube amp than solid state in my opinion. I use pretty basic settings, Gain about 1/3 to 1/2 up, Deep about 1/2, Lows about 1/2, Mids up to max, and Highs about 2/3 up. I get a great crunch tone, similar to old Bad Company, Free, AC/DC, and ZZ Top recordings. This pedal can get fairly high gain tones, but I love that old Marshall crunch. My guitars are a Gibson SG and LP, but I've also tried single coils with my Fender Strat and Tele. Sounds better with humbuckers, but it rocks pretty good with single coils too. I have not experienced any noise, but I keep Gain pretty low. This is the first pedal to really give my Hot Rod Deluxe some "balls". I like this pedal so much I took an old 80's ProCo Rat off my pedalboard and replaced it with the Guvnor. The Rat is great but a little too fuzz tone for my tastes. The Guvnor sounds like an old JCM800 cranked with real bite. I do not like Deep over about 1/2, seems to muddy the tone a little too much for me. Because this pedal will bring out that great Marshall tone with any amp, I give it a 10.

Seems very rugged, only owned it a few months. So far, so good.

Can't really give an opinion here, I am careful with my gear and rarely experience problems, so I've never had to contact support. The manual has some suggested settings, so I'll give it an 8.

I play in a Classic Rock band, but we do some modern tunes too. I love the great Marshall tone I get with this pedal. I would definitely buy this pedal again if it were lost or stolen. When it comes to Rock, Marshall is "the tone". This pedal will get you there.

Slightly more complex then a Big Muff, or other distortion pedals, but more controlable. Level, low, mid, high, deep, and gain control. 9v jack works with Boss type pedals.

Knowing that Marshall's been using a solid state boost circuit in their JCM900's and JCM2000's, I asked the sales manager (a huge Marshall aficionado) for a pedal that could duplicate that. This is what he recomended. I use it for highgain distortion on my bass rig, but have tried it on guitar as well. This pedal works great. Enogh bottom and the highs can scream. The other pedal I was contemplating was a Sanamp Classic, and the Gov'nor II was quite capable of reaching that level of sound quality. It may not sound "just like" a Marshall all tube head, but it definitely has the flavor of the overdrive circuit.

I'd heard negative things about how well this pedal's built, but mines been going for 5 years now. The only downside I've found is that the stacked pots don't move smoothly when adjusting them individually, but not too big of a deal for me, I could see it being a problem for making quick changes in live situations.

Great pedal for a great price. I wouldn't recomend running it if you're already running a good all-tube highgain head, but then again, why would anyone pay the price for a all-tube highgain head and run a distortion pedal through it.

Easy to use, just follow the examples in the manual and work from there. Pretty simple controls, not to complicated. The manual is brief but it sets you off in the right direction, after all you don't want to sound the same as everyone else who has the same pedal!

Thin Lizzy tone is a sinch with this pedal, IMO this pedal covers most bases when it comes to rock, probably not going to suit a metal head but it is an overdrive pedal at the end of the day! I use this into the 0db channel on my laney 30W valve combo, it kicks major ass. A little noise is to be expected with this pedal when running thru a distorted channel but not really noisy.

Metal skin and metal switch, I don't think it will be breaking anytime soon! I carry a pod 2 and floorboard as my backup, I play semi pro so can't afford a breakdown at the venue but saying that I don't ever worry about this pedal breaking.

No problems so can't comment

I play pop/rock covers and original rock. This pedal delivers all the tone I need covering a wide range of styles. Whether I use for a lead boost or as a rythym sound it never lets me down. I've been playing for 14 years
My gear :
Laney LC30C tube combo
1.Gibson LP std

2.Ibanex RG570 with Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates HB bridge and Dimarzio PAF JOE in the neck

3. Fender Mex Strat

Pedals: Jim Dunlop crybaby, Marshall Guv'nor pre in front of the head with a Boss DD3 delay and Boss CE-2 chorous in the fx loop.

If I lost this pedal I would definately replace it. I love the way this pedal makes my 30W combo sound like a Marshall stack! Only complaint is the silver dials are hard to see on a dark stage :(
I prefered this to the jackhammer, i find it easier to dial a decent tone with this pedal.

It's relatively cheap, sounds great and is easy to use. Great tone at an affordable price. Well worth a look.

Basically a Marshall OD channel in a stompbox. 3 band EQ with a Deep knob(thick bass!)

I love using this pedal into the clean channel on my Marshall AVT150 half stack. It has more control and sustain than the OD channels onboard! Bought it to use with my Orange Crush 10 and it made a little 10watt SS amp come to life!

You step on it.... It'll probably break eventually, made of metal to delay this

Sounds great with my Epiphone Les Paul Jr, and with my Fender Strat with Noiseless pickups. If you need a good distortion pedal pick it up for sure!

Many distortion stomp boxes have only a "tone" control and that usually means high mids/treble. This one, like all other Marshall pedals, has an entire EQ stage: Treble, mids, bass plus a "Deep" control. The latter is meant to simulate the bottom end of a full amp stack with 4x12 cabs, regardless whick kind of amp it is actually used with. The controls are effective, maybe a bit difficult to use for players with large fingers, as they are small and stacked in pairs of two. They also influence each other. It takes some time of experimenting to find out which setting is best.

Very typical Marshall sound with less gain than the Jackhammer or the old ShredMaster but more than the original GV-1 from the 90ies.
The sound quality you will hear heavily depends on the amp used.
I tried it through a Peavey solid-state and it sounded awful: Buzzy, trebly, harsh, absolutely unplesant. I played it through an old SoundCity/Dallas-Arbiter tube combo (1971) and it sounded a lot better, but with a 50 watts Laney tube head (master volume) it was marvelous to play into the high sensitivity input with the preamp halfway up. Obviuosly it works best to overdrive the front end of a tube amp, so that there is a sort of good mixture of the amp`s and the pedal`s distortion. It has but very reduced treble with gain set low.
Difficult to rate it with results so different.

Rock soild, no plastic parts apart from the rubber on the backside.
Seems reliable.

Have never dealt with them.

Good pedal if you know how to apply it correctly. Needs an amp that is about to distort slightly and will give you wonderful crunch rhythm and singing lead sounds then.
A bit more difficult to use than the good old ShredMaster and not that versatile.

As said in some of the previous review, if you are smart enough to get to store and buy, you should be able to use. It is that simple. They do offer some suggested settings in manual which are quite helpful as well.

All I can say is awesome. I have a Boss MT 2 a MXR ZW$0 and this thing has the best of both in one pedal. I wish I saw and tried it first. It is a great distortion and OD pedal in one box. I have been searching for a certain sound for a while and I have found it. It is very bassy, but controls allow you to roll most of the bass out. If you have problems with a trebely (not sure it is a word but you know) amp setup, this will cure it. If you have a tube amp, it can only help I am sure. I play through a Behringer solid state GMX212 and with the addition of this pedal, I would play anywhere in fron of anyone and compete with any setup in my opinion.

Very solid, steel construction, and Marshall name on it so you know it is good. I would trust it for my local Jam night 24-7-365.

It's friggin Marshall what do you think the service would be like? They have been around for a while so I am sure they get the service concept.

I play evrything from Blues to metal. I have been playing for almost 20 years, and this pedal nails all of it. I can put in front of a clean channel and it sounds sweet and bluesy, or in front of a distorted channel, it is crunchy and very nice sounding.
I have used it with my Behringer GMX212, and it is a perfect setup for me (Wish I had a 60W tube amp, but this is fine for now.).

The only thing I wish is that I had 2 or 3 so I could dial each in a little different and switch between them. I will buy one more at least and soon. I highly highly recommend.

Very easy and sounds quite good in nearly every setting that one can think of.

Distortion comes from overdriven amps. "Distortion" pedals seek to mimic this --- in almost all cases --- for those of us who cannot play loud enough to actually overdrive an amp honestly. (Yes, some of us have neighbors) Of these "distortion" pedals there seems to be two camps:

The overdrive pedal and the distortion pedal.

Overdrive pedals like the classic TS-808 and the more recent Ibanez tube screamer are generally marked by a smooth fat slightly distorted sweet tone. Sounds like one would expect from an overdriven Marshall tube amp.

Distortion pedals such as the Boss DS-1 and the surprisingly and utterly amazing DOD Grunge (the original ones can't speak to the new ones)seem to simply distort the existing sound without trying to copy the fatness of an overdriven tube amp.

I bring all this up because the Marshall GV-2 Guv'nor Plus is a fairly decent combination of these two types of pedals. Much more distortion than a typical TS-808, and yet the Guv'nor can certainly get the smooth fatness of TS-808 type overdrives as well. (In fact, I don't think you can get rid of it.) Overall this pedal specializes in getting a holy ton of sustained-compressiony-lightly-distorted-thick-overdriven-bass leaning sounds. Nearly Muff like on some settings but not as fuzzy.

I do sometimes use some additional distortion (the pedals I mentioned and others)with this pedal for certain sounds. So it works well with others too.

Great pedal overall. But no pedal is everything to everyone.

I agree with the previous reviewer that said every setting was a sweet spot. Very correct. Unlike most distortions, every setting has a smooth musicality that makes it very easy on the ears.

If there is a down side, because of the Marshall warmth, you may sense a lack of bite that you'd get from, say an old Rat. But whoever designed this pedal dialed in a smooth JCM 800 crunch that you can't find in any other box. It's so good it almost sounds like a digital modeling amp, as opposed to a true analog distortion. Another thing, you can get a killer octave tone by bumping the gain and using your neck pickup with the tone down.

I've only had it for a couple months, but I sense the quality. Some pedals feel cheap but this one doesn't. The new MXR pedals use cheap jacks and switches, this one feels solid.

I'm gonna recommend this charmer to my friends, knowing full well that it doesn't do everything. But it sounds like a Marshall! Now how'd they do that!! Aren't they afraid it will cannibalize amplifier sales?? You have got to try this pedal.

Pretty good! i thought the stacked knobs were a bit unusual but nonetheless perfectly usable. Only one real complaint; that's that the markers on the knobs are black against gold, so they aren't quite as visible as on my Boss SD-1 for example. I'm predominantly a 'bedroom shredder' though, don't have a band, and as a result have never played a gig on a dark stage! Bearing that in mind, i think it deserves an eight for my purposes. The manual is certainly OK, it could be better, but it does have a few suggested settings to get you started.

I love the overdrive sound on this thing - it gives me a glimpse of what i'd have if i had the money (and bought a nice expensive Marshall valve amp :]). The bass response is good - better than many i've tried. I prefer to set it at about 12:00, to get a nice low end, and then compensate with treble. The deep setting is great, really adds another dimension to my sound (although i haven't compared it to/used it with a Marshall 4x12 (yet)). I can get a great crunchy '70s rock sound, to higher gain contemporary saturated sounds. I've also found that it works particularly well with my Boss SD-1 - really opens it up :]. One thing i would say though is it hints that my guitar and amp are a bit lacking! I'm using this with a Squier Strat (soon to be upgraded to an MIM :]) into the following effects: Zoom 505II (I know, i'm only using it because it was going cheap!)=>Boss SD-1=>Guv'nor=>Marshall MG10CD. Sounds great!

I certainly can depend on it, it feels sturdy, and it's all metal apart from the base. If i ever did gig with it, chances are i wouldn't have much choice but to use it without a backup. The only thing that i'm slightly wary of is the footswitch, but again, i'm predominantly a 'bedroom shredder'. Obviously this could be a problem for live players whose pedalboards get thrown around, but it does look replaceable.

I have not needed to so far, and i'd like it to stay that way. The Marshall factory is half an hour or so up the road from me though!

i wouldn't like to categorise what i play; a bit of everything really. Been playing for a bit, but i'm a poor student so i don't have the money for any expensive gear. I love the warmth of the overdrive, and the depth of the sound - two things my amp doesn't deliver, and the EQ controls, which my amp doesn't have either! It complements my SD-1 very well - when i bought that pedal one of the things that struck me about it was that it complements other pedals/amps well, but has insufficient bass. This pedal covers that superbly. Can't say i can think of anything in particular i'd add to it. If stolen/lost, i'd definitely buy it again, but no-one's stealing my pedal! I did have a brief go with the Jackhammer, but i thought it was too bassy, and generally not the sound i'm after. Overall, it's a superb sound for the price i paid - much less than many Boss pedals in this category. For that, i think it deserves a 10.

Quite easy to use, the instruction book gives a good starting point. My only complaint is the chrome finish on the dials reflects stage lights so it can be hard to see what you are doing in a live scenario. Other than that I get the sound I want wothout too much searching.

I've owned this pedal for about 18 months now and I have to say that I really like it. It gives my Laney tube amp a good kick in the balls and pushes it into marshall territory. Great for rock,blues,punk but maybe not for extreme metal but will handle Sabbath,Guns'n'Roses,Alice in Chains etc. This pedal will get you from cutting leads to murky fills/riffs with ease. It really helps those pinched harmonics squeel! I don't think it any noisier than most other pedals i've tried, but in this price range who could complain?
Like I said it really brings my Laney amp to life so I can get the Marshall overdriven sound and still get a nice fenderish tone from my clean channel. It gives me a lot of versatility in my live performances. I'm sure there are better sounding pedals out there but not too many at this price range.

This unit is solid. No problems so far and I don't see any over the horizon. It makes for a real working man's pedal. I don't worry about this pedal letting me down, however when you are dealing with tubes(my Laney amp) you have to be prepared for a breakdown so I carry my POD 2 with the long floorboard just in case!

Not yet.

I play a lot of different styles, Celtic rock,country,blues,classic rock,hard rock and even some metal and this is my pedal of choice. I've been playing for 14 years.
My rig consists of a 2005 Gibson LP std,Ibanez RG570,and a Mexican Strat into a Laney LC30 mark 2 tube amp. I don't use too many pedals, just the Guv'Nor and Cry baby direct and a Boss CE2 chorus and Boss DD2 delay in the effects loop.
If this pedal were stolen I'd definately replace it.
Now I'm not saying that this is the ultimate overdrive pedal. I'm not a tone warrior, I just want a pedal that can handle a bit of multi tasking and that's what it does. I've never been let down by this unit and I enjoyed many a night while playing thru it. I don't think you can ask for much more than that.