Re: the old Marshall Guvnor pedal, black box, five knobs, great pedal.
When were they made in UK, and when were they made in Korea??

The original Guv'nors were first made in England, then in Korea. I have one made in England as well as one made in Korea. They are indistinguishable in tone. There are very slight differences in the casings, but that's about it.

They are very cool pedals for capturing the JCM800 tone. The pedals also have an amp-like response to picking dynamics. My only complaint about the tone is that there is always a bit of hair on it (sort of a rattiness) -- but some people would like that.

I don't know exactly when they were made, but I believe that they first came out in the late 1980s and were discontinued in the early 1990s The Guv'nors were essentially replaced by the Shredmaster, Drivemaster, and Bluesbreaker line of pedals. All of these older Marshall pedals have nice tones. The output is non-buffered, so you can run a germanium fuzz pedal after the Guv'nor (a good thing).

Regards,

Harris

Awesome post Harris! You really know these pedals!

I had the Guv 1 from England. As far as value-wise, the English ones command more cash. So apparently you can score a Korean one for short money and have the same thing!

I liked the Guv, but felt my Hot brit was more the Marhsall tone I was looking for and dumped it. Of all the OD's I've tried, these Marshall pedals are quite good for "cheap" pedals. I really like the new Guvnor and the Jackhammer (the OD setting on this one is REALLY nice). The older shredmaster is commanding huge dollars because Radiohead use one.

Back in the early 90's, the Guv'nor was my original stacking pedal. I put it after my Ts-9.

I just found it the other day, cleaning out a box in my music room's closet. If I get time today, I'm going to clean it up, and try in on my board in place of my rust driver (which does great Marshall, but suffers, IMHO, from a drastic lack of control options--when it comes to furry, borderline-out-of-control feedback/distortion, five knobs are better than one!).

I think most if not all of the early Marshall pedals (haven't tried the later ones) suffered froma lack of overall volume (output level). Seems like a perfect pedal to mod with a larger pot!

quote:

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Originally posted by cubba65:
I think most if not all of the early Marshall pedals (haven't tried the later ones) suffered froma lack of overall volume (output level). Seems like a perfect pedal to mod with a larger pot!

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Cubba,

The Bluesbreaker, Shredmaster, and Drivemaster could use more volume, but the Guv'nor has a huge volume boost capability. Trust me, it has plenty of volume boost.

Regards,

Harris

I had a shredmaster, man I wish I still did..

Do you guys know whether anyone is modding this pedal? I'd love to see what Keeley or Analogman could do with it.