OVERDRIVE- REDSTUFF Germanium 1886 ___NEW___ High gain Distortion

Redstuff   

  GERMANIUM  1886 

$600.00 USD

A German company that makes high end gourmet Amps and Pedals. The OD has no direct comparisons. The first OD were OpAmps soon followed by FETS. There were not even any serious OD pedals made with Silicon Transistor let alone Germanium Transistors that pre date them. 

One could design a pedal like this using OpAmps with Germanium clipping diodes. But that whole idea should mean
this kind of pedal could be made relatively cheap. This pedal is as high as it gets at $600. USD.  

 

The Layout has a Tight control. Probably a high pass filter. 

You get Bass, Mids and Shift which is likely a sweepable boost for the mids, followed by Treble, Gain, then Voicing of which I found nothing specific more than it effects the whole range. Variac is a BIAS control adding or reducing voltage. Less voltage means more dirt and grit. Mode switches in more gain. Balls is a fixed overall Boost.

 CONCLUSION ____ The pedal is definitely unique. It checks all the boxes for shaping your sound. It can indeed sound killer. Perhaps dead handy as a great array of tones for studios. However most players will find their favorite tone and leave it. It just makes more sense to pick a couple of good OD's  and still put $200.00 USD or more back in your pocket, LOL. It needs be able to save about 5 switchable sounds and not add even more to the price.