Unit 1104 in super clean condition with original box, no velcro
2x2 gain stage, handles everything from bit of grit to wall of Sunn
The Mosfet Overdrive provides two channels, each with its own drive and level settings, and true mechanical bypass.
Where the vast majority of overdrive pedals create distortion with a pair of head-to-toe diodes, the Mosfet Overdrive instead employs four gain stages, each contributing a small amount of soft clipping. This avoids intermodulation and the creation of fizzy high-order harmonics, just as in the best vintage amps. Those amps sound good in large part because the distortion does not occur at just one point.
The Blackstone circuit is also unusual in that it interacts with the inductance of your guitar's pickups to get its unique dynamic response. It is very sensitive to playing dynamics, but translates them into changes in waveform distortion, rather than changes in volume. This gives you a greater range of expression in your picking technique, but at the same time evens out volume differences. Because the guitar's pickups and controls are actually part of the input stage, you can get anything from a juicy, harmonic-laden lead sound to a barely-breaking twang with just the guitar's volume control.
The Mosfet Overdrive is designed to provide these sought-after distortion characteristics entirely on its own. It is not a "boost" pedal meant to cause distortion in your amp. It does its thing into pretty much any amp, at any volume.
The controls on the 2s are slotted-shaft pots flush with the etched steel nameplate on the top of the pedal. They can be easily turned with your thumbnail, yet hold their settings when the pedal is stuffed into a gig bag. The post-distortion EQ control morphs between the original Blackstone voicing and a 10dB mid cut.
At higher drive settings, the Mosfet Overdrive is very sensitive to the differences between pickups. For this reason, the drive control for the "red" channel is divided into two ranges - one which causes single-coil pickups to sound fatter as maximum drive is approached, and one which tightens the bass when humbuckers or P-90s are used. In its standard mode, the circuit interacts with the guitar's pickups, so it needs to be the first effect after the guitar. There is now an internal switch that puts the pedal into "buffered" mode, permitting use after other effects, wireless systems and active pickups.
It's important to remember that recommendations you hear on overdrive pedals often stem from somebody getting a good sound out of a combination of a certain pedal with a certain amp, when a lot of the distortion was actually occurring in the amp. Again, the Blackstone is intended to get the distortion on its own, into whatever amp is suitable (or available) for the gig you're playing.
Distorting the electric guitar is a very subjective thing. But if you're looking for a tone that's more juicy than fizzy – something that inspires expressive playing – you should probably check out the Blackstone.
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