Peavey AOD-2

Absolutely simple. Dial it up - you've got the sound. Need less - turn it back.

My pedal is darned quiet! I find it hard to believe that others have written in complaining about noise. I bought this pedal brand new when Peavey first released it and I've used it with every setup I've had (must be almost 20 years!).

I have a BOSS ME-50 and a Behringer V-amp2 and I still put this pedal right alongside them. I've also got a whole mess of other BOSS and other brand pedals that I rotate through depending on my mood, but the Peavey AOD is the only one that makes the cut every time.

The overdrive out of this thing can be very subtle or excessive. It warms up the tone when I've had to put up with solid state amps. Actually, I've reverted back to an old Traynor bass amp that I love playing through. With the Peavey pedal this amp is way warm.
My guitars are a Fender Tele, a Lado Hawk and a Godin SDxt.

No problems in all those years. And mine is even easy on the battery consumption. I've had batteries in there for months without changing.

Never had to use it.

Yeh, I'm sure there are better overdrive pedals out there, but I like this one and it's been very good to me.

This review appends my previous one below....

I've found this pedal is great for 80's rock - think keyboard bands with a guitar player like Spandau Ballet (rhythm on "True"), Genesis (was able to nail the "That's All" solo with the AOD and a compressor), Duran Duran (the entire guitar thing on "Rio". Just set the sensitivity and gain to about 12 noon or thereabouts and play with it. I like this pedal more and more each day.

This solid, yellow box has three knobs: Sensitivity, Drive, and Level. Pretty easy. The footswitch is well protected by a rubber cover but can make engagement a little iffy (common with all Peavey pedals from this line). There is an LED, though.

Like all Peavey pedals from this line, it's very quiet. I was surprised to the read other reviews that said it was noisy. The switching is silent and the overall noise level is low. Furthermore, it does not suck tone when disengaged.

I use it with a strat and a hollow body with humbuckers through an old SF Bassman head and a 2x12" cab w/ Vintage 30's. I play mostly classic/ vintage hard rock. With a strat, the pedal's basic sound lacks mids and is somewhat dry sounding. When you follow it with a distortion or fuzz, it's more lush, especially if tone or presence on the distortion is tweaked. With humbuckers, the sound is rich and full of harmonics - really nice. I prefer it to a Tubescreamer with humbuckers.

One interesting feature of this pedal is the sensitivity control. It's supposed to control the pick responsiveness of the effect - i.e. the harder you hit the strings, the more distortion you get. It works but is not as effective as I hoped.

Other reviews mention the Smashing Pumpkins and I would agree - dime the drive and sensitivity and you're there; a very good wall-of-sound tone. At lower settings, it provides a basic but distinct overdrive tone which is soft in the midrange and best combined with another distortion pedal.

At first, I though it was a one trick pony but found other very usable sounds - with the level at about 8, the drive to 2 and the sensitivity dimes, you get a really good hot Fender sound.

Built like a tank & hermetically sealed. Excellent quality, USA construction!

This is a good, basic overdrive with tone comparable and performance comparable to higher priced units. It produces a very good wall-of-sound and does the basic overdrive thing too. It's a good value though I probably overpaid. Also, the entire line of Peavey pedals from the late 80's to early 90's are very, very good and this is no exception.

This thing is so easy to get a good sound out of. Turn your amp to full full full full full (all gains, eqs, volumes, etc) and turn all the pedal knobs to full, all your guitar knobs to full, set er on neck pickup, and play some chords: this thing fills up a room, feedsback in such a beautiful building arc... you can just hear it cooking your sound, turn down your guitar gain to half and you've got a beautiful soloing overdrive...

I use an old samick
This thing is so noisy, but it's a good noise.
Don't play this thing while out of tune, beacuse it amplifies the beat frequencies; but it amplifies the resonance too when you are in tune.

Yes, it does make a beautiful smashing pumpkins/siamese dream sound.

The only problem is the fact that the bottom is soft. It forces the battery up into the circuitry, and overuse (say, seven years worth of everyday-playing) will wreck your ribbon leads. In order to guarantee that the leads would stay in, I had them pro-hotglued, but then yu can't open the pedal the right way and you have to cut the rubber at front. And then the battery has to stay external and the battery leads keep breaking.

Uh, does anyone know where I can get an AC adapter for this thing? I've spent so much on getting this thing worked on, and I've soldered so much, and it still doesn't work.

Is peavey still in business?

I stay away from guitar stores. They took all my money and never fix a damn thing. (that goes for work on my guitar too)

My favorite pedal. It defined my sound for a generation, and it'll do the same for you.

Just crank it up and let it go!

Very smashing pumpkins. may sound a little dry, but just add more mid on your amp.

i would definately use it.

I would buy it again and again. that other guy must not know what he is talkig about!

it has a wide array of sounds.

the sound is good, but there is a ungodly click when you turn it off and on.

it is very dependable and i would use it AS a back up.

it has nice distortion, but i would look for a clickless model.