Robert Keeley and the folks he employs just keep releasing more and more dynamite pedals, and we’re going to take a look at another one of them today. Considered rather normal by the standards of most of the Keeley effects we’ve reviewed recently, the Oxblood Overdrive takes on the world of mystical creatures, powerful tone enhancers and ridiculous pedal price tags all at once. Sort of their answer to the gold and silver horsie-inspired pedals of yore, this is a straightforward overdrive that boasts the tones of legend, but has more optional features and sound bites as well.

Level, Drive and Tone create the basis for the control section of the Oxblood, and all interact just the way they should to produce beautiful, amp-driving boost and dirt tones. There are, however, a couple of toggle switches that really open up the possibilities for this overdrive. First, there’s a Phat switch, which cuts the bass response, giving you a classic Screamer-style midrange shelving tone, making it punchy and full without being overbearing. The second toggle is a clipping switch, letting you choose between Mythical and Magical modes. These are two different ways to clip and saturate your signal with carefully selected diodes, giving you the choice of both gain and sustain levels, each creating their own powerful sonic spectrums.

Able to create sparkling clean boosts, push an amp into tasty breakup territory and tonal nirvana or just get plain dirty, the Oxblood Overdrive is simple in appearance, but option-laden when you really get her going. Designed in part with Jack Orman, this pedal is a newly-created circuit that has been designed to outperform all the klones out there, and gets pretty damn close to the original mythical overdrive pedal as well. Thanks to Robert, Craighton and all at Keeley Electronics for sending this our way, we’ll have many more Keeley pedals in our shop for reviews for years to come, you can count on it!

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