I
f there were an overdrive solar system,
there is little doubt in my mind that the
Ibanez TS808 would be the sun and
the Klon Centaur would be the moon.
The lives of guitarists revolve around the
hallowed Tube Screamer. And at night,
we gaze longingly upon the Centaur. Both
pedals have achieved mythical status in
our collective, transistorized folklore. And
wholly unrealistic properties have been
ascribed to both.
When a few of Tone Report Weekly’s
writers discussed dream pedalboards
recently, neither the Centaur nor the TS808
made the list. And the list was pretty
damned definitive. At first, I was surprised.
The TS808 and Centaur are both fantastic
pedals. Are they not as great as the masses
claim? And if they are, why didn’t even one
out of eight to 10 full-on guitar nerds put
one on his “dream board?”
The answer is obvious. The Centaur and
the TS808 are both freaking awesome and
excel at what they do. But they’ve risen to
the top of the heap based on a combination
of design, myth, usage by famous players,
scarcity, and a fair amount of navel gazing.
This got me thinking about some of the
overdrive pedals that I would consider to
be equally great. Here are a few of them.
ToneReport.com
31