Mesa Engineering gold mine overdrive pedal first impression

[Mikelamury]

As I posted earlier, I won this Mesa Engineering gold mine overdrive pedal from a truefire giveaway. I didn't tell you guys that it was signed by none other than Walter Trout...lol(I had to look him up)I just found that out when I opened it. Anyway it's a pretty straightforward pedal. Level,gain,bass, middle, treble. There's an internal DIP switch that sets the EQ curve. TIGHT is a more controlled, tighter low end response with increased upper midrange and punch, in BLOOM it loosens things up with increased low end bloom and a More scooped midrange that also showcases the highest frequencies and increased dimensionality. It comes shipped in TIGHT mode. It sounds really aggressive for an overdrive but not quite all the way distortion. It has a fair amount of saturation for an overdrive. More than any other I've tried which gives it that aggressive overdrive sound that flirts with distortion, definitely a high gain overdrive. The 3 band tone stack is very interactive and the mids clean up very well. I haven't opened up the back and tried it in BLOOM yet but I'm very surprised at this little overdrive and it now definitely has a spot on my board that I'm putting together. Once I have explored the BLOOM EQ setting I'll let you guys know what that sounds like. Overall a very nice overdrive that stands out from the crowd. Would definitely recommend if you want a change from the usual, boring overdrive.

 

[Mincer]

Awesome review. Sounds like a pedal I'd love to try sometime. Pedals are always better when they are free, though.

 

[jeremy]

its the walter trout sig that makes it awesome!

sounds like a really nice drive pedal, ill have to try and give one a go at some point. also curious to hear how you find the bloom setting

 

[some_dude]

Although I haven’t tried this new series, I really like the Mesa dirt pedals. Being a Mesa amp user, I typically found that overdrives designed around a Marshall or Fender voicing didn’t always sit well with the Mesa voicing. There’d be a bump in the wrong part of the midrange and they two tones wouldn’t blend into a single sound, they’d sound like a pedal in front of an amp.

I originally tried the Mesa pedals on a bit of a whim, and with a Mesa amp they blended right into the amp’s gain and sounded like an extension of whatever channel I fed them into.

For me it was a bit of a Goldilocks thing where the Fluxdrive was too much, the Tone Burst wasn’t enough, and the Grid Slammer (which I tried last) was just right.

From the little bit I can find, the Grid Slammer is basically a Landgraff Dynamic OD with a Timmy style clipping arrangement, and the Landgraff Dynamic OD was basically a Tubescreamer with more headroom so it didn’t compress as quickly. So, it’s basically a fancy tubescreamer with more headroom.

I’m curious where these new pedals fit into the mix, but I like the Grid Slammer so much I haven’t really been motivated to try anything else.

 

[Wattage]

I like the demos of the Goldmine

I am looking at picking up a Fillmore combo and I think that'll sit nicely upfront when needed