The Sound We All Love

Tweed Overdrive

TO-1

• For Pros and Everyday Players Alike
• No Clone or Copy Here
• Hand Built with Top Notch Components
• Versatility to the Fullest
• User Friendly Layout
• True Bypass Circuit
• Heavy Duty Roadworthy Powder Coated Enclosure
• Power Supply Included (standard 9VDC)
• Works Well with Others

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If there's one type of overdriver I've always thought there was never enough of, it's got to be the tweed voiced overdrive pedal. Those of you with vintage tweed amp experience know that when it comes to rich'n'creamy overdrive it don't get better than a proper tweed amplifier. I'm proud to once again feature the awesome brand of Bules Pearl, this time with their TO-1 Tweed Overdrive. This pedal was one that proved quite useful right from the get-go. Having a handful of "British" voiced dirt boxes it was nice to bring in something with super smooth feel. Like many of my favorite dirt pedals the TO-1 sports a trio of controls, being Volume, Tone, and Drive. This pedal's simple layout assures you will be able to dial in quick and spot-on tones. Other than the normal run of classic tweed style tones, the TO-1 is also capable of much much more. Just like all the rest of Blues Pearl's designs, the Tweed Overdrive sports the highest quality parts and components. A pedal built to last and last, and give and give.

There were two things I was really curious to try once I got the Tweed Overdrive into my clutches. One was to run it through a non-tweed style amp, and the other to stack it up with an old tweed amp. I began this trip with a Les Paul and my modified 4x10 Hot Rod Deville, setting the amp as clean as the good lord would let me (which was plenty), with no reverb, and just a cable between the amp and the pedal. The TO-1 I set with it's volume at unity, tone matched to the amp's, and drive at around 15% hot. Most pedals at a low gain or drive setting won't do much, or just end up giving you an unusable sound. This champion of a box came through quite nicely at this low setting. I riffed around while in the lead pickup, dug into some dirty blues licks, and picked out some big'n'heavy chords. The pedal delivered beautifully, giving me a bright yet warm tone that made me want to rock out! Next I took the gain control just a hint higher, and pushed the volume to about 2'o'clock. Right there in all it's glory, blended in with the Deville's big'n'bright clean tone, was the Tweed Overdrive's silky smooth grit making the sound tasty and flavorful. The nice thing though was that the pedal would only reveal it's grit when I dug in hard enough. This gave me the ability to really knock out some cool sounding classic vibe'd rock tones. Next I moved up the drive to about 30% and rolled the drive knob up just a tad. Again I still had plenty of clean signal along with the pedal natural tube-like grit. And just like an old tweed amp the TO-1 was able to maintain the amp's tonal characteristics perfectly. Kicking out a perfect mellow rock rhythm tone I pulled out some of my favorite classic rock licks and drove away. The touch dynamics were at the right sensitivity and the tone was unbelievably balanced. This made everything I played come off even and in harmony, which also let the pedal's sound sit much nicer in a mix when I used live. For me this is one of the most important qualities in a pedal, for it to deliver great string articulation. yes of course it takes a great set of pickups and a rockin hand. But if you've ever played an old tweed amp you know that they just give that to you no matter what you play them with. Up until this point I was getting grade A tones that worked for a wide range of music styles. But it was the next tone I dialed in that really had me drooling at the mouth. What I did was set the amp a bit warmer, then countered it with a brighter pedal setting. I dialed the amp's treble close to 9'0'clock, mids just behind noon, bass at around 3'o'clock, with a hint of presence and a hint of reverb. I also warmed up my guitar's tone by shaving off some highs with the tone knob and switching into the bass pickup. The Tweed Overdrive I set with the gain at noon, the tone just past 4'o'clock, and the volume quite hot to help cook the amp's tubes some more. This gave the tone a smooth but biting edge that reminded me of something between Neil Young's tone and Clapton's woman sound. Overall this tone wasn't all that hot, more like a medium grit tone. Even though I was able to break the signal up something awful just by digging and grinding down on the strings. Full gain, tone in the middle, and volume at about 3'o'clock was another awesome tone that the Tweed Overdrive was able to deliver. Here the pedal gave me a killer universal dirt tone that helped me with all types of situations and styles. Throwing a clean booster in front of the TO-1 helped to take the tone into lead territory. Within the first few licks I played I noticed the Blues Pearl box stacked up beautifully with other pedals. Next came out the 57' Tweed Deluxe (thanks to my buddy Art). Before I plugged it into the 57 I first plugged the pedal into a 22 watt Blackface style amp. I began by comparing tones back and fourth. First I'd dial in some semi-clean tones, then some brittle/gritty stuff, then some creamy dirt, and last full blast. All throughout the comparison the pedal was able to hold it's own and deliver the same feeling in the sound. Before putting this badboy away I finally went ahead and plugged it into the 57 Tweed Deluxe. First I did with the Tweed amp what it does best... dialing it in hot! I grabbed my single Lollar P90 equipped Junior copy and went to work. The amp and guitar alone dished what was one of the most spectacular tones I'd ever heard. Slowly I began to introduce some of the TO-1's gain and volume into the mix, with the tone matched to the map. At low gain and volume settings the TO-1 worked as a killer quality booster. It was able to help me take the amp's tone even further which created a world of harmonically rich textures and overtones. At about half way up on the gain and volume unity the pedal began to take the amp into a strange lead fuzzy/overdrive type of distortion. I was quite surprised how the pedal didn't mess with the amp's root tone or color the character of the dirt itself. Then even more impressive was how well the signal mellowed out when rolling back the guitar's volume knob. With both pedal and amp cranked pretty high I wasn't able to get a fully clean sound, but enough sounds to let me work some real magic on the fly. I had in my hands a proper tweed tone whether I used the Tweed amp or Tweed pedal. I really got to give it up to Blues Pearl for doing their research and delivering a product that does what it says it's going to. This pedal is a great choice for those of you who have been hunting down a proper classic tweed tone, or those of you who have tweed amp's that you don't want to take on the road. This is only the beginning of our Blues Pearl trip too, we will looking into many more of their pedals and making sure to bring you guys the best possible info. Stay tuned for more!

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For more info on Blues Pearl go to www.bluespearlamps.com or click the direct link in our sidebar. Blues Pearl is also in the works of designing their own line of amplifiers which we promise to try and get our hands on. Look for more Blues Pearl features in the near future.

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Top Finds of 2009 / Blues Pearl Amp Co.

Coming across the Blues Pearl Amp Company was definitely one of Analog War Cry's gold finds of 2009. Blues Pearl originally made their stand back in the 1980's having a strong go at building some of the world's top-notch hand built custom amps and effects pedals. Today the new team at Blues Pearl is making sure they keep all of the products just as desirable as they were when founder Bob Hudson ran the company. It was Hudson's talented ear, keen insight, and reputation for building extreme designs that first put Blues Pearl on the map. Many guitar heavyweights such as Buddy Guy, Chris Duarte, James Burton, and Jeff Cook had become hip to the Blues Pearl vibe. We had a chance to put a pair of Blues Pearl stompboxes to the test and were floored by their transparency, organic feel, and wide range of sounds. This is straight up/no chaser professional quality gear that will undoubtedly up your game a few notches. Come along as we take a journey into some of Rock and Roll's most desirable tones. Rrrrrrrrring, rrrrrrrring! Class is in session kids, now take your seats!

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Blues Pearl Amp Co.

Kodak, TN

Blue Balls

Distortion Pedal

* Original Blues Pearl Design

* High Quality hand Selected Components

* Wide Range of Tones

* True Bypass Switching

* Heavy Duty Powder Coated Enclosure

* Power Supply Included

* User Friendly Design

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The Blue Balls distortion is a serious distortion for a serious player, period! The Blues Pearl stompboxes arrived on our doorstep and right from the get-go we were all very impressed. Before we even plugged the pedals we knew we were in for a real treat. You ever just come across a piece that does that to you, that you just know is going to rock? The Blues Pearl Blue Balls is just that type of pedal. It's design is spectacular, built for long adventures of road use, studio use, song writing, and band practices. The Blue Balls control layout consists of the magic three knob configuration, Level-Tone-Drive. This is a knob layout that has seen some of the world's most sought after guitar pedals, the Blue Balls definitely being in that elite group of gear. The pedal is housed in a hardcore powder coated enclosure which is capable of enduring a lifetime of use and abuse. It sports a 3PDT true bypass switch and is flooded with the highest quality components for the cleanest and most versatile collection of tones. The Blues Balls can be powered by a single 9V battery which is housed in an easy access battery tray, and also runs on 9VDC power adapter which Blues Pearl includes in the package, huge plus if you ask me. All this makes for one versatile and easy to use stompbox, but the most important feature of this pedal by far lies in it's original design. The Blue Balls is not a clone, copy, or crossbreed of anything else, it is straight up and down it's own balls to-the-wall distortion pedal.

We wasted no time getting to work with this pedal. Right from the beginning were capable of dialing in a world of monstrous rock tones. It seemed like the overdrive and distortion sounds just got better and better with every amp we plugged the Blue Balls into. This is a pedal that absolutely loves a sweet sounding tube amp, and is even capable of warming up and bringing some organic feel to solid state amplifiers. We found not one pickup design that didn't get along with this pedal, which is probably how it was designed to work and the reason for it's wide range of tones. We started our Blues Pearl adventure with our 15/7 watt tube amp and 2x12 cab, and worked our way up to higher wattage setups as we got further along. The guitar of choice for the 7 watt setting was a single Lollar P90 equipped Junior copy, a nice choice that left us with our jaws on the floor. We slapped the amp into a flat eq setting, and dialed it in semi-clean with the volume knob at around 7/8. The P90 when attacked with force produced a thick'n'natural tube grit that sounded beautiful for ringing out jangly, hairy chords. The amp and guitar's natural tone reminded me of a Tom Verlaine's (Television) rock tone. The Blue Balls was set with the Level just a hair above the amp's for some extra tube push, the Tone was rolled back to about 10'o'clock to warm things up, and Drive was just below 9'o'clock. Once engaged the pedal drove the semi-clean tone into a snarling gritty overdrive. Wide open chording, palm muted chugging, and single-note lead runs all sounded wonderful through this Blue Balls. Next I pushed both the Drive and Tone knobs to 12'o'clock and got a nice cross between a fat overdrive and mild distortion. This tone could easily cut through any mix making it a dream setting for when having to compete with another guitar or when stacking duel rhythm parts on a track. When rolling back the guitar's volume knob I found that the pedal acted like a tube, holding on to the sound's character but cleaning up a bit of the grit. This along with a slight drop of the guitar's tone knob was able to get me back to the first tone I had dialed in. This meant I could go between both tone structures in one setting. A nice little trick for those of us who use our guitar's volume knobs to tweak in guitar tones on the fly. Before switching into the 15 watt setting and swapping guitars I flipped the pedal's Drive knob just a hair before full blast, rolled the Tone knob up to 4'o'clock, and turned the Level knob up a few notches above the amp. I took the guitar's tone knob and rolled it back all the way, a great trick for when you dial in extreme high/treble tone settings on a pedal or amp. To give the sound a bit of drama I added in a taste of reverb. The sound that came out of that amp is hard to explain, it was more of a feeling, a force that hit my bones and landed in my gut. It was like the lovechild of a woman tone and plexi sound, absolute magic. The aggression in the distortion could easily be controlled with the touch of my fingers. The more I dug the more it howled, the less I gave the less it gave. Talk about a stompbox that works with and for you. Now we switched into the 15 watt setting and broke out the Strat. We started with some mild settings first dialing in the amp to a spanking clean sound. The pedal was set to give the single coils a nice beefy boost, pushing the tone into a higher level of clean and holding all the root tone's natural qualities. I was actually stoked to discover I could get semi-clean boost settings from the Blue Balls. We quickly jumped into some higher gain levels by boosting the pedal's Level and Drive knob. To keep the sharpness and edge of the sound in check we throttled back on the Tone knob just a hair. We were able to get these lightening wild blues and classic rock settings when pushing the pedal to it's limits. The fact this pedal can go from subtle semi-clean boost tones to all-out scorching lead tones makes this a very helpful tone tool. The absolute ultimate tone experience we were able to get from the Blue Balls was running it through a 100 watt Super Lead and Les Paul, Jimmy Page world all the way! I was stuck rocking out to the meanest rock distortion for a good hour or so, floating in total tone heaven. There are only a few guitar tones we come across in our time that will make us see the light. Combine the right guitar, right amp, and this pedal, and you have access to some of those unforgettable tones. We took the pedal as far a we could take it and still the Blue Balls held it's rich, tight, rumble'n'growl. Some distortion pedals work great only when you turn them loud, others only sound good at low to medium settings. The Blue Balls works amazingly through it's entire range. This is a pedal that works with your amp's natural sound, your playing style and pick attack, and wraps it all up in the end to create exactly what you need. There's nothing like the feeling one gets when discovering a bad to the bone distortion pedal. If you need versatile, great sounding, and tuff built distortion box that will last you a lifetime, this is the way to go. We had a chance to check out another of Blues Pearl's guitar pedals and I tell you it doesn't end here with the Blue Balls. We will be looking further into the world of Blues Pearl stompboxes and keep reporting back to ya'll so keep your eyes peeled. We have a article on another killer dirt pedal coming up in the next few weeks. In the meantime do some investigating of your own and discover for yourself how awesome these pedal really are. Dig it and dig it some more!

For more info on Blues Pearl stompboxes and amps go to www.bluespearlamps.com or click the direct link in our sidebar. We will be back with more from Blues Pearl in a bit, hang tight.