Cowabunga! Dophix’s Michelango Overdrive Plus is a real work of art

The Michelango Overdrive Plus from Italian boutique effects company Dophix channels its namesake in its mission to make high art of sweet overdriven guitar tone.

This handmade overdrive pedal is built for the renaissance player, and uses vintage 1970s JFET transistors to emulate the dynamic response of a valve amp. Via a three-way switch, the Michelangelo lets you choose from three modes of overdrive each flavoured by silicon, germanium and JFET semiconductors.

Dophix says the Michelangelo can be used as a boost, an overdrive, right through to the more super-juiced tones of valve amp with a maxed-out gain stage. 

The Michelangelo’s controls offer plenty of scope for creative tone sculpting. There are two true bypass footswitches; one to switch the boost on and off and and one for drive. The preamp boost offers up to +15dB and can be set to be always active or bypassed until the boost footswitch is in the on position.

The drive section has knobs controlling gain, level, lows and highs, while the blend control allows you to mix the clean boost side with the drive side to find the pedal’s sweet spot.

At €290 (approx £270, $325), the Michelango Overdrive Plus is not cheap. But this is the art world, folks. 

The Michelangelo is built to order and ships in around 30 days of ordering. Which you can do right here.