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...

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!

Very user friendly. Guitar in/guitar out to amp, set the volume, gain, low bass, bass, mid-range and treble to your liking and presto...you are in O/D heaven. The ONLY sad item about using the GV-2 is the control knobs are a shiney gold plate and your setting is extremely difficult to see. Personally, I generally use only one setting anyway so once it's set, it's just a matter of the on/off switch from that point on.

I use an Epi LP w/DiMarzio puppies and a Carvin DC135 thru all Carvin amps. The GV-2 is absolutely fabulous with the Les Paul and those DiMarzio HB's but sounds a little too thick with the Carvin (it has the twin blade HB's). I have found, though, that if I reset the GV-2's preamp, viola, we have a whole new world to bang heads in.

I have been playing now for thirty nine years now and I don't think I have ever heard a better sounding O/D stomp box. This GV-2 gets you from creamy blues to helicopter-head metal and everything you can possibly imagine in between. The beauty is in the preamp. Low bass, bass, midrange and treble controls bring out all the articulation you desire.

Another Marshall pedal built like Fort freakin' Knox. 'Nuff said

Soundclips and manual are all downloadable on their website- big++++.

I play mostly Christian rock and this pedal is extremely useful for this AND other genres as well. I am a big classic rock fan and you will be amazed at what you can do with that. I've used the Bad Monkey, the EH Muff, Tube Screamer, yada, yada, and other asorted O/D boxes but I've never used anything that sounded this good. I "discovered" it kinda by accident. I was challenged by some Marshall fans to go to GC and try some Marshall amps. When I went in, I couldn't get to the amps because all the kids were trying them so I went to the counter and was talking to a guy who had previously sold me an amp. I looked down and saw the Guv'nor 2+ and got REAL curious and while I still wasn't real impressed with the Marshall amps (cost vs effectiveness kind of thing) after my little Marshall test I liked the Guv'nor 2 so much I bought it right then and the rest was history.

If it were lost or stolen, I would be getting another today. Again, the only real problem with this unit is the control knobs, very difficult to see but personally, I'll trade the viewability for the small footprint any day of the week.

I give this section an 8 because I don't like how this pedal has the two knobs in one (like on bass and treble, you have two things to turn . . . . it's annoying). I just like basic controls. Other than that, they are pretty basic though.

I play a lot of Hendrix, a bit of Nugent, a bit of EVH, and a bit of Vai. Hendrix, Nugent, and EVH sounds can be gotten from this pedal, but Vai's over-the-top distortion can't (I don't really ever play with that type of distortion anyway . . . . it's kind of ridiculous). You can get the bassy, bluesy "Hear my train" electric version from Hendrix. I can also get some of Nugent's smoother, warmer tones (think free-for-all). And then, by turning down the bass a tad and turning one of the two trebles up, I can get EVH's tone--it reminds me a lot of his tone on the VHII album.

Overall, this pedal is meant for warmer, smoother tones. It can be backed down a lot to achieve that old, cranked out but slightly distorted tone of an old Marshall. But, on the other hand, you can have this thing push the crap out of your amp to get a very tube-like distortion.

I personally play a Crate Palomino half stack--this thing sounds great through this amp. It sounds a lot like the stock distortion for the amp, which is brilliant in it's own right. For anybody that wants true tube distortion, this is the pedal. This is isn't a cheesy pedal like all of those digitech's.

It seems to be built like a rock, but I don't know. I've only had the thing for a few weeks.

Never dealt with them.

This pedal is great. A lot of companies (like BOSS and Digitech), in my opinion, make a bunch of useless, low-end distortion pedals that aren't worth even trying. But Marshall has done a great job with this one. They know what a vintage stack sounds like. And they know how to create that sound.

pulling great sounds and alternate tones from this unit is a breeze, the manual is a tad brief to say the least, but then again how much literature do you need with a distortion/overdrive unit?

as with most pedals(95%) the tone or sound quality of the pedal is directly proportionate with the quality of the tone of the primary amp, IE. a great pedal may only sound average through a really crappy amp, but this pedal amazingly sounded great through solid state (high and low end) modeling amps, and tube amps, with the exception of a small few. i personally think that the marshall shredmaster was one of the finest distortion pedals ever made, and since it left the market i have searched for one comparible to it, i felt that the jackhammer was more than sufficient in it's amount of gain, however it severely lacked the character and tone of the shredmaster, but now tone is where the gov'nor plus shines, what it lacks in gain structure (which ain't much, it has a very good amount of gain) it more than makes up for in tonal charisma, to my ears it is marshall tone personified

all metal construction, gives it that built like a tank feel, but i would have prefered a f.e.t. switch

have not needed it

i have played guitar as a club musician, and a hobbyist for well over 17 years. i have played everything from metallica, to motley crue, and from zodiac mindwarp to slayer, and everything in between. i have also owned more pedal than i care to remember like tone works-real tube 2, boss-ds-1, boss super overdrive, boss turbo overdrive, marshall shredmaster, dod-yjm, proco-turbo rat, and the list goes on and on, but out of all of these the guv'nor plus has but one rival, and that is the marshall shredmaster.
this pedal is a tone junkies wet dream, if you choose sound quality and tone over distortion this is definitely the pedal for you, there are a lot of products on the market that will produce more raw distortion than this unit, but i promise you there are few units out there that have as pure a tone as this stompbox does

Tried it out for 20 minutes at a music store. In addition to the self-explanatory controls (gain, bass, mid, treble, volume), there's the "deep" knob, which (as other reviewers noted) makes this pedal hard to use. It adds a boomy low bass frequency to the signal, sort of like the "bass boost" or "loudness" on a car stereo. With a lot of fine tuning, you can almost get the boominess to go away.

This pedal has a nice warm distortion, like the tube preamp in a guitar head. I used the pedal to drive a clean Mesa Dual Rectifier, then compared it to the amp's high-gain channel, and while it had a different sound (of course -- Mesas don't sound like Marshalls), it was similar in quality. The problem was getting rid of the sloppy, booming bass of the "deep" effect.

Don't know. Don't own it.

See "Reliability".

If Marshall offered this pedal without the "deep" effect I'd buy one. Actually, if it had just volume, tone and distortion (like a Boss DS-1 or a ProCo Rat), or even just volume and distortion (like an MXR Distortion+ or various vintage overdrive pedals), it would be one of the best distortions on the market.

If you play through a solid-state amp of less than 50 watts or so, this might be the perfect pedal for you, since your amp might not reproduce the unusable "deep" bass. Otherwise... well, check it out and see if you can make it work with a setup you like. That goes for any equipment. Don't buy this pedal online without a chance to try it out first, though. For $99 (what these typically retail for), you could buy a DS-1 and have it modded.

Easy to use, with a lot of filter possibilities.

Excellent sounding pedal. Organic and powerful. Marshallish tone, not for smooth sustain. Absolutely no nasal tendencies. Very good bass response as well. I use it with a Marshall 4100, and sometimes at home with a Vox Pathfinder. With both humbuckers and single coils. Never heard anything as good. A bargain.

Very heavy built. I would trust it without a backup.

No contact.

I've been playing guitar for 36 years, mainly heavy rock.
This pedal is by far the best I've tried for my purpose.
If this pedal were stolen I'd definately replace it.

There are 6 controls, EQ Gain and Volume. Very simple to use. There is a manual which shows different settings etc plus a briefing from Mr Marshall himself.

I am in the quest for that definitive Marshall sound in a box, or just a great distortion which works for my intensive style. The comparisons are (both of which I use now) Marshall AVT50 combo drive channel and Danelectro FAB Distortion.

I played a custom Telecaster with humbuckers into Guvnor Plus then into Marshall AVT50 on clean channel.

Ok the pedal DOES deliver some of the Marshall-amp character. Good crunch, and almost transparent EQ.

I tried to get more treble as it seemed to sound a little muffled. I turned the treble all the way up and it still didnt match the clean (bypassed) treble response. I then tested the Treble conrtol by turning it all the way down then all the way up. The treble control is pretty useless.
Bass response seems very good. Mids too. The pedal doesnt have a great ammount of gain when turned all the way up but palm muting riffs remain tight.

Great construction on these pedals. I use others in this range. Id gig these and not worry.

Never dealt with them but Seen the dvds. Jim Marshall and co seem like a very dedicated and friendly bunch.

I like to play heavy metal and shredder-type rock. My fav players are Steve Vai, Zakk Wylde, Nuno Bettencourt, John Petrucci- you get the idea.
SO I like my distortion to be heavy, with lots of sustain and Gain on tap. The main pickup I use in nearly all 6 of my electrics is called Bill Lawrence L500XL. DIMEBAG pickup. I need the distortion to be pretty transparent in EQ and show off the great dynamics and treble response this unit delivers.

Some people on Guitar Geeks recommended this pedal to be a 'Marshall in a stomp box' so naturally I wanted to try it. Im actually surprised I never tried this range for gain pedals before since theyre kindof 'the name' associated with all things ROCK.

Im afraid I was disappointed with the pedal which had GOOD distortion performance but fell behind because the Treble was useless and very lacking. I had to turn the Treble up on the amp fully to make it cut through.

When I switched to the amp's drive channel and compared my treble returned. Same deal when I placed FAB Distortion back in the chain.

Its a shame the pedal didnt do it for me and that it was bettered by a cheaper unit. The lack of gain I could deal with because I usually combine with an OD box anyway. Id say this pedal plays the 'Overdrive' role better. but as a stand-alone unit I wouldnt recommend it.

It has four concentric tone controls which is quite a lot, otherwise straightforward distortion pedal.

Bleedthrough:

The distortion section is the same as that of the old Guv'nor pedal. The passive tone control section is similar, with an added "Mid" control.

It also has an electronically separate "Deep" control; and this is where things go wrong. For some reason, Marshall engineers added the circuitry for the "Deep" control AFTER the volume control!

According to the circuit diagram, if you turn the volume off, there should be no sound coming out of the pedal at all. But in fact, a large amount of fizzing can still be heard! This is the distortion bleeding past the tone and volume control into the "Deep" section.

You can reduce the fizzing by turning the Deep knob up full (this sets the "Deep" knob to zero ohms), but not everyone wants to have the "Deep" on full all the time.

The bleedthrough fizzing is so strong that it competes with the desired sound set by the user. The higher the gain is set, the more dominant the bleedthrough becomes in the overall sound. This is a design fault.

Tone Suck:

There are no FETs switching the sound on and off as in most modern pedals, but there are a lot of inductors and capacitors around the switch to reduce clicking. This may cause loss of tone. I have had no problems with my guitar, but then, I have high-gain pickups.

all-metal robust construction, good quality pots, solid on-off switch.

When I ordered this pedal I fantasized about all the great sounds I could get with four tone controls. Unfortunately, the bleedthrough sound reduces the tonal effectiveness dramatically. At high gain (distortion) settings, setting the volume to match the clean level, the fizz is nearly all you hear.

I am surprised this has slipped by the Marshall quality people. This pedal could be so much more.

So easy to get good sound that it's ridiculous. The guy that designed this this knows what I needed! I dont want to spend a lot of time tweaking!

I've been playing for 21 years and have never met a pedal that loves tubes more than this one. I set my Boogie to a hot crunch and dial in the eq's at 12 o'clock, changing only the distortion and volume on the pedal. Man, does this this ever send the sound into turbo mode. Unbelievable sustain, transparency and heat. If this was the UFC, this guy would be the undefeated champ, because I've had virtually every other guy in my corner at one point or another. Very responsive to volume control and how hard you are playing. It's as if it was another set of controls on my amp, and I bought it used for $39. HOLY CRAP! My strat suddenly has balls! I could gig with this pedal alone, seriously. Gary Moore meets Blind Melon! I'll keep my arsenal of pedals, but I think I will be dusting them more than playing them now.

It seems to be built like a tank. I would trust it without a backup, but my Boogie has a boost channel as well, so I am covered either way.

Have not dealt with the company, but love their product!

It's an extension of my amp, very natural. I certainly would buy this pedal if it were lost or stolen, and pay whatever the asking price was!

Very easy to use. Really no need even for the manual.

I was very surprised at how good this stompbox sounds. I'm very picky about stompboxes, and have tried MANY of the ones out there including boutique. I have several modified TS9's/808's, modified metalzone, Blues Driver, Rat, etc., and the guvnor has become my 'go to' pedal. For live shows, it really delivers what it's designed to do (provide a marshall type sound).

Seems very reliable so far.

not dealt with

Our band plays 80% country and 20% rock, and my rig is a Twin Reissue and Strats/Tele's. The Guvnor is a great addition in this set up for adding the thicker grinding sound where needed....works great both on the rock and the country. I find myself using the TS9 so little that I could even take it off my pedalbord despited it being a more expensive pedal. I'd definitely recommend this pedal.

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.

IF YOU WERE SMART ENOUGH TO BUY THIS PEDAL, YOU WILL EASILY BE ABLE TO SET IT UP. IT'S JUST LIKE DIALING UP AN AMP....BASS, MIDS, HIGHS, EASY AS IT GETS!

I AM PLAYING THIS PEDAL THROUGH A VOX AC-30 INTO THE TOP BOOST CHANNEL. IT GIVES ME AN AUTHENTIC MARSHALL AMP SOUND WHEN PUSHED HARD, VERY FAT AND WARM. THINK AC/DC, BLACKFOOT (TRAIN,TRAIN), OF COURSE ZEPPLIN. THIS PEDAL ISN'T ANY NOISIER THAN OTHER OVERDRIVE PEDALS I HAVE USED, AND I HAVE TRIED MANY! FOR THE TYPE OF CLASSIC ROCK I PLAY THIS PEDAL NAILS IT. BEST OVERDRIVE THAT I'VE USED REGARDLESS OF THE COST. ONLY WAY TO GET IT BETTER FOR ME WOULD BE TO HAVE A MARSHALL AMP. ONE OTHER THING OF NOTE. WHEN THIS PEDAL HAS NO BATTERY IN IT AND NO POWER SUPPLY CONNECTED AND THE PEDAL IS OFF, SOUND IS PASSED THROUGH. THOUGH THIS SOUNDS LIKE TRUE BYPASS, IT IS NOT ACCORDING TO THE MARSHALL TECH I SPOKE WITH. THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY:
Passive bypass and true bypass are actually not the same. True bypass uses 2 switches, one at the input and one at the output so the effects section is totally disengaged and out of circuit. Passive bypass only disengages the output. The input still splits and feeds the effects circuit but the effected output is physically switched out. Thus you're only hearing the unaffected signal via the output.

THIS PEDAL IS BUILT LIKE A TANK, VERY HEAVY. IF THERE WAS A WEAK LINK IT MIGHT BE THE SWITCH. IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE A CARLING, BUT WORKS FINE SO FAR. I WOULD GIG WITHOUT A BACKUP. ONLY HAD IT A COUPLE OF WEEKS SO............?

THE EMAIL I SENT ABOUT THE TRUE BYPASS WAS ANSWERED VERY QUICKLY SO I'M GUESSING THE SERVICE WOULD BE GOOD ALSO.

I'VE BEEN PLAYING GUITAR FOR OVER 30 YEARS AND GREW UP WITH 70'S CLASSIC ROCK. THIS PEDAL IS A PERFECT MATCH FOR THAT SOUND THROUGH MY AC-30. IF YOU HAVE A TUBE AMP, I BELIEVE YOU WOULD BE HAPPY WITH IT. THE EQ SECTION ON THIS PEDAL IS WHAT I LIKE THE MOST. I DON'T LIKE PEDALS WITH MID FREQ BOOST/CUT DUAL KNOB CRAP.....JUST GIVE ME GOOD OL' AMP CONTROLS AND I'M ON MY WAY. THROUGH A TUBE AMP THIS PEDAL WILL ROCK!!!

relatively easy set all to 5,play a bit and tweak to taste.
the nice thing about this pedal is it has six(6)settings.
in the manuel marshall gives you setting examples, that helps.

Like a lot of players I have been struggling a while to find
MY SOUND. I have tried boss bd-2,od-3,ibanez ts-9,maxon rod-880
($275.00)none of these work for me.It seems that I could always get
the od desired but the problem was the lack of distortion.
well this effect does it in a very nice way. the guv'nor+ just
give you a powerful natural od/dist. FANTASTIC! no don't work
for marshall! I play blues with teles and strats with fender super
champ and deville 4x10 reissue. For now, this is it, for the
price go buy one now you wont be sorry!

DO NOT KNOW

DONT KNOW

I have been playing blues for 12 years.
I have tried a lot of effects, to my taste this thing is a WINNER.

Because of its tone sculpting capability--"Deep", Bass, mid, treble--you have to twiddle with it a bit to get the best sound for different rigs. The manual has some good starting-point suggestions. It can be a bit picky about the rig you use it with.

It's Marshall crunch here, folks. A nice and thick tone that, when tweaked right, can make even single coils sound phat. I use this in the following chain: 535Q wah-->Arion Tubulator O/D-->Marshall Guvnor 2-->Dano EQ-->EB Jr. volume pedal-->Voodoo trem-->Arion delay-->Boss CE-5 Chorus. I use either a Strat with Fat 50s single coils or a Les Paul with Duncan Antiquities. It sounds best with the Paul, although it sounds very good with the strat too. My amps are a couple of 15 watt class A tube amps (1x12) or a Roland JC. This pedal sounds the best with the tube amps. If you want that classic Marshall drive to crunch, this pedal delivers. I did a side by side with a Proco Rat 2 and the Marshall has a very similar tone but a better eq so you can adjust the frequencies better--that's why I bought this one instead. The only thing I wish this pedal had was more sustain without having to turn the gain knob up so high--i.e. when I set a good rhythm sound (just the right amount of gain for my tastes--about 11:00) there's not enough sustain for leads. This is especially true for my strat, although the Paul could use a hair more also. If I put it up to about 2:00, then I get some pretty good sustain going on, but it's too saturated for rhythm etc. I usually set my crunch rhythm with it and add my Arion O/D to it for more sustain, although this isn't always enough.
I think this pedal's best use is for Hard Rock, although at lower gain settings it can do a nice blues thing too. Overall, I like the general tonality of the pedal, and so I give it an 8.

Built very sturdy and has held up great on my pedal board for the past two years +/-.

I pretty much said everything I wanted to above. If you want solid Marshall crunch, this pedal delivers. If I had to replace it, I'd probably check other pedals against this, and if they offered better sound, I would probably go with them--but they would have to cover that Marshallesque Hard Rock vibe equally as well and then go beyond that to a better sound and sustain.

SOLID STATE AMP OWNERS LOOK HERE!!

the pedal has 6 knobs. volume, gain, bass, middle, treble and the unique deep setting. 5 minutes of tweaking is all it takes really if uve used eq before. the manual is clear and theres no trouble running it.

im using a vox ad 50 valvetronix (not a valve amp) and a squier telecaster custom with humbuckers. Most of the reviews here are from tube amp owners and i was worried reading them b4 i bought the pedal because i thought it might be bad on ss amps. but its NOT! U may not be able to get tube type lead sounds but the lead you can get from this is the best ive got on my solid state. and the general distorion is clear, versitile and when u strum power chords it actually does sound like a marshall stack. u can get classic rock sounds and metal sounds and other less gainy sounds which i havnt tried yet. the deep setting is really cool. gives the sound real beef like normal bass but without drowning out the higher frequencies.

seems sturdy and built to last like most marshall products.

not sure, havnt dealt with company services. but i think there is a gud service available.

i play classic rock, blues, metal, indie stuff. i'd say this is perfect for classic rock. guns n roses, ac/dc etc. if ur a solid state owner, this is probably the best u can get for the classic rock tone. if ur thinking of getting it, do it now!! lol


email me 4 qs

With all the knobs it makes it a little confusing, but after a few minutes with tinkering with it you figure out what does what, and how to get the sound you want.

I have a fender mexican strat, gibson flying v and a knockoff lespaul. I also have a Marshall JCM900 100 watt half stack and a Fender Deluxe Reverb. I got the verb because I needed an amp for practicing and small gigs. But when I got it I realized something was missing.... Distortion. There is nothing like that Marshall distortion. I have tried countless pedals to try to emulate the Marshall distortion but nothing came close. So I tried out a Guv'nor. I brought it home and put my strat through a switcher one to my JCM900 distorted and one to the Guv'nor and Verb. After about 10 minutes with messing around with it....I found it! MY long lost Marshall distortion!!! Trust me, when you want that Marshall distortion there is no exeption. It sounds exactly like my JCM900. So if that is the sound you are looking for, buy this pedal. If you are looking for any other Marshall type distorion sound this could proboly handle it too.

I think it would hold up to what I will throw at it. The switch feels funny. I don't know if that is the way it's made of just because I bought it used, either way I still think it can hold up. I don't use backups for anything.

I play mostly rock. Alot of chili peppers and classic rock and this is everyhtign I could have hoped for and more. I have been playing about 4 years and used alot of crap stuff and this is worth every penny. I own alot of other pedals to name a few: Dunlop crybaby, danelectro Fab Overdrive, Phase 90, Small clone, Dod Stereo Phaser, Digitech digidelay, and a Russian Big Muff. If anything were to happen to my entire pedal board this would be the first pedal I replaced.

Very easy to use. If you can use a Boss MT-2, you can use this. Similar knob set-up where the tone knobs have 'sub knobs' on top of them. It has a 'deep' knob that gives it a lot of low-end punch like a Marshall cabinet that is kind of cool.

I use a Carvin custom DC 127C into a Carvin X100B tube amp. As to sound quality of the pedal, this is THE sound I have been searching for. The distortion has a depth to it that I've never heard another pedal match. It really does sound like a JCM 800 head. When I compared it to my MT-2, it was so apparent how thin and tinny the Boss distortion is. If you think you've heard a great distortion pedal, you haven't until you've played the Guv'nor Plus.

Now, similar to a Marshall, it has more midrange than a lot of distortion pedals. You can dial it out using the EQ on either the pedal or your amp, but it actually sounds better with a little mid-range.

There is a little hum, maybe a little less than average. I didn't find that it sucked any tone at all when by-passed. The 'Deep' knob in the EQ section gives it a heavy punch like a Marshall cab. It sounds good on my Marshall solid-state combo and FANTASTIC on my tube head and 4x12 cab.

This pedal is THE thing to get nearly any 80's hard rock or metal band. It's very easy to get an early Metallica (Ride the Lightning, Kill' em All), Scorpions, Ratt, Dokken, etc. Of course many of these bands used JCM 800's. With a little tweaking, you can get more modern metal sounds. By backing off the gain to about 60%, you can get AC/DC-type sounds. Back off a little more, you can get ZZ Top. I found this pedal to be very versatile and the tone makes you want to play it for hours. It is very easy to do it on stage also. Simply dial down the gain. The EQ tends to not need much adjusting.

I have played many, many distortion pedals over the las 15 years, but this is one that will NEVER leave my pedal board again. I normally don't give out tens, but this category gets a 10. (I'd turn it up to 11 if possible)....

Solid metal casing and switch. Very heavy, seems like it will last a while. I'd use it without a backup.

Don't really know.

I play everything from ZZ Top to Killswitch Engage and all points in between. I've been playing over 15 years and this is THE distortion pedal for me. If it were lost or stolen I'd be buying another one the next day. The only two drawbacks are that the battery cover has a screw in it which is annoying, and that it has a little too much midrange for some of my more extreme distortion needs.

What should I say, very easy

Epi LP, Korg Tuner, MS Guv2, MS Jackhammer, Zoom2020, Peavey Bandit.
I use it for old school rock like Kiss, Status Quo... it's perfect for that. A little "bassy", but I can correct it with the Zoom2020.

No problems.

...

Good for my kind of music, but nothing's perfect. So it's a 9.

It only took me about 5 minutes of working with this pedal to get a great tone out of it. If you have a clear idea of what you want, it can be found from this pedal. I'm only giving it an 8 because although it was easy for me, people who may not be sure about the sound they want may be looking for quite a while (with the built in equalizer giving thousands of options).

This is where this pedal really, really shines. I've used this pedal with many different amps and it always shines brilliantly. The best distortion pedal on the market. The only thing that comes close too it is the SansAmp GT2, but you can find this much cheaper. I've heard people complain the pedal is noisy, I haven't had a problem. I use a LesPaul with humbuckers and with a bit of fiddling with the pedal and my guitar and my amp I get anything I want too out of it. From harsh fuzz like Weezer's Pinkerton, all the way up to the Adam Jones crunch - this pedal does it!

I have and will probobly again gig without a backup with this. I have a lot of different distortions, but this one has held up the best. Definitly gives BOSS a run for it's money. It doesn't have a breakable battery cover (you hear me DOD?). The only vulnerable spot is the footswitch, but treat it with care and it should outlast you.

Never dealt with them before.

I play progressive rock and this pedal is my main distortion. I am very, very satisfied with this unit. I played many different distortions (and have many other distortions). The only one that compares is the SansAmp gt2, and even then, it's very close. Hook this baby up to a Tube Amp and have fun!

It's pretty easy to use. Just like thing with an EQ, it's good to not look at where the dials are pointing when you're trying to find a good tone the first time.

My guitars are a Gibson SG Special and a MIM Strat. I've regularly played this through a Peavey keyboard amp; directly into a Tascam 4-track; and into a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. It sounds different with each application due to the vastly different frequency responses of the amps & four track, but I was pleased with all the situations. The one problem I keep having is there's not enough treble! The pedal is naturally mid-rangey, with lots and lots of bass to dial in. There's treble, mind you, but I always have to keep it dimed and I often wish I could turn it higher when playing single-string stuff. If you're a treble guy I wouldn't really recommend it. Despite that, I still enjoy the sound, and it's great for full chunky rhythm. Sometimes it sounds a little harsh while palm-muting, but I just turn the presence down on the Fender HRD (which sounds like it contradicts the not-enough-treble thing, but this harshness is separate and higher in frequency (in the presence region) than treble the tone I'm looking for).

The pedal is reminiscent of 70's hard-rock, ("Black Betty," Judas Priest, Jethro Tull, everyone had that sound) but fuller sounding. I don't really like that thin 70's tone-knob-down humbucker sound, and this pedal does remind me of it, but I like this pedal. I'm sure you could get those tones if you want though.

I haven't had any problems with it at all for the 5-6 years I've owned it, but I don't play in a band and gig with it.

I grew up on 90s alternative, and I'm just an overall rock and roll fan. I've been playing guitar about 6 years. The distortion level is comparable to the BOSS DS2, but the Guv'nor has less of a hard edge and a more classic Marshall tone (obviously..). It doesn't do the "on the verge of overdrive" blues thing so don't even try. What it does well is the saturated Marshall sound, which is what it promises. Others have said that this is a versatile pedal, but to me it's a one trick pony. It's a pleasant sounding pedal, sounds good at low and high volumes with a very rounded tone. What would make it a perfect pedal to me is good performance in the threshold-of-overdrive region, and MORE TREBLE!

This unit is very easy to use, no manual actually needed. However, the manual provided is very clear & simple to understand. Simply turn the desired knobs & tweak the sound is all that is required. The knobs are a little crowded, but that is good after you get them set, it keeps everything compact & easy to see at a glance.

I have played the guitar over 25 years, have played just about every distortion pedal made. I have said that to say this: The sound this pedal produces is incredible. I honestly do not know how else to describe it. It sounds just like a big huge Marshall stack with all the pump & bottom end. You can tweak it & get your desired sound. I have read reviews where the pedal didn't distort enough. OK, first of all, this is a professional caliber pedal, it is designed for use with a band. The louder you play the better it sounds. When playing alone in your bedroom, no it will not have that saturated sound. However, that overly saturated sound these people are seeking sounds horrible when with a band anyways. I have heard so many bands where the guitar player has this heavily saturated sound, sounds good 2 feet from the amp, but get out front & guess what? You can't even hear him! He just jams away thinking he is the guitar king, but nobody in the audience out front can even hear him! It is because the signal is drwoning in saturation, gets lost in the mix, & never makes it out front. Running through the PA won't help either. The mids are way too low, the sound is too thick & muddy. These players think they have to have their sound swimming in saturation to play. Well, get used to playing less saturated, then play out with a band, & watch how quickly your sound lights up! Another problem I see in these reviews, people are lacking a major unit in their set up: a compressor. Put a compressor in front of this (or any distortion pedal) & listen to the improvement immediately! Never under estimate a compressor's worth. Also, when taking a solo, simply boost your volume & treble/mids to get your sound out front. More distortion will not do it. I get a very good sound using this set up in order as follows (just my opinion, but it works great for me):

Guitar (1979 Les Paul Custom and 1950's reissue Fender Stratocaster
Boss TU-2 Tuner (daisy chain other effects from this unit also)
Boss CS-2 Compressor
Cry Baby Wah Wah
Marshall Guvnor plus
Boss GE-7 EQ
Marshall 5212 Amp (use a amp stand to get the sound up & out)

I use the EQ to boost my solos, then turn it off while doing rhythm. There is no need for more aturation, this set up works trust me!

Now, you are probably saying, "if this thing sounds so awesome why just a 9 rating?" Well, because the pedal is noisey. Sounds great when playing, but there is noise when you stop. It is nothing a noise suppressor would not fix, but I feel Marshall could have made this thing less noisey, pure & simple.

This unit is very well constructed, the casing & housing is metal, the knobs are made well. The Achillies heel on this unit is the on/off switch you stomp. Very very poor design, it will not take lots of abuse for sure. The casing, knobs, etc. are built as well as a Boss, but the switch is not the same caliber. I would not gig without a back up using this or any distortion pedal, but I bet when this thing gives me trouble it will be with the switch.

Never dealt with them.

I am currently playing in a classic rock band, doing Judas Priest, Kiss, Van Halen, etc. This pedal matches that perfectly! I love the sound this thing produces, it makes any amp sound like a Marshall stack. The only problems I see with this unit is the fact it is noisey & I do not trust the footswitch. Other than that, it is great! I recommend this pedal very highly, it is true Marshall tone & quality for sure.

OK- It's not QUITE as easy to dial in a good tone as a Boss or DOD pedal, for one good reason...those pedals only have one tone control. Sure, you can dial in more bass, but you'll sacrifice some treble- or vise versa. NOT so with this pedal. It has 4 tone controls- treble, mid, bass, and deep- But if you take the time to learn how these controls interact with each other, you'll find it is a MUCH more versatile pedal than any other.

The manual has a couple of suggested setting, which represent a good starting point- but you'll want to tweak those settings for your own setup.

I have been playing for over 40 years, and I can say without hesitation that this is THE best distortion pedal I have ever owned. Simply put- it makes whatever amp you're playing through sound like a Marshall. If you're playing through a Fender amp , but want that Zeppelin, AC/DC, Cream, or Hendrix sound- this is it!

I am currently using a Fender Stage 112 SE (my favorite amp of all time- do yourself a favor and read the reviews for this amp- I sold both a Fender Deville 410 and a Marshall 100 watt combo and still have kept this amp), although it sounds great through every amp I have tried it with- both tube and SS. The "deep" control is amazing, and makes any amp sound like a half stack.

I'm not sure what "passive bypass" is- ( I assume it's not the same as true bypass), but the pedal is quiet, and when not engaged does not suck the tone out of your rig.

I would suggest putting all of your other effects (particularly fuzz), AFTER the Guv'Nor 2 Plus.

Too early to tell.

Have never dealt with the company.

I play blues, classic rock, jazz, and flamenco- although I use this pedal only for blues and rock. I have tried every distortion pedal out ther over the years- and this is by far the best. Prior to this, I had ( for the past 2 or 3 years)used a Boss SD-1 with TS 808 mod on my pedalboard. Although it was not bad- it was thin sounding with no bottom end- and like all Boss pedals, sounded like "bees in a can".

This pedal completely blows away every other distortion pedal I have tried- in fact, I can't wee myself using anything else.

I'm using this with a Fender Stage 112 SE amp, Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, Fender American Standard Strat, and an Epiphone Riviera- and it sounds great with them all. Other effects include a Crybaby Wah, Ashbass Fuzzbrite ( the best fuzz I have used in over 40 years), DOD Ice Box Chorus, Ibanez DE-7 Delay/Echo, and a Boss TU-2 Tuner on an SKB pedalboard.

If you're looking for a distortion pedal to get you that big Marshall crunch and tone- whatever amp you're using - this is for you. This is truly an amazing pedal!

Well, it's easy to use. Turn the knobs and listen. The 'Deep' knob I find very useful to even recreate tube-sound directly into my Korg D12 recording studio. Sometimes I feel the 'Gain' knob is a bit too sensitive, you have a setting and want just a tiny bit more gain, you turn it ever so slightly and it ups the gain massively. But when you do get your tuning right it sound very good.
There really is no need for the quite thin "manual".

I'm using this both live and doing direct recording with a Korg D12. I use a Fender Telecaster semi-acoustic and a Gretsch Atkins Axe.

Doing live stuff I have guitar -> Guv'nor -> TC electronics Booster/distortion -> Vox AC50 with a 2x12" speaker. In this setup the Guv'nor sounds great. I use it to get a nice warm distortion and then the TC for harder sound.

When I do home recordings (just for testing things, not "proper" recording) I use guitar -> Guv'nor -> Korg D12. Then I use the amp simulation from the Korg. Here the Guv'nor is quite noisy. Surely it goes with how much gain you use, but even with very little gain I get pretty much noise. For me it doesn't really matter since I don't use it for proper recordings. I don't notice the noise when hooking it up to my live rig.

I play some kind of alternative/indie music and with the combination of the Guv'nor and the TC pedal I have no problem at all to tune the sound I want. I quite easily can get the "Wedding Present" crunch/distortion sound that I really like, more Pixies sound or just massive distortion wall while still hearing every string on the guitar.

I think the pedal is very versatile and you can get many different sounds from it. Though I'm pretty boring there so when I get the sound I want I don't experiment anymore.

Since it's a bit noisy I only rate this as 7...

So far it has been very reliable, but then again I have only used it for about 6 months. But it's all steel and switch is the old proper one so I imagine it will last a lifetime. I'm a bit stupid so I never have backups with me to gigs and so far I've been lucky.

I have never contacted them or had a reason to do so.

If my Guv'nor was stolen I would probably not replace it. Not because it's not good enough, but because I'd like to try out a RAT pedal. I was out looking for a TC distortion, a RAT or a Guv'nor and I found the Guv'nor first and bought it.

I like pedals with the steel switch instead of like the Boss setup. It seems more reliable, I know when I have stomped it and it easy to replace by myself if it breaks.

As I said I play music that sound like The Wedding Present, Pixies, 22 Pistepirkko etc and it does the job. I get the sound I want very quickly by turning the knobs. Then again I might just as easily get the same sound with a Boss or a RAT pedal, I don't know since I don't have them.

Use your ears and go with it

I have my Guvnor + since 3 years and it was the best allround overdrive I ever had but now i changed it against a Jekyll and Hyde Red and I must say , sorry Guv you was a good friend but now I have a new love....This is a great pedal and anybody who wants a good and cheap pedal go and try this wow its my backup at concerts.

A Brick

????

I play since 18 years and I earn money with making music and this one helpded ma alot in the early days of live gigs as a "pro", making good Rock, but well...........

It's not the easiest pedal to find a good sound on, but when you find them they are perfect, it's an extremely versatile pedal. The manual is slightly lacking but if your an experienced guitarist it's a cynch.

This pedal sounds great, but on the more trebly amps you have to turn the treble down.
As i previously said, it's very versatile, so you can get pretty much any sound out of it. It's an awesome pedal, with it you can make any guitar grunt. You can even get a les paul grunt sound out of a start with this little baby.

Definitely reliable, i dont even have a backup. its all metal, so it'll last for donkeys years.

haven't dealt with them, but seeing as it's marshall, i'd expect it'd be very good.

my band plays rock but also various other things, and the guv'nor excells at them all. I'd definetly get another one if this one got stolen. this beats a ds-1 hands down, it has so much more tone shaping involved. Two things to remember - the many controls might make it hard for a beginner to get the right sound, and two, the only fault i know of, is it clicks when you turn it on. but overall this is a fine piece of guitaring ingenuity.

It's going to take a while to set up to your liking. I have had this for 2 months and still cant decide how to leave it set.
Manual is ok, and it's a nice enough pedal.

hmmmmm. I bought this to be the heavier, more classic distortion on my board (i also have two of those little FAB pedals and a Big Muff, Ego Booster, DynaComp etc..), i wanted a pedal which was different from my other pedals.
Im just not impressed. I find it sounds too fake, fizzy and almost like a multi-effect unit distortion, ie - processed. With the deep control on i can hear a very odd "electric" noise, hard to explain, but its not nice. I also found that the gain starts to clip past the 3 o'clock position pretty badly, and the overall sound lacks warmth or drive. Dont get me wrong, it's not a bad pedal, it does sound like a Marshall amp, and i have found uses for it.

Seems pretty good, solid enough, no problems here.

No idea

I play Pink Floyd, lots of it, Dave Gilmour, Page, Clapton, Hendrix, SRV, Beck etc.. are my favourites, also stuff like the Chili's, Green Day, QOTSA, old goth stuff and the like are the sort of things i like.
I have a pretty extensive setup: Strat Plus, EMG pickups, loads of pedals, Peavey Classic 50 tube amp, and more.
This isnt the pedal i was looking for, my #20 Danelectro FAB pedal blows it away.
I wanted to like it, it looks good and has a great reputation, but it's not for me, in fact it's the least fun pedal i have.
I set it with the Deep off completely, bass and mid about half way, treble just below that, gain at 2 o'clock and volume abdount 10 o'clock.
No matter what i do it sounds fake, cold and essentialy pretty thin, the bass and deep controls only seem to add boominess and the whole thing has an odd chorus-ish fizz.
I did find i liked it for the odd riff or lead sound here and there, so it's not all bad.

Try it before you buy it.

It's not too hard, but it heavily depends on the gear you're using. Forget about the settings suggested in the manual, they're a bit overdone imho (too heavy bass/deep settings).

Keep in mind this pedal is best suited for guitars with humbuckers.

I use this pedal mainly with my Gibson Les Paul through a Laney VC30 class A tubeamp w/ a Marshall 1936 2x12" cabinet and it sounds truly FAN-TAS-TIC. (I also have a USA Tele, but the pedal doesn't seem to be keen on singlecoils, unless you back off the gain and bass/deep knobs)
As long as you use humbucking guitars it'll sound fine on any setting.

My favourite setting:
GAIN: 3 o'clock
BASS: 12 o'clock
DEEP: 3 o'clock
TREBLE: 2 o'clock
MIDDLE: 2 o'clock
LEVEL: 1 o'clock

What I love about this pedal is that it definitely *HAS* that typical Marshall roar. Instantly recognizable. And I can know, cause I have owned a JCM 2000 DSL for some years (I sold it because I couldn't live anymore with its dull cleansound, as I started to play clean more and more since the last few years -- but its overdrive was great of course). Okay, this pedal won't replace a JCM 800 full stack cranked at max, but it HAS that character and I don't believe any other pedal in this low budget price category will get any closer!

Really shines with power chords, but when you back off the gain it also can sound beautiful with full chords. Perfect for singing solo's too - sound has clear definition and nice sustain.
For mellow crunchsounds you may be better off with a Tubescreamer or a SD-1 or similar, but if you like powerful rock distortion with nice mids and a beefy low end you will love this.

When I need a softer, less aggressive tone I use my amp's overdrive.

OK, some less positive news here. After barely 6 months of use, the footswitch crapped out.
It didn't came as a surpise though... I've owned several Marshall amps in the past (some Valvestates and JCM's) and there were ALWAYS problems with the accompanying footswitches.
Marshall should use Boss-style switches instead... whether you like FET-switches or not, at least those are able to survive decennia of stage abuse.

My band plays dreamy indie rock with influences of 80's new wave and occasional noisy outbursts. A good match.

The Marshall Guv'nor+ is my favourite pedal. It's the best distortion stompbox I've come across in more than 15 years of playing. I wanted a lead guitar sound somewhat in the vein of Joey Santiago (Pixies fame) and I found it... (actually he used the previous incarnation of it, that's the black one).
Over the years I've tried literally dozens of different overdrive/distortions units and I love this one most. It sounds SO much better than all other pedals in this price category. And if you use it on a decent tube amp, it doesn't sound boxy at all. The EQ has a pretty wide range and the deep knob enables you to add enough bottom, even if you're playing on a modest sized combo.
I've already had lots of people that complimented me on my overdriven tone since I got this one... That's not a coincidence, right :-)

Over the years I played with all of them 'popular' dist/od-pedals (Boss Distortion & Turbo Distortion & Super Overdrive & Turbo Overdrive & Dual Overdrive & Metal Zone & Heavy Metal & Hyper Metal, DOD Trash Master, ProCo Rat & You Dirty Rat, EHX Big Muff NYC, etc etc ...) but while some of them are pretty good (eG. the RAT and the Boss DS-2), none can really compare to the Marshall Guv'nor in terms of TONE and sheer BODY.

If it were stolen or lost, I would go out and buy it again THE SAME DAY. Or perhaps I'd search on eBay for an old Guv'Nor (the black one).

-2 points for that damn unreliable footswitch, otherwise I would have given this pedal a 10 for its great sound!

It takes a bit of time to find the sound your looking for with this pedal. The deep, bass, mid, and treble controls provide a great variety in tonal range. The gain and volume controls, depending on your amp, is also more than sufficient and has a lot of head room.

We, my son and I, use a vintage '72 Fender Stratocaster, loaded with the original 1976 prototype EMG pickups, similiar to the SA model. Our effects chain is currently under construction, as we wanted to revamp our line-up to compliment our new amp, JSX combo. The effects consist of a Marshall ED-1 compressor, Marshall Gun'Nor Plus, Crybaby Wah, and soon a Boss CH-1 chorus, MXR phase 90, and a Digitech whammy pedal. Through our effects loop we run a Boss DD-3 delay, and Morley Little Alligator Volume Pedal. The Guv'Nor on its own does not produce a lot of noise - virtually all overdrives produce some degree of noise. We like the sound of Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Marty Friedman, and Zakk Wylde. In order to get a similiar sound, it really starts with your own feel, a good amp that already sounds overdriven on its own(this is very critical), a compressor to smooth out the pedal breaking up, and a touch of echo to bridge the notes. You may notice that when Satriani and Vai demonstrated their signature amps they both used delays to smooth out the sound.

So far it is too early to comment on the reliability factor, since both Marshall pedals are relatively new to our line-up.

We have not had to deal with Marshall at this time.

As mentioned previously, Steve Vai among the others listed is our favourite guitarist. I've been playing for 35 years, went to college for music, jazz and classical guitar, university for performance and education and have taught over 2000 guitar students in my career. My son is heavily influenced by the virtiouso musicians including Paganini and lives in a world of Vai/Malmsteen/Satriani/Friedman. I spent my entire career checking out the most recent effects, and most recently spent a day in Toronto, Canada, checking out everything on the shelf of several music stores. The Guv'Nor is among the best out there, which is highly subjective to personal experience and taste. I have been looking for the perfect "combination" of effects since I started when I paid $18.00 for a brand new Big Muff. I'm wondering if there is any experience musician out there who is perfectly content with their electronic guitar rig. We own a ton of other stuff - too much to mention here. I would recommend this pedal, and may replace it if it were to malfunction.

ive found the guv'nor a slgiht bit frustrating to get a good overall tone that i can get and come back to afterwards without having to tweak it again. thats the good thing about this pedal, its surely a tweakers paradise haha

thats not to say is not a bad pedal, i just find it frustrating to get something really gobsmacking from it as there is a few to many knobs to twiddle

i use this not really as an overdrive pedal per se, rather i turn the gain down completely so as to get a nice warm airey kinda sound that i use to ambient sounds from my guitar, and with an equaliser, i manage to make my guitar sound like a piano so for that i think of it highly. the gain does give a variety of nuances to the same settings ive found. but...

when i bought this, i had the mindset of using it as a mild distortion/overdrive. something to give my rig a bit of tube like grind and ive always been a little dissapointed in that respect. i wanted something massive sounding, something that has an even tone that was easliy mouldable and versatile. what i found i have was a lot more bass than id reckoned for, a treble and mid knob that doesnt nearly enough rectify the mass of bass and an overall tone that just doesnt have the punch i was wanting.
compared with a friends marshall tube head, its a little souless and shy compared to the amps massive wall of sound, even at similar settings, its really always been outshined by the amps its supposed to sound like. in my opinion its a little underwhelming

having said that, ive never found the pedal especially noisy, no more than you should really expect from any od or dist pedal and whilst i doubt its a true bypass, ive never notice it do anything drastic to my tone other than drain a slight bit of volume, which ive found having more than 6-7 pedals does anyways

so for i now get out of it, id give it a 10, though if your reading this looking for a massive marshall overdrive, id ask you try it first, it really wasnt what i was looking for in an OD pedal and im fortunate i got something else out of it i liked

ive never thought the marshall built pedals were all that fragile, they are heavy and either that means theirs a lot of stuff in them or they are a really thick metal case, i dont expect it to break any time soon

would gig without a back upbut i like to have some backup, whatever gear im using

never had to deal with them thus far

like ive said, i couldnt get much of an OD sound i wanted from this pedal so i use if to give my guitar tones an ambient quality when i want them to.
for the money, im sure if i lost it or had it stolen id get another, 35 pounds isnt breaking the bank

because i didnt like this as an OD pedal, ive now got a good OD pedal for what i wanted and would buy it agin just for the sounds i can invent from it

in all its a versatile pedal and i dont doubt it gives many people a great sound that suites thiers tastes for tones, but for me it wasnt a big enough sound, no matter how hard ive tried with it (over about a year now i reckon)

Pretty simple to use. It has four knobs, GAIN, BASS, TREBLE, and VOLUME. The bass & treble knobs each have an additional feature to enable you to tweak the DEEP and MIDRANGE tones. The pedal also comes with an owner's manual that shows four basic settings. With those, you can get some great sounds. Then adjust the settings for the guitar and amp you are using to fine tune it.

Folks, this is the best sounding distortion/overdrive pedal I have ever owned. From the moment I plugged it in, I was getting that CLASSIC MARSHALL CRUNCH. It's simply jaw-dropping-ly cool. And that can be obtained while your amp is on a totally clean setting. I used to have to "cheat" with other pedals and bring the gain up on my amp to help the pedal achieve a better, fatter tone. NOT THE GUV'NOR! I have an old, beat up hybrid-tube amp; a MusicMan 210-HD. I have a Gibson SG Special with the stock Alnico Humbuckers that it came from the factory with. The MusicMan is an outstanding amp for clear tone, but I could NEVER get the overdrive sound I wanted. EVER! It had to be cranked so frickin loud to get any meat to the thing. So, I own just about every Boss, Ibanez, MXR distortion pedal in this price range in lame attempts through the years to get the sound I wanted. The Guv'Nor slays them all! The very best thing about the pedal is that it retains the tone of your guitar when engaged. My other pedals always turned my guitar into a toneless, bland sound, no matter what position the pickup switch was in. The Guv'Nor seems to recognize your different pickup settings without any loss of tone & texture. I swear I can get ALL the Marshall amp sounds: ANY LEVEL of crunch. Like AC/DC, to the Led Zep type Les Paul, Bad Company, Blackmore, old Black Sabbath, etc...all those classic, rippin' Marshall sounds. And you know how you tune your bottom E to a low D? You can rip into all those Metallica-like sounds, or goth-rock or metal screamin' sounds, or WHATEVER. BUT ALSO! Turn down the gain and tweak the treble/bass/mid/deep knobs, and this thing can get a PHAT blues sound, too. I use it for my country/rock solos. And the volume knob will kick your amp to 11, bro. I swear. Unbelievable and LOUD volume.

So far, the thing is rock solid. It's heavy, too. Like a gold brick. No need for a backup as of yet.

To be a fair reviewer, I can't rate this section because I have not needed CS help. But, COME ON! IT'S FRICKIN MARSHALL, MAN. They ain't goin' anywhere...

I play a range o' styles. Power/pop, adult alternative rock, and country. This lil' pedal gives me any tone I need for all those types of music. I have been playing for 35 frickin years, man. I know I shoulda bought a Marshall amp years ago, but I'm weird that way. I've had Fender Twins, MusicMans, an old Earth amp I wish I'd never sold, Peavey, Yamaha, Vox (solid state). I've gone thru my share of Tele's, Strats, Pauls, and the occasional low-budget brand guitar. Currently, I got the SG. If this pedal were stolen, I'd buy another in a New York minute. I drove the folks at Guitar Center and Sam Ash crazy as I tried every single pedal in every single store! Nothing was quite right. I went on line one night and wondered if Marshall made any pedals, and BOOM. There was the Guv'Nor. I really lucked out on eBay and got a great deal. But I swear I would pay twice as much for this thing. The tone from this baby really helps me make the music I want. What was the alternative for me, anyway!? A Marshall tube amp? Mesa/Boogie? And I love all those new "boutique" amps that have that killer overdrive tone, but I don't have $1000-2000. This pedal does it ALL for me. It will give you that great Marshall amp sound, man. TRUST ME! TRUST ME!!

It can be alittle frustrating at first to get a good sound because of all the knobs but on the upside it is a tweakers heaven.

I have played the original Guvnor and really liked it so when i tried the Guv II model i was skeptical at first but was blown away when i used it at my first gig,It has all the power and tone of the original and then some,Very tubelike I can go from classic cruch such as Hendrix,Trower and Beck to Sabbath,Ramones,Nirvana and Van Halen its all there.Also the Guv Plus works very well with other pedals.Using a clean boost with the Guv Plus really brings out the tone.

Built like a brick shithouse,I've been gigging with it for 5 years now with no problems.

Never dealt with them.

The Guv Plus is a excellent vintage distortion device,It far excedes the sound of the original and the price is very resonable,As for making your amp sound like a Marshall i never owned one ,I use the Peavey delta blues and the Guv plus totally rocks with this amp,When playing blues rock ala Robin Trower,Jimi Hendrix and SRV is where this pedal really shines for me.Also when i need to get heavier the Guv Plus can give me the extra crunch and power.