OVERDRIVE- DIAMOND Cornerstone OD ...Strat heaven!!!

 DIAMOND CORNERSTONE OD 

If it's not broke don't fix it. This pedal has been with

us unchanged for 9 years. There are a lot of great OD's especially Marshalls. They have always been primarily JTM/Bluesbreakers or even more so JCM/Plexi pedals. Lately a few excellent JCM 800 pedals have become favourites but no one but Diamond has given us a Marshall Super Bass. It is the only 200 watt amp Marshall made. It is the favourite of Ritchie Blackmore and Richard Fortus.

The big deal of the Super Bass is not just the volume of the amp but the headroom. You get a huge sound but without losing the attack of your notes. The key here is letting you control the compression and gain from the power amp as opposed to the preamp. Diamond has done a killer job. One key thing is it uses a 'charge pump' that increases the 9v input up to 18v. On a Strat you get a huge sound even when you set the pedal to a sound that is just a hair 

shy of crunch for those Hendrix cleans and SRV chimey sounds. You get a huge sound with incredible breadth.

The layout is unique. You address the gain from both an input that acts as the pre on an amp and a 2nd that acts as the power amp. Both balance out how much gain you get. The voicing is fixed to nail the actual amp. There is no struggling with the tone controls to nail a sweet spot. There is a mid control to add any amount of fat. A bright switch is primarily there for humbuckers but if your rig is too dark or if you need more chime on a Strat you are not fussing with a treble knob that adds the highs but thins out your sound.

CONCLUSION

If you have a great Marshall OD already ...great. I have several representing all the Marshall amp models. BIG but! This is the best I have heard with a Strat ...the chime just pops thru at any setting.

HANDS ON
So I got one. I have been using the Jon Cusack ...Cusack Screamer. It is a Tube Screamer with an added asymmetrical dirt circuit to give you a SRV going thru a 

Fender Super Reverb sound. With a reasonable bit of volume on a tube amp the sound is killer. Big But! At really low volumes it is definitely a bit thin. But set the

Cornerstone up as a low gain OD and WTF!!! You get that SRV thru a Stack sound!!!