MODTONE EFFECTS DYNO DRIVE
.jpg) |
| $80.00 USD |
The company was formed in 2009 with the goal to make a workman like series of pedals. Keep it simple and offer the obvious. Make the pedals robust but cheap.At the time we had a blend of early online dealers, big store chains and a lot of Mom & Pop stores. The most obvious retailers were the Mom & Pop stores. They could not compete with the big guys. They also could not get popular brands as they are dealerships only product. Just like the auto industry you can not go to Toyoto and say you want to sell the 3 big sellers and you only want a couple each. You have to have buy the dogs too, and in big numbers etc. So companies like Modtone sold just to the small dealers but offering them a dealership like advantage. A buyer could not go down the street to the Guitar Center and buy a Modtone. M&P stores are big on robust products that do not break and are above all reliable.Out with the old. In with the new. Online took over and oversize online more so. Modtone still have a site but do not sell direct so finding anything is hit and miss.
Their biggest seller was the Dyna Drive. Basically what one would expect. A clone of the worlds biggest seller the Ibanez Tube Screamer. A basic OpAmp with some clipping diodes. No one makes OpAmp to distort on purpose. The old so-called cool ones distorted because it was a new tech at the time and like all new techs they were crude. It is why they were discontinued. Consumer electronics want clarity not distortion. So oddly enough a cheap OD may sound bad because the OpAmp is too good, LOL.
__CONCLUSIONThe irony is this pedal sounds good to a great degree from a very clean forbidden to use OpAmp that keeps the attack bright which when you keep the gain back gives you a bit of what Xotic sell as a Booster. I would use it as booster stacked on other OD's or stack a Fuzz on it so it would tighten up the Fuzz.
the fine printThese have been around a long time, used they should be dead cheap. Mom and Popstores often never blow things out but they do leave the original price on them.So $35.00 new would not be crazy.
Hi! excellent information. Pretty sure Modtones are rebranded OVD-502 belcat's. Also sold under the giannini/axcess name and also the cruzer by crafter name.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly makes sense. The company that owned Belcat made things like Kazoos Harmonicas, plastic Recorders string winders etc. All those little accessories you find in a store at the counter when you check out especially in small Mom and Pip stores. They were both the maker and distributer of everything they sold. I actually found out about them by an article in Fortune magazine about how they got to be mega big by owning and controlling everything from the factory up to the store.
ReplyDeleteThey were asked by their reps to make pedals when they did not even know what a pedal was. They hired a couple of American designers to design the pedals and do all the popular knock offs. They set up their own factory to build them. They wanted very robust pedals that could have a good warranty because it wouldn't need it. They always cut out the middle man. There thing was cater to small stores with cheap but reliable products. There biz never relied on on-line sales. Just a internationally monopoly of small stores with direct access to them.