Xotic SL Drive - Red

Awesome little pedal, love it, should bought years ago. Overdrive through distortion it's all in there. Suppose to resemble a Marshall super lead, well I can't afford one of those to do an a/b comparison, but yes it does have harmonics, pick sensitivity, and compression like a working tube amp. Internal dip switches are cool, but I wish they had outside access, pulling this of a board just to flip a switch is mildly dumb. But I'm glad the options are there. Buy it.

I own a '68 plexi 50w head and other vintage Marshalls. This pedal has great tone, which I describe as rich, harmonic; kind of sparkly on the high end and touch sensitive with a slight hiss - just like a real amp. I like it a lot more than my other pedals which include Marshall Guvnor (1990 Gary Moore pedal); OCD v.3; Saturator; TS-9; Doug Aldrich distortion pedal, and more. A lot of pedal in a small package. I'm partial to the red for some reason.

Got it because of the size and I own several other Xotic pedals all of which hold up well on the road - reliable and sound consistently good. This pedal does sweet blues to metal - offers a lot of power in a small package. No complaints - doesn't do everything - but its really good at what it does for the size and price.

So far digging the "heartbreaker" setting with my humbucker equipped guitar(it has a Seymour Distortion bridge). Controls are very reactive, it doesn't take much of a knob turn to change the character and tone when you find a sweet spot. I feel I have still a lot of experimentation to do with it and have not messed with the dip switches inside yet. So far I really like the warm sounds I can get from it, with gain between 9 and 1 o'clock mainly. I find this is in this range you can have the most control on the pedal and best clean up range with the guitar volume knob. I tried it on my basses too and it is not bad, The distortion texture is nice and still has a thickness in the mids, can't wait to try the super bass setting with it, maybe I'll find a kind of YES roundabout tone in it? :) edit: the +6db switch is a must for me. Cant decide which i prefer between the super lead or bass, first switch.