Andy Timmons and Keeley Electronics team up for the Super AT Mod Overdrive – “a drive pedal that responds just like a tube amp”
The limited edition drive is based on the Keeley Blues Driver circuit Phat Mod and features a Andy Timmons custom voicing. Watch Timmons demo it and Robert Keeley explain its design...
It’s almost a year since Keeley Electronics and Andy Timmons put their heads together on the phenomenal Halo Dual Echo delay pedal, and the partnership has been reunited for a limited edition overdrive pedal based on an old low-gain favourite.
The Super AT Mod Overdrive is based on the Keeley Blues Driver circuit Phat Mod, offering asymmetrical JFET transistor-based clipping for tone profile that is very much like having a Californian tube amp in a box, but there’s an added extra, with a selectable AT Mod available at the flick of a switch for a drive that is voiced to give humbucker-equipped electric guitars a “tighter more transparent response”.
On first impressions, it looks very much like that old favourite, the Keeley Electronics Super Phat Mod Full Range Overdrive, with a similarly designed enclosure made over in a premium metallic red finish (which looks a little like the Sweetwater-exclusive Andy Apple Red the Halo got refinished in).
Again, there is a three-knob control layout with dials for Level, Tone and Drive, but where the Super Phat Mod’s mode toggled between Flat and Phat EQ modes, here we have Phat and Andy Timmons’ very own AT mode.
While the new AT mode takes care of those humbuckers, sounding very much the ticket for brightening up a dark sounding amp or guitar, the Phat switch should give your single-coils a little more beef.
For a player like Timmons, whose Ibanez signature guitars offer an HSS platform, this makes the Super AT Mod Overdrive a drive pedal for all positions on the five-way selector switch, offering low-gain heat and crunch that cleans up nicely.
“The Super AT Mod Overdrive is the ultimate expression of the slightly broken up/clean tone I have been searching for all these years,” said Timmons. “It also rocks with an amazing overdrive tone that is incredibly amp-like. I already have two on my ‘board! Wishing you all the best on your Tone Quest!”
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Now, don’t just take his word for it here. Check out the demo video he shot with Keeley Electronics, which features Timmons in conversation with Robert Keeley – “Dr Robert,” as Timmons calls him – and with a very nice backline of Mesa/Boogie amps, the kind of platform one of these Super AT Mod Overdrive’s would complement just nicely.
The Super AT Mod Overdrive is handmade in Edmond, USA, is true bypass, and takes a 9V DC from a pedalboard power supply and it will draw around 20 mA. The Andy Timmons Super AT Mod Overdrive is available to order now, priced £219, and is limited to 1,000 units worldwide.
For more details, head over to Keeley Electronics.
Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars and guitar culture since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitar World. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.
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