When it comes to guitar overdrive pedals, there are countless options. To achieve the purest of musical overdriven tone, true bypass circuits and hand-wired boutique pedals are where it’s at.
NEW Fulltone Plimsoul Pedal
A few new boutique overdrive pedals that offer a broad range, quality tones, and great special features are the Fulltone Plimsoul and the Flickinger Cranky Atom.
Fulltone has taken overdrive to the next level without making a complicated package. Four very interactive knobs allow a variety of classic Fulltone drive settings in one great pedal that lives up to the hype. With most ODs you have soft clip (TS style) or hard clip (OCD style). The Plimsoul allows you to customize the amount with its stage knob, while also allowing a broad range of level, sustain, and hi-cut. The stage knob has an LED light that indicates how dirty your signal is getting. The Plimsoul pedal offers amazing touch sensitivity, cleans up well, interacts with the guitar’s volume knob, and offers something for just about every overdriven-style of guitar. And for the price, there isn’t much that can beat it! This could very well become the new standard in overdrive.
Flickinger Tone Box Cranky Atom Pedal
Another great new overdrive pedal is the Flickinger Cranky Atom. Richard Flickinger of Raleigh, North Carolina is making great hand-wired and hand-painted pedals that are based on classic effects with a unique twist. Flickinger Tone Boxes respond very well to dynamics. It seems as though this line of effects has been designed with a wide variety of styles in mind and caters to players who really know how to make the best of pedal and guitar technique interaction. The Cranky Atom’s tone stack is interesting because when every knob is dialed in 100% you’re essentially bypassing the EQ settings. In order to dial in the amount of treble, mid, or bass you desire, you subtract the other two and they will interact with the boosted setting. What’s unique about the volume and gain of this pedal is that its range is designed to take your tone from a clean boost to an overdriven 15 watt tweed amp “pushed to an inch of its life” as Richard explains. Combining that with an interactive tone stack truly allows your tone to be shaped in ways you may not have been able to achieve with other pedals. This is especially true in the vintage amp tone segment. And like all Flickinger Tone Boxes, they’re available in a variety of custom box colors so you’re bound to be one of only a few people to have that scheme, and in some cases you can purchase a one-of-a-kind color for only ten bucks more than the standard pedal!
With all of the overdrive options out there, it’s hard to find the one that will do everything you need without getting complicated or tone-robbing. We find these new offerings to be amazing options and we highly recommend trying them out. You may find the ideal overdrive you’ve been looking for all your life.