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Hatsubai « Pretty solid OD »
Published on 11/22/11 at 18:04Overdrives have been used since nearly the beginning of the electric guitar. People have been boosting their amps with everything under the sun way before I was ever born. The GT-OD is an attempt of MXR to try to release a sort of TS-808 style clone. It's a nice, transparent sounding overdrive that can really deliver in terms of boosting your tone and giving you a nice kick. The pedal features your standard volume, gain and tone knobs. It also has a basic switch to turn it on and off. There's really not much different compared to the other pedals out there.
UTILIZATION
The pedal is built tough. I've never gigged with this exact pedal, but I've gigged with similar ones, and they always seem to last. In fact, I've never had a failure from an MXR pedal, personally. However, I have had to repair some of my friends' pedals, but it was usually just the switch that needed to be fixed after years and years of hard abuse. The pedal itself is very easy to set up, but just in case, there is a well written manual for you to read so you can see how MXR themselves tend to set the pedal up. It's a very clear and well written manual.
SOUND QUALITY
The pedal works great for all kinds of styles and genres. First, I plugged it into a Fender to see if I could get that SRV kind of tone. Sure enough, it was there. It's very organic sounding, and it responded quite nicely to my picking dynamics. I then moved on to a Les Paul in a JCM800 with this up front. I could get everything from AC/DC to Slash and even Slayer. It was able to do all those genres without any issues at all. The final test was putting this through my 5150 in an attempt at getting a modern metal tone. I picked up a Jackson with EMGs, and it was pure brutality. The trick to boosting those higher gain amps is to keep the gain on both the pedal and the amp low. You don't need to turn it up much. You're just looking to tighten it up.
OVERALL OPINION
The pedal is great, and I could see having this on my board if I ever decide to switch things up a bit. The overall sound is very much like a tubescreamer, so if you're used to those kinds of things, this should be no different. I actually recommend buying pedals used if you can as they tend to be better buys, and you can't mess them up quite as much as amps or guitars.
UTILIZATION
The pedal is built tough. I've never gigged with this exact pedal, but I've gigged with similar ones, and they always seem to last. In fact, I've never had a failure from an MXR pedal, personally. However, I have had to repair some of my friends' pedals, but it was usually just the switch that needed to be fixed after years and years of hard abuse. The pedal itself is very easy to set up, but just in case, there is a well written manual for you to read so you can see how MXR themselves tend to set the pedal up. It's a very clear and well written manual.
SOUND QUALITY
The pedal works great for all kinds of styles and genres. First, I plugged it into a Fender to see if I could get that SRV kind of tone. Sure enough, it was there. It's very organic sounding, and it responded quite nicely to my picking dynamics. I then moved on to a Les Paul in a JCM800 with this up front. I could get everything from AC/DC to Slash and even Slayer. It was able to do all those genres without any issues at all. The final test was putting this through my 5150 in an attempt at getting a modern metal tone. I picked up a Jackson with EMGs, and it was pure brutality. The trick to boosting those higher gain amps is to keep the gain on both the pedal and the amp low. You don't need to turn it up much. You're just looking to tighten it up.
OVERALL OPINION
The pedal is great, and I could see having this on my board if I ever decide to switch things up a bit. The overall sound is very much like a tubescreamer, so if you're used to those kinds of things, this should be no different. I actually recommend buying pedals used if you can as they tend to be better buys, and you can't mess them up quite as much as amps or guitars.