Re: NPD -- Horus Overdrive
Just gave it a quick run through w my strat/Li'l Dawg Champster/Weber alnico 1x12 ...
Great Mother Of Mystery! Cracking pedal!
I think that more simple your setup, the more you can get out of the pedal; with something like a Mesa or Egnator, Diezel or other multi-knob/channel amp, there is not much room for the pedal to shine. But with a single-knob amp, you can use this pedal pretty much like my BB Preamp: as a clean boost, overdrive, or EQ.
It sounds NOTHING like the BB Preamp, though. The BB Preamp is less subtle, more muscular and has a wider range for each control. The BB has a more focused EQ and get quite beamy; the Horus is more gentle/coloured/smooth.
The Horus is ultra-smooth/quiet. Set at unity gain, and with some fiddling, you can get a dead-nuts bypassed signal. But why would you want to do that??
First thing I did was dial in some top end using the Tone control; the Horus EXCELS as a jangle/sparkle box, but without the compression and IM artifacts I hear with an exciter like the Giggity or BBE. It sounds less processed, less fake.
Next up was the Growl control. With the Bass Cut in the middle position, the Growl goes from adding a touch of warmth/girth to adding quite a bit of tubbiness. It was very simple to dial in a killer tone with the Growl that had clear/singing highs with tight and authoritative bass.
Then the Bass Cut comes into play; it is totally interactive w the Growl. I preferred it on the 0 setting, but will get back to this in a moment ...
Finally, Gain. The gain is quite dark and amplike; it also retains most of your cleans and sounds more like a blend (a la Klon/Maxon OD820) than a 100% wet gain control. Gobs of quiet, clean sustain with a very amplike response ... very reminiscent of the Hermida Zen Drive and Lizard Legs Flying Dragon. In fact, this pedal reminds me A LOT of the Flying Dragon, but with more versatility.
Okay, back to the Bass Cut:
-- Let's say you were multitracking a single guitar and you have the Horus dialed in for the perfect tone for your riffs; but on the leads or harmonies, you wanted more girth on the high strings; a simple flick of the mini toggle will give you more/less low freqs with less/more saturation without changing the overall tone; what you end up with is the identical sound but a nice EQ adjustment that you won't have to apply in post. Brilliant!!
Overall, I would say this pedal gets 5/5 stars; thankfully it sounds very different from the BB Preamp (the only other overdrive I have kept). Like the Nick Greer Sweetback driver, this pedal will become a permanent part of my gain structure.
Do I like it better than the Klon? Yes
Do I like it better than the Maxon OD820? Yes, but with an asterisk, as the 820 does a different thing and is brilliant in certain applications
Will I use this pedal instead of my fuzz boxes? Hmmm ... once again, depends on application
Would I use this pedal for high gain? I would have to direct compare it to the BB Preamp when used for high gain tonal shaping, but my first impression is that the Horus would be better for smoother EQ shifts whereas the BB would be more like shelving EQ.
