Rothwell Audio Products Heartbreaker Overdrive Pedal

Straightforward and intuitive really ??? the usual gain and volume knobs that you find on most OD pedals for drive level and output level, on/off footswitch with led indicator (true bypass when off), 9v DC for power or use a 9v battery, nice easy access battery compartment.

However, this pedal is much more flexible and interesting than most, without being complicated. There is a drive level switch to go from low gain operation to high gain, nice extra flexibility. The EQ is much more flexible than usual with bass and treble knobs instead of the usual single tone control, so you can really tweak the EQ to your liking. Great functionality but still simple to use and easy to dial in great sounds.

Superb.

I was looking for a transparent overdrive pedal to complement my Matamp 1224 MkII ??? the amp sounds great and has plenty of power tube drive as well as two pre amp gain stages (gain and footswitchable overdrive) for plenty of pre amp gain. The amp will happily do clean through to vintage heavy rock and even Black Sabbath. However, it is a single channel amp and when you stomp in the overdrive you are still running through the same tone stack with the same EQ settings. If you want variation, more than you can get from your guitars vol and tone knobs, then you need something else. This is why I wanted a good OD pedal, to stomp in some extra drive and get an EQ change at the same time, but without sacrificing the great tone that I already had from the amp.

I have tried a few OD/Distortion pedals for this without much success. They either mostly don???t complement amp (often sound ok through a clean amp but when used with an amp already with a little OD going on just sounded awful) or they stamp their own sound on your tone as soon as you switch them in ??? my tubescreamer does this and I will be selling it.

Enter the Rothwell Heartbreaker ??? this is the end of my search. It really works well with my Matamp, sounds great whether the amp is clean or already overdriven, and works with the amp to complement the sound rather than taking over your tone. I can layer in some extra distortion which complements the sound, EQ the sound for some variation (e.g. playing the amp with the mids backed off a little for rhythm then stomp on the Heartbreaker and get extra drive and a mid boost for lead work). Fantastic!

Only had it a few weeks, built like a tank, real quality workmanship, if it ever breaks I???d be so surprised and I???m sure that Andy Rothwell would sort it out.

I own several Rothwell products and I have had contact with Andrew Rothwell who designs and builds his own products. He is easy to contact, helpful nice bloke, I have complete confidence that any issues would be sorted without a fuss.

Fantastic, can???t recommend this pedal highly enough. I have some other Rothwell Audio products including the F1 boost, Switchblade distortion and Cool Little Knob and they all work extremely well - I'd definitely buy another Heartbreaker if it was stolen.