Sometimes in this line of work, you come across a pedal that was produced by a now-defunct company, and there’s very little information available about it for you to really dig into a review. Today’s featured pedal is one of these rarities, although I’m going to try to do my best (plus, there’s a video at the end!). The Cedar Drive from Cedar Custom Effects is the overdrive on display today,
There’s not a whole lot to figure out on this low-mid gain original design overdrive pedal, as it just consists of 3 knobs and In/Outputs. Utilizing the OPA2134 chip, which is known for having loads of clarity at high gain, the Cedar Drive maintains the original character of your guitar’s tone, while pushing your sound with a warm and thick overdrive sound. The Tone control acts more like a treble booster, however, which helps keep the mids and low-end in the mix until you really crank it up, at which point the high end takes over the sound. From what I found, it seems that you can turn this knob all the way down to get a more natural overall EQ, then slowly turn it up to dial in as much treble as you need.
The Cedar Drive is a “welcome addition to a pedal market that is heavily saturated (no pun intended) with low-gain, tone-shaping, “transparent” overdrives”, according to Cedar Custom, who apparently wanted to try and go a different route in the overdrive world (which is not unheard of, or really un-welcomed, either). Simple, easy to use and dial in and small enough to cram into any partially empty space on your pedalboard, the Cedar Drive kind of makes you wish that this company, and others like it, would have been able to keep on producing pedals and stay in business, if not just to see what they would have created down the line.
Submitted by Mike B, Website
Demo Rock pedalboard by West Coast Pedalboard
