Telesonic's overdrive preliminary review

who's_pearljam?

Get one!
I just got it tonight, and plugged it in and cranked it for a while. This is a great overdrive! I will try to play it more tomorrow, but this thing rocks. I've had it by itself into a fender deluxe 65 set clean on 2, and it really has some great tone to it.
It gave life to a weak bridge pick up with the gain almost off. Gain up it has some really pretty harmonics. It has good picking dynamics, too.
I switched it between the asymetrical and symetrical. It has a big difference in tone and clip. It actually would be cool to have the switch outside the box, as there are a lot of possibilities between the 2. There are a lot of tonal varieties in this thing, and will explore them tomorrow.
I'll a/b it with my favorite modded ts-9 tomorrow, as it reminds me of a souped up modded tubescreamer. A modded mod.
Also, when you go counterclockwise with the tone, that last bit of a turn really boosts the treble. Did you intend to do this? It could work well as a lead boost. It's also dead quiet as far as hiss. (well, I haven't had it in the big Boogie or Marshall yet. )

I just want to say thanks for making this, and I really like it. Congratulations, telesonic, for making such a nice piece. I'm a happy boy.
I'll crank it with a couple of guitars and amps and through a delay and some other stuff and write a little more on it, but right off hand , after a half hour, It's getting rave reviews from me!

mccreadyisgod

Thanks for the info, Bob! I'm almost ready to write a check...

Post more, and A/B comparison, when you get the chance!

Telesonic

great! thanks so much bob! i really glad that you like it so far. tear it up some more tonight.

just a couple notes for you. i'd like to have that switch on the outside because it really does add alot of variation to the tone. But it was kind of something i added after having the enclosures drilled, painted, and silkscreened. so i just put it on the board instead. i also figured that someone would pick either setting they liked best and keep it there. i think i might have room though between the pots to put in a switch for it though. let me see what i can do.

also, on the tone control, i wired it backwards because i had the intent of using a log taper pot instead of a linear. turns out that there wasn't a log taper for that value on the tone pot. the log taper would have given a slightly better step through that full treble range. i may try to figure how to use a different value log pot for the tone control so i can do this. But I'd have to change values of a couple components on the board to compensate. i'll just have to experiment with it i guess and not alter the overall range of the tone control.

anyways...rock on.

WiLL75

Originally posted by mccreadyisgod
Thanks for the info, Bob! I'm almost ready to write a check...

Post more, and A/B comparison, when you get the chance!

Man, I'm tempted too. But then I'd have 3 Distortions.

who's_pearljam?

I'm liking your pedal even more now!
I A/B'd it with the Vaughn modded tubescreamer and they are a little different. The "Shannon" telesonic pedal is more in your face, and drives way harder than the tubescreamer, and has some great harmonics. I had it into a bunch of amps, and it sounds good in all of them. My favorite setup with it, though is Telesonic's overdrive into the Tubescreamer, which has a clean boost mode that I set a little dirty, into a Fender deluxe reissue set on 3, that's set up with a couple of old tubes and a Weber speaker. Either a Strat or a Humbucker sound great. My favorite is the SG with it. Sweet feedback out of it and harmonics are clear. Very Santana like. I'm not a big cover type of guitarist, but a strat is very stevie ray like. ( I have 13 gauge strings on it right now, so it's a powerful guitar right now.) The bridge pickup even was full sounding when I backed off the highs a bit.

I ran it into my Bro's 100 watt Marshall, my giant Boogie markII, a Twin, a Bluesbreaker style Marshall, 50 watt Mesa DC-5 and an old 1940's gibson something or other. It sounded great in all cranked, and quiet, and my neighbors liked the sound too! It was as quiet as my TS-9. (pretty much dead quiet, no hiss or radio stations.)
It is a very versatile thing, the tone really can be shaped with it. The one thing is that tone control. It does lose a bit of volume as you go towards the bass end, and like I said above, that last 1/8th of a turn toward treble really cranks loud.
If you pick your tone and stay with it, the volume pot is more than enough to compensate, but if you're changing tone between songs on stage, it could get a little tricky for the sound person.
I really love it, though, and it is built really well, looks cool, the soldering is really amazing, and that blue led light goes well with Exhausted's red led A/B switch!

Thanks again, for making it. A lot of time went into figuring that pedal out!