Easy- no instructions, so the 3 way switch and voice knob take twiddling to figure out.

Okay- my friend Phil and I have all three pedals here.

We tested VERRRRRRRRRRY carefully with a strat and a les paul through
a Fender Bassman 50 modded to blackface specs.

Actually, I have a brand new Dumkudo Zendudo Twin, and Phil brought his Zendrive 1.

We are using George L cables.

We are fastidious listeners, and we're both around 55 years old.

First
We have NO prejudices or preferences for either.
Both are FANTASTIC PEDALS-- no question about that.
Both would serve any user extremely well and provide STERLING overdrive at any level.

We will just share our observations about the differences- and there are a few.

Here we go:

1) The only difference we can detect between the Zenkudo and Dumkudo is that the Dumkudo has higher gain then the Zenkudo. Otherwise, both sound exactly the same, and in fact use the same op amp chip. How he does this, I don't know.

The Zenkudi does not have as much gain top end as the Zendrive.
The Dumkudo is capable of MORE top end overdrive than the Zendrive.

Both sides have the 3 way clipping switch selector (no this hasn't been done away with after all)

2) BOTH Zenkudo and Dumkudo will ratchet down to virtually zero overdrive-- just that the Dumkudo has more top end distortion if you want it. Thus- both will work for any guitar- despite the suggestion that one is for a Strat (D) and the other for a Humbucker guitar (Z).

3) The D/Z knobs essentially work in the same manner as the Zendrive.

4) The D/Z pedals have a WIDER and more BROAD tonal variation on tap using the Tone and Voice knobs (Tone and Jali on the Dumkudo, same thing). I.e., you get more variety from the D/Z pedals in regards to harmonics.

The VOICE knobs on all these pedals are essentially harmonic overtone filters. Turn the knobs counter clockwise, you filter out more and more harmonics-- full on, no filtering.

Thus, the Voice knob SEEMS like a tone control- and well, it is sort of.

The TONE knobs on all these pedals is essentially a high pass filter, thus turn completely counter clockwise, and the pedal gives you less treble and more bass appearance.

The D/Z pedal knobs have greater latitude in what they do compared to the Zendrive.

5) The D/Z pedal is more TRANSPARENT- i.e. it does not add midrange color when the overdrive is engaged. The Zendrive adds a bit of color/mids. Not much, but a little.

When the Zendrive gain is fully counter clockwise, the mid boost is not apparent, but only becomes noticeable when you add gain. This is regardless of where you put the Voice knob. You can't completely dial it out.

6) The D/Z additionally adds a three position switch that allows you to choose the type of overdrive distortion- RED= asymmetrical clipping with minor compression ("Marshall" or Tubescreamer) BLUE= Mosfet + symmetrical clipping ("Zenkudo" position - slightly fuzzy) and GREEN= no clipping (DUMBLE). The LED in the D/Z pedal changes color with the selection.

This is a very nice feature, but will only be noticeable to a large extent when a good amount of overdrive gain is added, not on very low amounts.

Comparatively, the Green Dumble position has no compression, and retains the most bass and changes the core guitar tone the least while adding overdrive.
The Blue Zen position loses the most bass, while the Ren position is half way between the other two.

7) Construction of all the pedals is excellent. The D/Z pedal has a fair amount of silicone inside to help cushion the free floating PC board which is not screwed down. I do not see that this will ever be problematic at any point, and in fact, allows a little cushioning between it and the case.

CONTINUED IN OVERALL CATAGORY

Looks solid

Excellent- even from Japan. Pedal came VERY quickly, in over the top packaging- in a nice carrying case, inside a hard poly case with handle.

8) We could essentially create any sound on the Zendrive with the Dumkudo, with the exception of the slight absence of boosted mids. We didn't miss that, and in fact, preferred the transparency of the Dumkudo.
We would rather dial in more mids with our amp if we wanted it. but the difference was very very slight in any case.

The Zenkudo was not as high gain capable as the Zendrive (or Dumkudo), not by a huge amount, but noticeably so. At the slightly lower end of drive, it performed very admirably and as well as the others. But if one had to get only either the Zenkudo or Dumkudo- it's a no brainer- Dumkudo.

The Zendrive could not make every sound the Dumkudo could make, nor to a lesser extent the Zenkudo, because of the lack of three-way clipping selector, nor the broader range of Tone and Voice found on the D/Z pedals. Again, not a huge amount, but certainly a fairly significant difference between the pedals.

9) The basic sound all three pedals made was essentially the same in regards to type of overdrive, tone, etc.

10) The price of the Dumkudo Zendudo pedals, individually or in the Twin configuration (either Zen-Zen, Dum-Zen, or Dum-Dum) is higher than the Zendrive. So, for more sounds and transparency, you pay a premium. Currently, the individual D/Z pedals run over $320 each, or $560 for the twin configuration. This may even change more as the dollar loses value agains the Yen. The Zendrives can be had for $200.

None the less, I sold my Digitech RP1000 and my Lovepedal Kanji 9 to buy my Dum-Zen Twin. I am exceedingly happy with my purchase.
Phil is happy with his $200 Zendrive.

11) Although the basic sound of all three pedals is the same, The D/Z pedals provide additional tonal variations that are a significant enough leap from the Zendrive so that anyone claiming it is a CLONE- is just not correct. The design may have been generated at some point from the original Zendrive formula, but it has evolved and added things, the components are different, so it is a distinctly different pedal- as a Lotus is from a Ford GT.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

three are at unity with the Tone/Voice (Jali) fully clockwise.

I.e., with the gain all the way down, and the Tone Voice all the way up, your guitar tone is unchanged

THUS-- these knobs act as FILTERS as you turn them counter clockwise.
They are disengaged as you fully turn them clockwise.

Toshihiko may describe it differently than Hermida, but what we detected with all three, is that they all did exactly the same thing.

Again-
Tone is a high pass filter, engage to turn counter clockwise.

Voice or Jali (Dumkudo label) is a Harmonics overtone filter, engage to turn counter clockwise.

Yes, of course, they ARE interactive on all pedals. As you increase the amount of treble heard, this increases the high frequency harmonic overtones, and vice versa.

People are free to disagree with us. We spent a lot of time on this, with both pedals right together at the same time. We are certain of our observations.


As for the three way switch-- Toshihiko explained that this was only to change the clipping characteristics. This may possibly have an effect on tone- because as you clip a waveform, the auditory perception of a sound may change according to the amplitude of the wave, etc- but this is an indirect result that may or may not occur from the clipping characteristics, depending on other factors of the wave signal. The 3-way switch itself, and it's chosen position will not necessarily change the EQ of the wave, and it is certainly not the intention of the switch.

From my listening- the Green Dumble position has more bass- because there is no compression involved in the wave clipping. The Zen position with symmetrical clipping will have the least bass, and the Red position with asymmetrical clipping will be in between the two- perhaps a more "mid" sound to it than the others.


Neil
There you have it.
www.NeilSlade.com

MINE IS THE ZENKUDO/DUMKUDO TWIN

For each side-
Four knobs- on off switch- three way toggle

The best overdrive pedal I own, hands down, and I've tried LOTS of pedals including Zen Drive, Lovepedal Kanji 9, and others.

Perfect- Huge variety of sounds, absolutely no loss of tone- zero loss-
all the bass and all the treble remains- all the TONE remains.

Zero extraneous noise.

You simply dial in the degree of overdrive you want- adjust tone, and style of clipping. Beautiful natural sounding overdrive.

Dumkudo side has more Zenkudo side has less Use individually or together.

Works well in combination with other pedals-- including my Vox Tonelab LE, which I have set up to emulate a Dumble clean.

I use through vintage Fender amps, that are clean sounding unless I really crank the volume. This pedal gives me PERFECT breakup from nothing to medium to medium hard breakup-- perfect sound, natural sounding, stellar quality. The guy did his homework.

My friend has a very nice Zendrive. I like this better because there is more variety to sound, but every bit the quality of the Zendrive- it does the Zendrive thing-- and MORE. Perhaps what the next generation Zendrive should be.

I have a beautiful TS9 analogman Silver mod, and a BD-1 Analogman mod, and a Real Tube by Butler A/C box with a vintage GE tube. This is more versatile than any of these, and could replace any. (Although I will not part with these pedals, as I can now stack them all and get outrageous combinations.)

The "Dumble" sound? Never played one. First class real tube quality breakup without losing a millimeter of your guitar tone? Absolutely.

Looks extremely solid. Inside everything has silicon gooped on it for cushioning. The PC board does float, but is cushioned extremely well.
I anticipate zero problems. Case and knobs are first class.

Nearly instant email responses. Pedal was made to order, and shipped and arrived within a much shorter time than I expected. Arrived days after payment overseas express, packaged very well.

I've never been 100% happy with an overdrive pedal till now.

This is the one. Will never ever sell.

Pricey. Yes, no doubt.

I've sold my Lovepedal Kanji 9 and Rp1000 to buy this.
Smartest thing I ever did.

Neil Slade
Brain Books and Music

www.NeilSlade.com
www.BrainRadar.com
www.EasyPaintYourCar.com

The pedal has 4 knobs, drive, volume, treble and voice, a similar configuration as the Zendrive. It is true bypass and has a 3 way switch to change between different shades of drive structure. The cool thing about this switch is that the setting you choose reflects in a different color from the status led (blue, green and red). This is waaaaaaay cool! It doesn??t come with a manual, but who cares. This is a boutique pedal and you are supposed to understand what a drive knob means. It comes with a very cool packaging and with a sticker with your name and the date of manufacturing.

I play with PRS, Fender and Gibson Guitars through a Mesa Boogie Lonestar combo. I use a complex pedalboard direct to the ampo, mostly in a clean setting. The pedalboard includes the Xotic BB Preamp and RC Booster, a Cusack Screamer, a Lovepedal Eternity Kanji, Carl Martin Compressor, Fulltone Clyde Deluxe Wah, Arion modded chorus, Pigtronix Echolution, a tuner and a volume pedal. I found about this pedal when googling for a replacemente for my Zendrive, which I sold because of an uncomfortable high end fizziness that I couldn??t get rid of except in very low gain settings. My tech always thought that the eq curve in the Zendrive was just not right somewhere. I read about the Zenkudo and viewed the clip of this guy in youtube that plays really well. I contacted Toshihiko and everything happened naturally and very fast! Today I received my own Zenkudo and now I can tell you my personal opinion about it. The Dumble impersonation is very good, I like it better than the Zendrive because (this is my personal appreciation, don??t take it for granted, you have to check for yourself) it feels more forgiving with my right hand when digging in hard. When you play soft it distorts less than when you dig, which is great. The tone always reacts in a good way. I LOVE the bluesy tone I get with my hot rod 62 strat and my tele, it??s a beautiful tone indeed. The pedal reacts very-very sensitively to the input it receives. with the strat and the tele you have to pull the drive quite high to get a strong overdrive, but when I change to my 359 with Classic 57s I have to put it down a lot to get the same level of distortion. This, in my opinion is not a downside at all, it speaks about the sensitivity of the drive section and about the fact that the pedal respects the guitar you put in front of it. The Dumble setting is GREAT to push the drive channel of the Mesa Lonestar, it loves the amp and both drives together are a match made in heaven. Anyway, in a clean amp setting, the pedal sounds beautiful and the noise level is similar to my Cusack or Lovepedal. The only pedal quieter pedals I have are the BB Preamp and the RC booster, but the BB is not as sensitive to different volume and pickup settings as the Zenkudo. What I believe they do have in common is that the both compress a bit more than the Zendrive, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just a matter of tastes. With humbuckers you can get a good deal of drive but don??t expect to do Iron Maiden songs with this pedal, it is not that type of sound, this is a complex overdrive. About the red and blue settings, I have to admit that I will need a bit more time to explore them and realize their full potential, they do sound great but I don??t seem to find such a difference with the others to report them separately, the red is probably a bit more marshally sounding, but in the end I feel we are always talking about the same pedal in the end. If you like Robben or Larry you will love this pedal, for that particular sound it is the best choice I??ve heard to date.
The chords hold perfectly in any drive setting with any kind of guitar, and I??m not talking about power chords, I??m talking about complex chords that also decay in a very musical way. This pedal sounds very natural indeed. The word pristine suits it, it sounds like a fine valve amp, not as spongy as my Lonestar drive channel, but really sexy and different in its tone personality. No TS9 clone here!!! I love the TS9 and my Cusack is perfect, but I was looking for a different color and this is it. I use the Lovepedal for rock comping, but for sophisticated leads, this is the pedal, guys!

It looks solid as a rock.

The best I??ve encountered in many years. Period. This guy knows how to involve in things, you can??t go wrong with Toshihiko. Write to him!

I??m really happy about the pedal. It was sort of a blind purchase through the internet and I believe it is the most sophisticated sounding drive pedal I have, really different from the others. I truly believe you should invest in a Zenkudo, and if you can buy the twin, it may save you a lot of many and space in your pedalboard.

Analog overdrive distortion pedal.

4 knobs: Volume,tone, voice and gain.
3 position switch and 3 led modes green (dumble) red (plexi) blue ( zenkudo)

Not a bad sound in it . I have never ever given a perfect review because there hasn't been a product that has warranted it until now.
This pedal is simply perfect for me and my style.

this is the best sounding pedal I've had in 25 years of playing.

I got another so I can set them different and cascade them together!

The green mode NAILS the dumble sound. I know I have played a real dumble and sold my fuchs and two rock amps. This pedal and a nnice amp such as a fender is all you need.

On red mode it nails the eric johnson sound. The blue mode has a bit more hair around the edges like a great fuzz. The difference between this and all the other D style pedals out there is this one cleans up when you play softly or roll your guitar volume back.

I have owned: howie,stampede,zendrive,FD2 mosfet,barber small fry and direct drive, butler tube driver and manay more and this pedal is in a different league all together.

If you want a dumble sound forget about fuchs and all that and get one of these. I like it much better. Check out my youtube demo video. Search: Zenkudo.

Each pedal is handmade by Toshihiko Tanabe in Japan using the finest parts you can buy. This pedal is a unique curcuit and not a copy of another like most of the other boutique pedals out there.

Its a very sturdy design and I base my sound off this pedal thru a fender super reverb or pro reverb. I haven't had any problem and don't expect to ever have a problem.

Tanabe covers each pedal in a cool abalone or mother of pearl covering and they look unlike any other pedal out there.

I own two so I can have one on my board and another to take to jams etc or I use them at the same time if Im playing a guitar with low output etc.

I have no problem going to a gig with just this pedal and a guitar and amp-no backup!

Mr Tanabe is the best. He sends pics of YOUR pedal before he sends it off. He also makes a custom label for the bottom of the pedal with the buyers name. Its things such as this that sets him and his pedals apart.

He also says if you don't like it saend it back but YOU WILL like it if you are searching for that tone! he has made around 120 of these pedals so far and now there isn't much of a waiting list. Trust me, I have had alot of people in the US order one after hearing mine so he will be backordered very soon.

As soon as a high profile guy gets ahold of one then its going to be very hard to attain one.

His website is in japanese but it isn't hard communication with Toshihiko Tanabe. The easiest way is to email him at Tanabe@tanabe.tv

Check out my low budget video on youtube for sound quality.

I have played the guitar for over 25 years and this is the best I've evr heard/had and I am very fortunate I heard of The Zenkudo pedal and mr Tanabe.

I play a variety of music for a living and have toured with several very popular country artist but now I am focusing on Jazz and my original music. This pedal would work well for anytime someone needs a beautiful singing dumblesque lead tone that can be brighter and more dynamic than a tubescreamer type pedal.

I use them all the time on sessions of contemporary christian music,rock,country,blues and jazz gigs etc.

If you are a guy like me that loves carltons sound as well as EJ,ford etc this is the pedal.
Here is my demo :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X88ekDraPPA