If you use pedals, chances are you have a boost, overdrive, distortion or fuzz on your board….or maybe all of them, or many multiples of all of them. But what if you had a pedal that could do ALL of those things, that was built for classic and contemporary tones and was as versatile as can be? Then you’d probably want to check out today’s featured effect, the Odyssey Intergalactic Driver from Hamstead Soundworks.
Not your everyday overdrive pedal, the Odyssey is an all-analog design from Peter Hamstead, and was inspired and voiced by Tim Steer. It features 3 clipping circuits, a wide array of overdrive tones, Rock and Metal distortion capabilities and even a little octave and fuzz thrown in for good measure. Transparent, mid-gain and full on overdrive tones are easily accessible, and the powerful EQ section gives you all the Treble/Bass cuts and boosts you could ever want or need.
The Drive portion features simple Tone and Gain controls, while the EQ section gives you Bass and Treble knobs to work with. A Level knob sets the overall output level of the Odyssey, with a whooping +32dB of gain available is you need it. Three toggles witches adorn the Odyssey as well, each adding their own unique musical flavor into the mix. The first toggle, PR-EQ-PO, lets you put the EQ circuit before the Drive circuit (Pre), after the Drive circuit (Post) or put it into Clean Mode, which bypasses Tone, Gain and the C1-C2-C3 toggle controls.
Speaking of that one, the C1 position gives you symmetrical clipping for consistent, classic drive tones; C2 provides asymmetrical clipping, creating anything from transparent, low-gain drives, added clarity and defined pick attack to heavy drive sounds and even some splatty fuzz effects. Finally, C3 uses two clipping circuits to produce an extremely natural-sounding, amp-like drive and distortion, with a wide dynamic range and attention to touch response. The last toggle, X1-X2-X5, selects your input gain level. X1 keeps the input level at zero boost, X2 doubles the input level for more volume and gain, and X5 boosts your original signal by up to 5 TIMES, producing massive headroom in Clean Boost mode, or lots of saturation in Drive Circuit mode.
All of these interactive controls make for a uniquely diverse effects pedal, one with so many options you’ll need a notebook to write down all the different, useful settings you discover. A boost, tone shaper, overdrive, distortion, fuzz and more all rolled into one, this is a go-to pedal for anyone who needs to be able to switch things up quickly in their rig, or who wants a drive that you can dial in, set and not have to worry about. One of the other cool things about the Odyssey is the Bypass footswitch, which is an optical OptoKick switch from TheGigRig, and provides silent and reliable switching (we had never seen one of these before, and they are niiiiiice). All in all, this is one of the more ingenuous, skillful and accomplished pedals we’ve come across…EVER. Do yourself a favor and head over to the Hamstead Soundworks website for all the details….just as soon as you watch our demo video below, of course.
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