Overlord

If you're into blues/rock, this is a must have. I've tried about 30 different overdrive or distortion units and for overdriven sounds you can not beat this thing. The good thing is it has 3 way eq. I really have started to hate those overdrive pedals with a single tone knob. They are never bright enough. The boss pedals are the worst, I've tried OD-3 and SD-2, they were both equally bad. They cut the highs out and if you play strat-type guitars like I do, you really shouldn't play with boss overdrives. Try them in the following way: Listen to your amp's clean sound, it should be as good as possible. Then kick on your pedal and listen to the sound and especially the highs! If the pedal cuts out the highs, make adjustments on the eq. Try again. With Overlord you can find a sound, where the only changing thing is the overdrive/distortion, no changes in eq balance and what's more important, no changes in highs!!! Try it, try it and try it once more. And forget those tone knob devices. They really suck! Only other od/dist boxes I like are Tech 21 GT-2, Marshall Drive Master and Vox Bulldog. They all have more than just one tone knob for eq adjustments. The Overlord suits best for blues and bluesrock, it's by no means a heavy metal pedal.

The footswitch is not so good, but mine works ok and I rarely use it, because the pedal stays on almost all the time.

This pedal is very easy to use.

As I stated before, it's best for blues. I've been playing for over 25 years and I've had two of these, since I stupidly sold the first one. The only other pedal I would like to buy back is Marshall DriveMaster, a very good pedal for rock and even some heavy metal. I wish it had a better (more reliable) footswitch. Other than that it's a great product and the prices are getting up.

at rehersall i use whatever amp is available at the moment its a marshall avt. when in a gig situation i use my marshall mkII master vol and humbucking pickup loaded guitars of various origin but mostly a gibson les paul standard with burstbucker pro pups. I change my pedals about very often so a signal path might be like guit,digitech pds1550 direct >overlord >ibanez ddl>clone theory >dod a/b box >snarling dogs whine o wah >amp the output from the pds 1550 goes to the other ab input and into the wah Roughly hmm. it does marshall very well , not for the nu-metal heads but will do real metal with ease but then again this pedal was made for "CLASSIC OVERDRIVE" dont expect modern tones . pah! why would you? i would give it a ten BUT it does hiss a fraction , but then again all my pedals do . this is not for smooth jazz , if thy hiss offends thee go get a noise gate

Ahhh this is the thing , i am on my second overlord the first one lasted a little over 6 months ( it was second handed ) i presume it was the switch as it appears to be a little temperamental from what i can glean from the web anyway i gave it to a mate to fix and never seen it or him again so i presume he got it fixed and fell in love with it and had to dissapear in order to keep the pedal. so reliability ??? she broke down and left me for the repair man , thats pretty unreliable.

Plugs into the wall , guitar in one side amp in the other , footswitch on/off , all the controls from an amp that you need to sculpt your sound without being too fancy ie. vol, gain, bass, mid, and treb.

they make strings dont they

style of music? , rock / punk / metal How long have you been playing? longer than ive not in bands since i was 15 so 17 yrs would you buy it again or get something else? Both , just told you am on my second one What is your favorite feature? the name Did you compare it to other products? Which ones? i bought the akai shred `o` matic shortly after i lost my first overlord i felt cheap and used and on the re bound , it didnt last!! Anything you wish it had? a siamese twin , (might buy another one) Does it help you make music? yes it does

Tubes are the best! Just beleive me. Well to start with I’ll explain the fact that I use different setups for different things. I use this pedal with my JCM Marshall. My chain is this: - Modified Cry Baby,-  Modified TS9 (Monte Alums) Tube Screamer,-  This Modified OVERLORD,- ( Boss Delay – Harmonist 2 – chorus)  all in one true bypass bank,- then off to a 50watt JCM800 combo (no diodes) (clean input only).  I use my favourite guitar (Ibanez RG770) and perhaps a noise gate if required. It sounds great. I did modify this old pedal. I tried putting a true bypass switch but I had to try to bypass the mosfet switching system as well and to cut a long story short I accidentally shorted out the board and blew the 2 original C4558C chips – bummer! So I bypassed the switch and bridged the mosfet and replaced the chips with 4558P x 2  (TS808) along with the EH 12AU7 tube. Now I use an external bypass and it all works again only BETTER. The sound?... Well I’ll first mention that the new OP-amp chips have made the pedal sound smoother with a more refined frequency and gain response. This along with the new tube (12AU7) has made the pedal much quieter. The Tube allows for more headroom and I leave the drive set to full for that classic overdrived JCM800 sound. You “can leave it at that” because the tube really reacts well to how you play the guitar. When I roll off my guitar volume then it cleans up to a warm VOX sound, I can kick in a little TubeScreamer and get a great Stevie Ray sound, then turn off the TS and wind up the guitar volume and I get a great Eddie VH brown sound, add back the TS, change pickups then I get a Brian May Sound. It is soooooo bloody great sounding that it is just amazing. It is worth a 10 cause I love it that much!

Read the above, What do you reckon? The original switch must be replaced or put it into some true bypass system. Always gig with a backup(the golden rule!). Actualy my Marshall is my backup, but I still keep a heap of pedals handy.

I bought this thing in the late 80’s? Early 90’s perhaps? I used it for years in every gig situation and on a shitload of recordings. It comes from the factory with a 12AX7 tube in it but I thought back then that it was too hard to handle, so I put a 12AT7 tube in it and I used it that way for 10 years (would you believe that I used the same tube! … it is true!) I gigged 2 to 4 gigs a week with it plus rehearsals and recordings for all that time with the same tube! … Cool or what?  I still have that tube and it still works! Alas, … I have decided to change that “magic” tube and I have chosen an EH 12AU7 tube and I will talk about that later along with some other mods that I have done. This thing has 5 knobs; Drive, Volume, Treble, Mids, Bass, along with a power on off switch and (originally) a mosfet style effect bypass switch but now it has no switch at all.

I have never dealt with Dean Markley and they just don't make these effects anymore so I guess that our relationship is stuffed from the begining.

I have been playing guitar for over 32 years and as a professional for about 22 years and I know what sounds good and right. This pedal sounds great for my style which is classic 80’s / 90’s guitar rock. When I pull back on my volume I can return to the 60’s or the 50’s and with a Telecaster I am in jailhouse rock. I need to cover all those sounds and believe me when I say that this pedal with these mod’s make it happen for me. I wish that you could hear it. I also wish that a hot young babe was on my face, but hey I’m a bastard! :-)