Gold Mine Overdrive Pedal Review

Lives up to its lofty name

I've been a fan of all things overdrive for decades now, and as someone who owns over a dozen high gain tube amps, and probably 75 overdrive pedals. I can't say enough about how awesome this pedal is and how much it just feels good. It genuinely feels like a classic mesa Crunch channel. Awesome sounds, top notch build quality, A+ quality components, and just looks great. Mesa definitely… read more hit a home run, maybe even a grand slam with this little box of joy.

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Great Medium Distortion/Overdrive

So first off, this is a very nice overdrive/distortion pedal. To me its medium gain, like a jumped Plexi pushed with boost. Its smooth, and has a cool note bloom, not ICE PICKY at all. It has a ton of bass, you will probably need roll some off. I kinda think of pedals like this with Bass, Treble, and Mid tone knobs as more a Pre-Amp in a box type pedals. You can set your clean amp… read more the way you like it, and then EQ this pedal to sound good when switched on. What I like most about the Gold Mine is the note clarity it has when you use this pedal with modulation/delay effects. It just sounds good, and isn't too bright, or muddy. I use a REVV G3 Purple for really heavy distortion, this Gold Mine for medium gain rock stuff, an OCD for single coil Hendrix stuff, and a Fulltone Full-Drive for the lower gain edge of break up sound. Warning, if you try to stack this Gold Mine pedal with anything else you will need to turn down the gain big time, it doesn't need any help in producing its sound. I found the Mesa Gold mine sounds best running into a really clean amp. Lastly, I have tested this pedal with a pair of Katana Artists MKII amps running in stereo. The Katana amp models sound pretty good, but I wasn't 100 percent satisfied with the higher gain amp models, hence the board in this picture with 4 drive pedals. I have a big Mesa Road King half stack, but its so heavy, I only take it to really big gigs in huge bars, or out door stages. The little Katana's paired with the Gold mine sound really good. Tube amps rule for sure, but this pedal and the Katana's make for a really light and good sounding substitute.

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Boogie Gold Mine

I bought this pedal thinking I would use it as my main lead sound. As soon as I plugged it in I liked it! First impressions matter! However I decided to use it as rhythm/ lead OD keeping my amps overdrive channel for a lead tone. I don't normally think of versatility when it comes to pedals but.... this is a very versatile "amp like" pedal!

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Great sound

Great distortion sound, it can give you various sounds. I am really enjoy it, I think its better than Strymon SUNSET.

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Inspiring Tones For Days

I'm a huge fan of Mesa amps, but not their pedals. So it was definitely crazy of me to preorder this. Especially not even knowing what it sounds like. But I'm a tone junkie and like to experiment . I received it earlier this afternoon. Plugged right in, dialed everything at noon, and hit a power chord. If you could only see the grin on my face. This thing is pretty awesome. I have… read more to point out this is not an OD pedal. It's a distortion pedal. Also it's not the typical Mesa amp chug tone but it packs a punch. Like a Marshall on Mesa steroids. Chunky rhythm and warm/creamy leads. So much better than their throttle box. I tweaked a bit and tried diff settings. It all sounds great. I even flicked the tone EQ switch inside. But I prefer the tight sound it comes set to from the factory. Now...when I put a boost in front of it (Electric Eye Audio's Mud Killer), that's when the metal chugs came through. I was jamming on this thing for a good 3 hrs. I didn't want to stop lol. Definitely inspiring tones for days. So with all that said I'm very satisfied with my purchase, and highly recommend checking it out. Thanks Mesa!

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