Review of the Zen Drive pedal

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

My Zen Drive pedal finally arrived (9 months after ordering) and it's definitely worth the wait and deserves all the hype. I'm not a generally a fan of overdrive pedals, but was looking for something to fly with when I use a generic backline tube amp (typically a twin reissue). I plugged my favorite lap into this, then into my BF showman into a 15" JBL cab, and it transformed the amp from a very mild mannered, clean fender into something that actually sounded like a really good sounding overdriven amp. I'm not going to say it was exactly like a DUmble (or one of my THDs) but it definitely sounded great. I'm sold, and it's going in my bag of goodies. From my limited experience, it's best used in front of a clean tube amp.
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www.tyack.com
Capetown girls sing this wrong: "da doo, da doo"

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Dan,
A long wait, but sure worth it .....I just got mine about a week ago ....GREAT PEDAL !!.... You really have to do a lot of tweaking on it for optimum tone, but it's well worth it ...It works well with ANY amp/guitar/steel setup ....Try it on one of your favorite overdrive channels....You can tweak the tone of your overdrive channel using this pedal also ....It's one of the few pedals I own that will make things even BETTER , and make and overdrive channel work even harder !!....Most pedals don't do anything when hooked into the overdrive channel ...Jim

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

Thanks, James.

I actually did try it on a gig with a prototype of a brand new THD combo (review to come soon). The transformation wasn't nearly as dramatic as with the showman (which is really clean), but I definitely will be working with it to see how I can improve my existing great sounding overdrive amps. This thing is definitely the most musical and magical of any pedal I have ever used.

Have you tried it with a clean transistor steel amp?
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www.tyack.com
Capetown girls sing this wrong: "da doo, da doo"

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I've been thinking about one of these. I don't generally care for overdrive or distortion pedals. But the samples I heard do sound very good - definitely reminiscent of the Robben Ford Dumble sound, which is a real good sound. I have a bunch of fairly clean tube amps, and this could come in very handy to save hauling more than one amp. I also have a THD Flexi 50 - of course, that has plenty of juice, but I'm always looking for more control.

Interestingly, I prefer the sound of the Zen Drive samples I heard over those for the Zen Drive 2, which has a tube gain section - I assume you got the simpler version? The version 2 samples actually sound a bit over-the-top, distortion-wise, to me, where the simpler version samples have more clarity. But I could picture that tube coming in handy with - you guessed it - a solid-state steel amp. Any experience with version 2?

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Link, please?

thx

bob

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

I'm using the Zen 'classic'. I agree with you on the sound of the samples, I prefer the original. In general, I'm not that crazy about the overdrive sound that most preamp builders get by overdriving a 12ax7, so it wouldn't surprise me that the zen2 doesn't sound better.

When I get a chance I'll give it a try through my sole remaining transistor amp (an AER acoustic amp).

The combination of the showman and the zen is a total winner, it definitely has that Robben Ford-Dumble vibe.

Although I heard Robben years ago (when both of us were teenagers) and he had that same sound with a Gibson Super 400 through a bassman.

Jay Ganz · From: Out Behind The Barn

I've noticed in the past that some Overdrive pedals have an authentic sounding crunch to them, but they change the guitar tone a bit. Either adding or subtracting certain frequencies. Others don't alter the original tone at all but the overdrive quality is a bit too gritty, if you know what I mean.
So, how does the Zen do on these two fronts?

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Yup, I've heard Robben a few times over the years also. Great sound, always had it.

To me, the trick is getting a clean-sounding tube amp like a Twin or Dual Showman Reverb to do that Bassman trick - especially the 4x10 Bassman - without blowing the windows out in a smaller room. A cranked-up old BF Twin Reverb with a little of gain and appropriate EQ in the front-end sounds great, to me. But if I turn it up to that kind of level, it's just too loud for what I want to do these days.

So perhaps there's something else going on inside this unit - very subtle soft-clipping or slight compression - or maybe not.

I agree with you that preamp designers seem to frequently go way over-the-top when they put a tube in the unit. Whatever any front-end preamp is doing, in this situation, its mode of action is definitely to interact with the front-end preamp tube - so there must be some reasonable way to do this tastefully with a tube. But I guess that's not what most guitar players want these days. Confused

Link (or just google zen drive) - http://www.hermidaaudio.com/

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

http://www.hermidaaudio.com/

Click "PRODUCTS" and scroll.

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Nice!

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Why are these more than the new price on ebay?

bob

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

Based on my brief experience with this, it doesn't seem to change the tone of the guitar at all, but does dramatically change the response and tone of the amp.

Bill Leff · From: Santa Cruz, CA, USA

I've had mine for almost two years now I think. Great pedal. Try "stacking" with a clean boost for even more sounds.

For a lower-priced alternatives (and no waiting), check out David Barber's pedals. The Small Fry and LTDs are supposed to be excellent and David is a standup guy.

http://barberelectronics.com/

The Jetter GSR is also giving the Zen a run for its money according to lots of folks on another board.

The Zendrive replaced a Barber Direct Drive on my board, which was a fine pedal in its own right.

John Macy · From: Rockport TX/Denver CO

Hey Dan,

I have had my Zen for over a year now, and love it. I use the Barber Tone Press compressor and the Zen into a Deluxe for lap amd it sings like nothing I have ever tried... Robben is using one into a couple of Fenders for live and sounds lie he is playing Dumbles...

Have tried it on my regular steel pedalboard and it's not that great into a Nash 112 for my taste--I really like the Nobles Natural Overdrive on that boards.

Gotta try Brad's Dirt Box soon... Smile

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John Macy
Rockport, TX
Engineer/Producer/Steel Guitar

Marc Jenkins · From: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

There are so many variables when using guitar/steel/ pedal/ amps combinations .... I find that the ZenDrive has enough controls to be able to dial in just what you are looking for , but it does take a bit of time to adjust to taste ... It reacts differently to single coils and humbuckers ..Talking electric guitars here, it seems to me that it likes to be driven by a humbucker more so than a single coil, unless the single coil has some umph to it like a P/90 ...Single coils are not bad mind you, but humbuckers sound a little better ... I also like to push a clean channel on a tube amp ...I think it has something to do with the natural compression of a tube amp combined with the electronics of the Zen that make a nice combination of tone, and natural sustain ....The Zen can be set to NOT have that "buzzy" overdriven tone ...More of a "pushed" tone without the buzz that gives the tone plenty of body, without the fizz ... I also think that the Zen has a good amount of control using ALL the conrols sparingly ... A little goes a long way ... If you overdo the controls , you will end up with a buzzy overdrive like any other effect ... I bought a very expensive Fuchs TripleDrive Supreme 100 watt amp after hearing some tones that came out of it listening to some clips...Later to find out that the ZenDrive was also in the chain to come up with that tone ....After buying the amp, it did not give me what I was looking for ...The amp was only part of the equation ...After buying the ZenDrive, the mission was complete ... What a tone !!...The pedal is a BIG part of the tone....I wish I sitll had my old B.F. Fender Super Reverb ...I bet this pedal would SMOKE with that amp ....I'll spend some time and check it out with my other amps and get back to you all ...Jim

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

After 8 months of waiting, my Zendrive arrived yesterday. I farted around a bit at the house and then played a gig last night with it (on Stratocaster). Holy crap this thing is great. I'd have to say it's everything they say and more. I'll mess with it some more and give some more detail on my experience with it.

Brad

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Yea, the basic one, not the tube version. I like the ability to use a 9v battery.

Brad

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

So, as an engineer/designer, do you see what the magic "mojo" is in that circuit, or are there proprietary parts that can't be reverse engineered?

Or does it get down to having a patent on a circuit/design?

thx

bob

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Bob, I don't know for sure because he's covered the mojo section in black goop. But at first glance, it appears to be another variation on the common tubescreamer design. My total guess is that he's hiding what diodes he's using for the clipping. I think that instead of diodes, he's using two of the three legs of a pair of mosfets to serve that clipping function. So it's the mosfet sound instead of the typical silicon or germanium sound. Also, I think he's doing some tone shaping also to maybe shape the EQ to be similar to a Dumble. This is honestly a total guess, but I'd start there. Whatever he's done, it clearly was so good that it was worth protecting. I think he admits that it originated from his Mosferatu pedal which is a mosfet based pedal. That's one clue that maybe he's hiding some mosfets under the goop. So maybe it's a softer Mosferatu with dumble-like voicing.

Anyone compared it to the new red Fulltone Fulldrive pedal with the "mosfet" switch option on? I wonder if there are similarities in tone.

Brad

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Well I just "scoped" out the pedal to look at it's frequency response curve. This pedal has NO midrange dip at all, so scratch that notion that it may be voicing the mids by dipping like a Dumble amp or something. Instead, this pedal is one big giant midrange hump. Big and wide, just one big round gob of midrange. The tone knob is a simple treble control like on many things, but even fully boosted will never even approach a flat response in the highs. Still a significant amount of treble cutting below flat response. The "voice" knob simply shifts the center frequency of the midrange hump up or down. If you put the voice knob on zero, the peak of the hump rests at about 500Hz. If it's at noon, the peak is around 700Hz. If the voice knob is cranked, the peak rests at about 1.5kHz. So this voice knob is there to control the amount of midrange bite. The treble controls the higher end of cut or presence.

So both the tone and voice knobs simply shift the energy from darker to brighter. The pedal is very dark on top and also removes bass. If you set the tone and voice knobs at noon, the bass is down 12dB at 50Hz and the highs are 12dB down at 6kHz. So clearly this pedal emphasizes midrange in a huge way, but it's not some narrow peak, but instead a big wide perfectly rounded curve so it doesn't sound peaky. It's an upside down smiley. Very warm and mellow on top and also tight and lean on bottom.

That would explain the general "voicing" of the thing, but I think the real secret mojo lies in his method of clipping or generating the distortion harmonics. Go Alfonso!!!

Brad

Jay Ganz · From: Out Behind The Barn

Any problems with "Strat-itis"? You know, that harsh
sound that you get with some pedals until you back off the treble on the guitar a bit.
What's the overdrive range on that thing.....sort of on the milder side Question

Can it do a just a clean signal boost if you just want to hit the amp's preamp with a
hotter signal without any overdrive within the pedal itself?
You say there is some loss in the Low EQ compared to the bypassed tone, right?

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Jay, I don't hear any of that stratitis you mention. Fully bright guitar tone settings are fine. And yeah, there is a much stronger midrange than bass. It's all relative. You could call it a boosted midrange or a reduced bass. It's not thin sounding though. The bass isn't dumped away giving a thin sound. It really sounds nice and balanced. I guess to me it's like the bass is still there, but the mids are emphasized.

Brad

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