Dept. 10 Dual Drive 2-channel Tube Overdrive Pedal Review

Truly an amp in a box

I am a full time, professional guitar player with over 30 years of experience. I never write reviews but this pedal is special. I've tried and/or owned many amp in a box pedals. I gave up on tube overdrives many years ago as the tube was always run in starvation mode instead of plate voltage, which is necessary to have a real amp feel/response. Anyway, I took a chance on this one.… read more I waited for over three weeks - playing many different gigs - before reviewing this pedal, as I wanted to really put it through everything. Using a Fender clean style tube amp, I can get a full blown Marshall, Mesa Boogie, or combination thereof with this pedal. It's truly amazing. It's also quiet. The tone controls are extremely responsive, and the ISP is brilliant for taking one from American flavors, to British, or anything in between. I use the left side for crunch and the right for high gain. I use single coils usually and have no problem getting more than enough gain to get me into hot-rodded Marshall territory on the right side. This pedal sounds so good that I'm seriously considering buying a second one as I always want to have a back up. I hope this review is helpful to anyone on the fence. Cheers!

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Sounds great feels great

I bought the Dual Drive and Boost to add different tones to my Mesa MKIII Bluestripe. I also use an Axe Fx.The Boost is great. The Dual Drive has a ton of range from clean to mean. The Crunch 1 whith the gain dimed is the best hot rod Plexi you can imagine. I do wish it was the Crunch 2 however for switching purposes. It shares the clean mode. The Crunch 2 is thicker and has more… read more gain but I am not really using it. The Overdrive mode is liquid gain and feels amazing. The direct sound with Cab Rig sounds great and has plenty of options. You do need to tweak though to find your tone.

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A worthy update to a classic

I've been a fan of the Blackstar HT Dual pedal for a while. It has such great tube tone and makes my Katana come absolutely alive. I loved it also for helping liven up my recordings going into amp sims. But there were a few things I didn't love. The knobs were very difficult to see where they were set due to the little black dot on a chrome knob. Also the volumes and gains… read more were on concentric knobs which made adjustments of gain and volume for each channel easy to affect the other channel. The Dual Drive improves upon the classic by overcoming both of these limitations. It also adds the ability to have the crunch on both sides which is great so you can dial in two very similar tones but have the right side boosted for solos, etc. But...my favorite aspect is the new USB functionality. This works as a instrument interface with a PC or Mac. But there is one other thing that was not listed anywhere that I looked. This is a CLASS COMPLIANT USB interface. That means that you can hook this up to an iPad or iPhone as well and record directly without having to fuss with drivers! With an amp = Awesome With a computer = Awesome With a portable device = Portable Awesome! The only con that I have is with the non-standard power supply, but oh well. It's worth it for the tone.

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Great unit

Works as described. There is a bit of a learning curve, BUT, if you are going straight into a p.a. or recording console/DAW, it sounds close enough that 90% of the listening audience cannot tell the difference between having a mic-ed amp in the room and this unit.

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No More Heavy Tube Amp

This pedal is a beast! No need to carry that heavy tube amp around, this will replace it for when you need to carry as little amount of equipment as possible. The tone and low end you get with this pedal is absolutely amazing! I highly recommend this pedal to anyone who is needing to just bring your pedal board &'guitar and plug straight into the board. I was worried about loosing… read more that tubed amp sound going direct, but with this pedal it is just like playing through your amp. Love this little toy!

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