Wampler has unveiled a signature overdrive pedal for the bluegrass, rock and country shredder Andy Wood. The Gearbox takes two classic Wampler circuits and houses them in one enclosure, offering a versatilte two-channel setup that lets you fully explore both flavours of drive.
On the right-hand side of the enclosure you'll find Wampler's Tumnus overdrive. Occupying Channel One, it has controls for Tone, Gain, and Level arranged triangularly. The left-hand side of the pedal houses Channel Two, where you'll find controls for Wampler's Pinnacle overdrive/distortion.
The Tumnus is the sort of drive you could use as a boost. Something to punch the front end of your amplifier with and that tone sing a little. It also works gangbusters for adding a little heat to your signal, with many players choosing to leave it as their always-on pedal – as seasoning, really, a little salt and spice to lift your tone.
Less subtle, the Pinnacle offers an amp-like overdrive-cum-distortion that is pure heat. Think of it as the Brown Sound in a box, with a 3-band EQ offering an amp-like control over your sound.
One of the coolest things about the Tumnus was how stackable it was. After all, this was a drive that was inspired by the Klon Centaur.
This meeting of Wampler and Wood's mind has not missed this opportunity to let both sides of the Gearbox interact they way you might set up a Tumnus and Pinnacle if they were standalone pedals. A handy little toggle switch lets you run the Tumnus into the Pinnacle or vice-versa.
This idea of mixing and matching is taken further by two sets of inputs and outputs that can be hooked up to an external switch to run the drives in parallel or series. What more could you want from an overdrive? Well, technically, it's two overdrives, and while it won't make you play like Andy Wood – more's the pity – it will give you options, lots of options, from what looks to be one of the most interesting drive pedals we've seen this year.
The Andy Wood Gearbox Signature Overdrive is built in the USA, takes a 9V DC power supply or battery, and retails for $269.97. See Wampler for more details.
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