Another one bites the dust. Guv'nor still reigning champ.

[Dave Locher]

I have gone through a couple dozen gain pedals over the past couple years, mostly for the fun of it. Looking for something for a solo boost into a Randall RG100 set crunchy. At some point I picked up a custom-built Guv'nor clone. (By the way, I STRONGLY recommend "Frank the Anvil FX" on Etsy - dude will clone just about anything starting at $55, will let you design graphics & layout if you want to, and gets it done in a few DAYS!)
Now every pedal I buy has to go head-to-head with the Guv'nor. Picked up a Lovepedal Mosferatu for $50 on their last sale and it is a really good pedal that just doesn't quite outdo old faithful.
So that means Guv'nor has now defeated:
The Mosferatu, a few TS variants, a Riot, Fuzzface, multiple clean boosts, a Colorsound Overdriver clone, a couple MIB pedals, and quite a few other overdrives and even a few compressors. Only a Rat has tied. I keep it and some days prefer it but most days it's a backup for the Guv.
About the only circuit I haven't tried is a Klone. That's next.

Not sure why anyone but me would care but just felt the need to say...damn the Guv'nor is a good circuit!

 

[Artie]

Re: Another one bites the dust. Guv'nor still reigning champ.

So is this a "modded" Guv, or an exact copy clone? Just curious if buying a used one would yield the same tone you're getting.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: Another one bites the dust. Guv'nor still reigning champ.

The Guv'nor is a great sounding pedal. I’m less fussy with the pedal I use for solos. I have my Marshall set for a crunchy rhythm tone. I don’t try to push that into more distortion. That would get too loud. I use some kind of distortion pedal. It used to be a Rat. Now it’s a slightly modded Joyo Ultimate Drive, which is an OCD clone. I wouldn’t like the tone into a clean amp much, it would be kind of fizzy, but it works into a crunchy amp.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Another one bites the dust. Guv'nor still reigning champ.

So is this a "modded" Guv, or an exact copy clone? Just curious if buying a used one would yield the same tone you're getting.

And is that the original Guv’nor?

View attachment 98291

 

[Gtrjunior]

Re: Another one bites the dust. Guv'nor still reigning champ.

I’ve got the same pedal. As a matter of fact, Dave turned me on to Frank the anvil. It is indeed a very good pedal.
I’ll be rebuilding my Blackstar board soon and I’m planning on using it with that amp.

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: Another one bites the dust. Guv'nor still reigning champ.

It is the original circuit, as far as I know, with an added clipping toggle: left is LED like original, right is silicon I think, and middle is "lifted." I like it best in the middle but with the settings I use it is almost identical to the LED position: volume cranked, gain around 9 o'clock.
I think having this one built was cheaper than buying a real one, and they are notorious for breaking.
It's really just to boost the signal and add a touch of compression and change the eq a bit. I used to accomplish almost exactly the same thing with an eq pedal but this is just slightly more aggressive. Gives me very controllable feedback for infinite sustain on single notes.
I'm running high-output pickups into the "hi" input of my Randall with the preamp gain around 7 or 8 out of 10 so there is very little volume jump, just a more saturated tone. With vintage output humbuckers it is a big volume jump and I imagine it would be more so with single coils.