I picked up one of these a while back during a sale cos it was built like a tank and was dirt cheap, so thought it was worth a punt.
I'd not really tried it that much but decided to spend some time investigating what it could do last night.
Wow.. Gotta say I was really impressed. The tone controls are awesome allowing tones from deep bass scooped through to thick mids and glassy top. The distortion does start to fizz when above 2 thirds, but below that it is very harmonically rich.
Using my Tele through a Blues Junior I got a real sense of playing through a Marshall stack.
I never see much mention on the boards about this pedal.
Is this an underated gem?
(pronounced: equal-sequel) "I suffered for my art.. now it's your turn"
Comments
Pretty much every discussion of drives on here someone will mention the Guvnor Plus and Jackhammer as being excellent (which they are)
To reinforce this theory, Boss are now doing the Wazacraft and Digitech have relaunched the DOD brand to keep up with the market.
I don't think people think of Marshall much when they think of FX. Shame, I much prefer that type of Boss-style enclosure over Maplin hobby-box style things with flimsy mini knobs and toggle switched exposed to clumsy feet.
As is the Jackhammer.
Both very good.
And my love for the ED-1 Compressor is well known too
https://speakerimpedance.co.uk/?act=two_parallel&page=calculator
I use mine through the clean channel on my Mini Rec to give me another channel and it works great. I find it very versatile, it doesn't quite do mild break up JTM type stuff but just beyond that up to high gain boosted JCM800 it does really well.
I did find mine a tad dark so i did the c22 mod to brighten it up a bit, which worked well for me.
You can pick one up used for £25 any day of the week on ebay or wherever. Maybe avoid ones with bent/missing knobs as they're almost impossible to replace.
The well-known "C22 mod" involves snipping the leg of a capacitor in the tone stack for "blanket lifted off the speakers effect". I did a little digging around about this and apparently most of the circuit is basically the highly regarded original Guv'nor, but with the resistor and capacitor values in the tone stack a factor of 10 smaller... seems they forgot about C22 (which is to do with the treble control), which is now 10x too big in comparison to the rest of the circuit. So rather than snip it, swapping it to the right value would be a good idea to try. I want to do this to mine at some point.
Yeah, all of this. The Ed comp is really good sounding, and the gv2 is probably the best old school Marshall in a box I've heard, including boutique offerings.
The only thing it's not brilliant for is cleaning up with the volume knob when the gain is up. But for old school crunch, it really does do the trick.
I didn't mod mine.
Also people need to stop making these threads or I'll get one before too long. Especially if the price has dropped.
I have the Jackhammer JH1 & Blues Breaker BB2 too. Neither are a patch on the GV2, and the JH1 & BB2 are now consigned to a cupboard. The JH1 overdrive is nice enough, but the distortion option lacks the classic warmth and transparency of the GV2 and IMHO is a bit 'meh'. I used to think the JH1 was good until I put it next to the GV2 on my board and switched between the two - then the difference becomes really obvious.
The BB2 is OK, but a bit lack lustre and dark sounding. The Boost option is a nice feature, but unfortunately for me it colours the original tone too much, so for a clean boost I use a BBE Boosta Grand.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c33/voxman5/ADVENT-PC/Pictures/Gear/Floor pedals/P1000034_zps162d3855.jpg
I seriously think that if you reboxed one in a Hammond casing with a 3PDT and six separate full-size knobs, didn't let on what it was and priced it at £200, it would instantly become the next Must Have boutique MIAB pedal.
(And I'd stil hate the switch .)
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I sometimes run a TS9 mini into the the Guvnor for a bit 'more', that works well too.