Driving an amp is what makes rock music ‘rock,’ and it has become such a mainstay in today’s culture that even music traditionally less aggressive (e.g., country) has stepped up to the plate with greater push and shove in guitar tones.

Driving an amp refers to an increase in distortion and/or overdrive (although they both have slightly different meanings and qualities, they often go hand-in-hand and co-exist in some quantity or capacity). To achieve that driven sound, there exists some modification to the normal wave form or signal of an amplifier, whether achieved directly through the amp by approaching its full capabilities, or done through second party equipment, e.g., a pedal.

Originally, before the advent of pedals, we had to overdrive amps that contained vacuum tubes, which produced ‘valve’ distortion (solid-state amps create that drive distortion by way of specialized transistors and/or operational [op] amps). But to achieve that effect even at low levels, and to save our ears from the decibels of damage, electronic wizards began developing little ‘magic boxes’ to accomplish a very similar effect. A negative to these boxes is that they often do not sound warm and natural like the drive of an amp; yet on the other hand stomp boxes could create an exaggerated overdrive and distortion that exceeds what an amp could achieve (although modern amps have specialized circuits to produce distorted and overdriven tones that are not possible with their vintage cousins).

While several companies are attempting to develop advanced effects, the music gear industry has taken an interesting turn in the past decade. Like the desire to own a vintage or custom guitar, progressively greater musicians are searching for boutique pedal companies that are able to capture sounds of the past. Even modern metal bands are avoiding some of the more modern distortion and drive pedals because they sound thinner and more processed, which then alter the original tone and dynamics of the guitar and amp. And as appealing as some sounds may be, it is those older ‘thick’ tones that captivated us and which now has allowed the smaller pedal companies to influence the industry and benefit the studio and gigging musician who want the tones of yesteryear.

SolidGoldFX is a young veteran company (headed by Greg Djerrahian), and what it has produced is a must have for any electric guitarist, whether wanting an extremely modest warming of a tone to a downright aggressive distortion. Introducing the SuperDrive: a true bypass analog hand-made pedal that is not your typical ‘drive’ pedal, and in more ways than one. It is rather special in its overall quality in that it sounds as though it’s an actual extension of your amplifier – yes, it sounds that natural! Highly responsive to a player’s dynamics (giving more drive/distortion relative to how hard you play), you could say that the SuperDrive is very ‘amp like’ in how it behaves and sounds, which is not the case for most stomp boxes that color an amp’s characteristics. Rather, the SuperDrive is very transparent and has a way of enhancing an amp and guitar pickups rather than covering them up (what you put in is what you get out, but superior and improved several-fold), and so if you like your amp and pickups’ sound and gain characteristics (but you want more), you will adore this pedal. The SuperDrive literally super-charges your gear!

Currently the retro trend seems to be the emulation of 1960s sounds and tones, but the SuperDrive focuses on guitar qualities of the 70s, and it does so extremely well. Unusually quiet considering what it does (the quietist I’ve heard), the SuperDrive offers a classic and high quality sound that is full… so full that it makes those weak and sparse single coil bridge pickups step up with some balls and create a wall of sound – if you want that high end lead, but found you needed to add some neck or middle pickup for a boost, you no longer need to do so.

Solid construction, the SuperDrive is easy to use, but it offers a lot of tweaking to achieve varied results. I’ll address some basics about the pedal’s tone and then get into the specifics.

As with most drive pedals, there are volume and drive knobs. Pretty obvious, but the volume has a very nice effect on the degree of drive, et. al., even when not altering the drive setting. In other words, the volume knob pushes all the factors to the limit, making each characteristic (the pedal’s drive, distortion, presence and bass response) exaggerated or enriched.

The drive increases the degree of crunch and grit, but it also produces an increasingly brighter sound the more you turn it up. This means that as the signal is boosted the overall tone does not muddy up – nor does it produce excess harmonics and noise as one might suspect.

The SuperDrive has two other valuable controls: presence and a bass drive switch. The presence knob works as a low pass filter to control high-end content while preserving the lows. When coordinated with the drive knob, you can achieve some very different distortion tones. The presence has a tremendous effect on how ‘heavy’ a tone you want, and it’s on this pedal for good reason: the SuperDrive’s effect is very thick and the presence helps to add some ‘cut’ to the mix. The presence is not like some I’ve heard on amps and multi-effects pedals, which tend to thin out the sound and even make it slightly shrill. Rather, the tone remains full bodied and crisp. Without touching the drive level, whether low or high, the presence alone creates a nice cutting effect, thus allowing for pinch harmonics to ring clearly.

The two-way tone switch allows you to go from tight to beefy in the bass end, and this aspect becomes more apparent and audible as you increase the drive – but even when set to a more beefy bass, with a lot of bottom end, the notes remain clear. This is the feature that will add far more fullness to those single-coil pickups, and particularly at the bridge. You still can have the clarity of a bridge pickup, but now more full-bodied.
Again, you get those classic 70s rock amp tones with plenty of warmth, but with an obvious clarity and no muddiness (even when pushing the pedal’s bass response). However, to reiterate I will state the obvious to those who have heard or used this pedal - the sound possibilities are soooo varied. With the volume and drive cranked you experienced thick stacked saturation with a good dose of crunch and a hint of fuzz, and when turned low you get anything from ‘tube warm’ singing tones to a fairly clean boost with subtle grit and no harmonic artefacts. Yes, this is more than an ‘overdrive’ pedal as it merges so many elements into the tones it produces, and likely because it does enhance an amp and guitar pickups’ output.