Has anyone tried this effect pedal yet ? How is the quality of construction ? How would you compare it in terms of drive/gain available(light,med.,high)? I read somewhere that the same guy that designed this effect is the same guy that owns/designed the Visual Sound effects company, if this is true has anyone compared the Route66 and the Jeckll & Hyde overdrive units from Visual Sounds to the Reverend Drivetrain yet ? How do they compare against each other ?

Gearfreak,

I recently acquired a Reverend Drivetrain via eBay and gigged with it for the first time Saturday night. Now mind you, my rig is a G&L ASAT "Blues Boy" into a Vox Wah, my pedal board, and a 65 Deluxe Reverb RI. I put the Drivetrain right after my marshall bluesbreaker pedal which is right after my wah. I also have an original TS-808 in the chain. I A/B'd the TS-808 and the Drivetrain using the suggested settings from Reverend to get a classic "TS" sound. I set the TS-808 with all the knobs at 12 o'clock. I have to say, it was dead on. In an honest comparison, there isn't enough difference to care about. The only difference I could see was about $300. As far as construction, it feels a little cheap. It's not as heavy duty as an 808 or a MXR pedal, etc. It's made in Taiwan and the case is a little flimsy. The knobs seem solid enough. You have a Drive, Treble, Bass, and Volume control. The drive isn't very high. I cranked it and noticed no more drive than if I cranked my 808.

In short, if you want an 808 sound, buy this pedal. They are readily available from ebay and other sources (here!) for reasonable prices and you won't pay "vintage" prices for a real 808. I can leave my 808 at home and throw the Reverend down and not worry about it, unlike the 808.

Shannon

Hi there, you make good points about the Drivetrain being able to sound like a TS808. However it does much more. I personally don't want it to sound like a ts808 most of the time, however you can re-eq with the Drivetrain(great eq) and also dial in grit with lots more od, or a more transparent mild od than a TS808. I love the DRivetrain. As for it being like the J&H, no it's nothing like it. It's much much better than the Jeckyl side (imo) and nothing like the HYDE. It does share a few attributes of the Jeckyl side (being that it's the same designer) but it's better. As for it being the end-all od pedal, NOPE it's not , as there's still amps that it doesn't jive with , however out of my 10 amps it sounds excellent with many of them.

ERIC