Silk Drive Overdrive Pedal with NuTube Review

Vox is "The Voice"

I don't like programming, downloads, cables and increased dependency on my computer - so I love the simplicity of pedals. I also don't care to carry amps all that often, so I needed a DI and after watching countless videos on the Vox Silk Drive I was sold. I was immediately impressed when I patched into the house system at my church. There was all that tube warmth and responsiveness… read more I wanted. It worked well with all my other pedals and there was zero noise. I played for hours! Then I borrowed a 1x12 cab from my son and used an old Randall power amp and was even more pleased with the tone and response of the Silk. My son told me to keep the speaker cab, and so I've ordered an Orange Pedal Baby 100 to complete a new little combo for when an amp might be necessary. I've played guitar for 56 years and have owned lots of gear. In recent years I've have used the 11 Rack, the POD HD 500, the Helix LT, and the good old Tech 21 Blonde pedal. I've owned Fender, Mesa Boogie, Soldano and Dr. Z amps - so I have an ear for what sounds good and what sounds "processed". I highly recommend the Silk or any of the other Vox pedals in this NuTube Series.

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Smooth as silk!!

An amazing pedal! love it!

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An overdrive's overdrive

Been playing about 45 years — live, studio, home and have about as many OD pedals. Every OD pedal has pros and cons depending on the amp and pickup combination. What the Silk Drive has going for it is incredible transparency, responsive gain, full pre-amp flexibility, and a bit of signal sweetening ability. The line out modes are icing on the cake. It's easy to maintain "right… read more at breakup" and fatten or thin out the tone without loosing literally any top, or low end. Pretty amazing and well within a Rangemaster type dynamic boost. Something I've found "single tone knob" ODs have trouble doing. The other reviewers are spot on about the location of the Silk Drive in a signal chain. It is an "always on" pedal that needs other OD's before, or after to get really crunchy. If you are looking for that edge of breakup to gritty, or just to improve other ODs, this is an exceptional pedal. Even though it's just for fun, I Love the oscilloscope. Thank you Brook and Sweetwater

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Phenomenal and highly underrated

I'm a guitarist who plays live a lot, and most of the time there isn't a physical amp, so there was always an appeal for pedalboard based preamps for me to run my signal into a PA or mixer. I never had space or the budget for the more lauded modellers like the HX stomp or Fractal units, so a stompbox sized unit was always a must. I'm proud to say I've found that in this Silk Drive… read more pedal. I use relatively high output pickups on my guitar, and the Silk Drive maintained a very clean amp tone with gain at 12 o clock with just a hint of grit, which I really like as an amp tone. Straight off the bat, harmonics and overtones bloom pleasantly and sweetly. It accepts drive pedals going into it too, though my drive pedals needed some tweaking the first time they went into the Silk Drive as I felt it react a bit differently, but tweaking yielded pleasant results. The Cab Sim mode really sealed the deal for me. Even though the OD pedal mode was the "Standard" mode, it was a secondary for me since I used it as an amp more. But the standard mode is amazing, and I found myself smiling as I played through it. I felt it had similar gain feel as a klon but with more upper presence and sparkle and it made my coil splits sound extra spanky. It's lovely and I am very pleased at that. I know most consumers would raise eyebrows at the oscilloscope on the pedal, and I too was skeptical about it since it had no function. I wouldn't say it's educational because it teaches me nothing about my guitar's signal other than more output = higher peaks, but I'll admit it grows on you and it becomes quite mesmerising. I quite enjoy stacking gain pedals just to see what sort of waveform it makes. I've thoroughly enjoyed this pedal, and I hope other companies make these sort of pedals.

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Silky smooth Vox sound!

This is a great all around pedal for multiple applications. I use it mainly as a tone enhancer at the end of my effects loop chain (right before it hits the big, bold KT88 power tubes in my amp), but it can easily be used as a light overdrive pedal or even as an amp replacement by using the cabsim and going direct into the board or DAW. However I use it though, it really takes my… read more Strat and hollowbody p-90 single coil sounds to the next level. At lower gain settings, the Silk Drive provides a good deal of extra clarity in the form of that bright "steel string" sound, but still retains the original character of the pickups/guitar. It also has a touch of that signature Vox "chime" to it, which is always a welcome addition to any guitar tone pallet! The EQ section is flexible and useful but doesn't have a huge range either. It helps to have another EQ - either in pedal form or on the amp/DAW - in the signal chain. There's a similar situation with the gain as well: this pedal does not push past light gain/od/crunch. Another pedal (or a dimed amp) would definitely get you there and between the two, these could serve as "1st stage" and "2nd stage" gain channels. When the gain is turned up, it has that magical light "klon" or somewhat transparent od sound. A very nice, silky smooth crunch. A few other notes: 1) the cabsim is better than expected and very usable. I wouldn't necessarily replace an amp with this pedal as my first choice, but it is useful to have on your board as a backup in case you ever need to go direct because of an amp issue. 2) the oscilloscope is super cool looking but doesn't provide that much useful information outside of lines that look less squiggly when the pedal is off and more squiggly when it's on. 3) the overall aesthetics of the pedal are very nice. Brushed silver w/ black knobs and casing, the oscilloscope screen, and a single red LED. Nothing overly fancy, but very sleek nonetheless. Fits my pedalboard look (and sound) perfectly. Cheers to Vox for another great product and to my Sweetwater rep, Tyler Moore, for always taking great care of me!

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