Tube power and impressive cab sims make up a versatile do-it-all drive that’s a sweet value, too.
A variety of great drive tones packed into a versatile and well-designed pedal.
No option to stack channels in series. No independent headphone level control.
$299
Blackstar Dept. 10 Dual Drive
blackstaramps.com
Though they can still seem like a novelty, tube-loaded drive pedals have been with us for decades. The B.K. Butler Tube Driver arrived in the late ’70s. The Mesa/Boogie V-Twin, the Electro-Harmonix English Muff’n, and others popped up in the decades that followed. Now, a new push toward tube-driven pedals is afoot—fueled largely by the modeling boom, pedal preamps with impulse response and speaker-simulation capabilities, and the urge to lend tube color to both modes of amplification.
Blackstar’s new Dept. 10 Dual Drive, which is built to work at the front and back ends of a signal chain, has the potential to thrive in these environments. It’s one of three sibling pedals in a new line that includes a booster and a distortion.
From Dual to Quad
Before looking at the Dual Drive, it’s important to note that a single dual-triode preamp tube can’t drive all the gain-stage and EQ functions in a pedal of this complexity. So solid-state components play a big part in the Dual Drive circuit.
- (PG Blackstar Dual Drive Ch1CL): Les Paul neck pickup
- (PG Blackstar Dual Drive Ch1CR): Les Paul middle position
- (PG Blackstar Dual Drive Ch2CR): Les Paul bridge pickup
- (PG Blackstar Dual Drive Ch2OD): Les Paul bridge pickup
The “Dept. 10” part of the product name comes from Blackstar’s R&D division, and it’s clear they weren’t content to make this tube-driven pedal a mere marketing exercise. Where other ostensibly tube-loaded pedals are let down by inadequate voltage, the single ECC83/12AX7 preamp tube in the Dual Drive is fed with more than 200 volts, ramped up internally from a traditional 9VDC external supply. And while the 2-channel design makes the Dual Drive impressively versatile, the interface is not cluttered or confusing.
Although the Dept. 10 Dual Drive is billed as a 2-channel overdrive pedal with independent footswitches for the two channels, it actually delivers four distinct boost-to-overdrive voices, thanks to the cl/cr switch on channel 1 and the cr/od switch on channel 2, which move between clean and crunch, and crunch and overdrive, respectively. (Yes, channel 1’s and channel 2’s crunch settings are subtly different.) Each channel has its own gain and level control, but they share an EQ stage with bass, middle, treble, and an ISF knob—a control that moves from American to British voicing as you twist it clockwise.
The two channels also share three speaker-and-cab emulation presets in the cab rig, which is selectable via a 3-way toggle. Blackstar tells us their IRs are generated via proprietary simulation technology, which facilitates deep editing of the cab rig sims via the company’s free downloadable Architect software. It’s easy to manage and connects via USB, enabling access to more than 250 virtual cabs and mics, variable mic positions, and room mic blends.
Connectivity options are streamlined but offer considerable utility. Using the input jack and standard output on the pedal effectively makes the Dual Drive an overdrive pedal and bypasses the cab rig, the XLR DI on the rear panel, and the TRS stereo cab rig output (which will also drive stereo headphones).The USB jack can be used for both editing and connecting to your DAW. There’s also a send and return for the effects loop so you can integrate reverb, delay, and modulation pedals into the rig. There are a few missed opportunities here. You can’t stack the channels, for instance. Still, the Dual Drive clearly offers a lot of fly-rig and pedalboard-based amplification options as is.
Rig simulations often outshined the conventional drive-pedal-into-amp sounds.
Drivin’ and Wailin’
I tested the Dept. 10 Dual Drive with a Les Paul and a Stratocaster—first using it as a traditional dirt pedal into the clean channel of a Tone King Sky King combo, and then working with its cab sims via studio monitors and the headphone output. Long story short: There are a lot of sounds to like here—most notably the amp rig simulations that often outshined the conventional drive’s pedal-into-amp sounds.
That doesn’t mean the Dual Drive falls short as an overdrive. On the contrary, the Dual Drive sounds righteous at many settings when driving the front of a clean tube amp. From subtle boost to easy crunch, to all-out high-gain strafing, the Dual Drive is instant access to many variations of chunky-to-sizzling dirt tones. And it’s easy to completely reshape these tones via the powerful 3-band EQ and ISF control. I was able to dial up plenty of bright, cutting voices that definitively put the “tubes are warm, transistors are bright” myth to rest. But it’s also easy to dial in rich, darker tones by staying in the first 30 percent of the treble control’s range.
Curiously, some of the Dual Drive’s most natural sounds came via the cab sims, headphones, and studio monitor. Admittedly, that might be because we’re all becoming more familiar and at ease with the playback-in-the-control-room sound generated by many cab-sim-loaded preamps and modelers. But the cab rig function sounded and felt great, which underscores its viability as a direct-to-PA solution for live use or direct-to-DAW recording.
The Verdict
Versatile, well-designed, and compact, the Dept. 10 Dual Drive brings a lot to the table for $299. It’s a powerful and flexible dual-channel overdrive. But it’s even more impressive as the centerpiece of a DI, pedalboard-based live rig, or a quick route to laying down solid studio tracks. The Dual Drive’s ability to excel in either application makes it a value worth playing and investigating.
Blackstar Dept. 10 Dual Drive Demo | First Look
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Stompboxtober Day 23 is here! Today’s prize is a pedal from J. Rockett Audio. Enter now and come back for more daily prizes!
J. Rockett Audio Designs PXO Phil X Signature Overdrive Pedal
The PXO was created as a live or studio tool. When we sent Phil the overdrive sample he found that it saved him in backline situations and provided him a drive that plays well with others.
The PXO is an overdrive/boost where you can select pre or post giving you variety in how you want to boost, EQ and overdrive. We have provided standard controls on the overdrive side such as Volume/Gain/Overdrive and EQ but on the boost side you have a separate Tilt EQ that allows you to EQ with simplicity. You can experiment by cascading in a pre or post situation and experiment from there. The PXO has a lush, thick feel to the bottom end and a smooth top end that begs you to dig into the note.
Vintage-style reverb, tremolo, and vibrato sounds abound in a 3-in-1 stomp that might be the only box you need.
Here’s part two of our look under the hood of the funky rhythm guitar master’s signature 6-string.
Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. In this edition, we’re continuing our journey through the Fender Cory Wong Stratocaster wiring, bringing it all together.In the previous installment, the last feature on the funky 6-stringer’s signature axe that we discussed was the master volume pot and the corresponding treble-bleed circuit. Now, let’s continue with this guitar’s very special configuration of the tone pots.
Tone pot with Fender Greasebucket tone system:
This 250k tone pot is a standard CTS pot with a 90/10 audio taper found in all U.S.-built Fender guitars. The Cory Wong guitar uses the Fender Greasebucket system, which is added to the pot as a ready-to-solder PCB. The Greasebucket PCB is also available individually from Fender (part #7713546000), though you can use conventional electronic parts for this.
Fender introduced this feature in 2005 on some of the Highway One models and some assorted Custom Shop Strats. The Greasebucket name (which is a registered Fender trademark, by the way) is my favorite of Fender’s marketing names, but don’t let it fool you: Your tone will get cleaner with this modification, not greasy and dirty.
According to Fender, the Greasebucket tone circuit reduces high frequencies without adding bass as the tone knob is turned down. Don’t let that description confuse you. A standard Strat tone control does not add any bass frequencies! As you already know, with a passive system you can’t add anything that isn’t already there. You can reshape the tone by deemphasizing certain frequencies and making others more prominent. Removing highs makes lows more apparent and vice versa. In addition, the use of inductors (which is how a passive pickup behaves in a guitar circuit) and capacitors can create resonant peaks and valleys (band-passes and notches), further coloring the overall tone.
Cory Wong bringing the funk onstage.
This type of band-pass filter only allows certain frequencies to pass through, while others are blocked. The standard tone circuit in a Strat is called a variable low-pass filter (or a treble-cut filter), which only allows the low frequencies to pass through while the high frequencies get sent to ground via the tone cap.
The Greasebucket’s band-pass filter is a combination of a high-pass and a low-pass filter. This is supposed to cut high frequencies without “adding” bass, which has mostly to do with the resistor in series with the pot. That resistor means the control will never get to zero. You can get a similar effect by simply not turning the Strat’s standard tone control all the way down. (The additional cap on the wiper of the Greasebucket circuit complicates things a bit, though; together with the pickups it forms an RLC circuit, but I really don’t want to get into that here.)
The standard Fender Greasebucket tone system is used in the Cory Wong Strat, which includes a 0.1 μF cap and a 0.022 uF cap, along with a 4.7k-ohm resistor in series. These are the values used on the PCB, and without the PCB it looks like the illustration at the top of this column.
Push-push tone pot with preset overwriting function:
The lower tone pot assigned to the bridge pickup is a 250k audio push-push pot with a DPDT switch. The switch is used to engage a preset sound by overwriting the 5-way pickup-selector switch, no matter what switching position it is in. The preset functionality has a very long tradition in the house of Fender, dating back to the early ’50s, when Leo Fender designed a preset bass sound on position 3 (where the typical neck position is on a modern guitar) of the Broadcaster (and later the Telecaster) circuit. Wong loves the middle-and-neck-in-parallel pickup combination, so that’s the preset sound his push-push tone pot is wired for.
The neck pickup has a dedicated tone control while the middle pickup doesn’t, which is also another interesting feature. This means that when you hit the push-push switch, you will engage the neck and middle pickup together in parallel, no matter what you have dialed in on the 5-way switch. Hit the push-push switch again, and the 5-way switch is back to its normal functionality. Instead of a push-push pot, you can naturally use a push-pull pot or a DPDT toggle switch in combination with a normal 250k audio pot.
Here we go for the wiring. For a much clearer visualization, I used the international symbol for ground wherever possible instead of drawing another black wire, because we already have a ton of crossing wires in this drawing. I also simplified the treble-bleed circuit to keep things clearer; you’ll find the architecture of it with the correct values in the previous column.
Cory Wong Strat wiring
Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Wow, this really is a personalized signature guitar down to the bone, and Wong used his opportunity to create a unique instrument. Often, signature instruments deliver custom colors or very small aesthetic or functional details, so the Cory Wong Stratocaster really stands out.
That’s it! In our next column, we will continue our Stratocaster journey in the 70th year of this guitar by having a look at the famous Rory Gallagher Stratocaster, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!
The Keeley ZOMA combines two of iconic amp effects—tremolo and reverb—into one pedal.
Key Features of the ZOMA
● Intuitive Control Layout: Three large knobs give you full control over Reverb Level, Tremolo Rate,and Depth
● Easy Access to Alternate Controls: Adjust Reverb Decay, Reverb Tone, and Tremolo Volume withsimple alt-controls.
● Instant Effect Order Switching: Customize your signal path. Position tremolos after reverb for avintage, black-panel tone or place harmonic tremolo before reverb for a dirty, swampy sound.
● True Bypass or Buffered Trails: Choose the setting that best suits your rig.
Three Reverb and Tremolo Modes:
● SS – Spring Reverb & Sine Tremolo: Classic spring reverb paired with a sine wave tremolo for that timelessblack-panel amp tone.
● PH – Plate Reverb & Harmonic Tremolo: Smooth, bright plate reverb combined with swampy harmonictremolo.
● PV – Plate Reverb & Pitch Vibrato: Achieve a vocal-like vibrato with ethereal plate reverb.
Reverb: Sounds & Controls
● Spring Reverb: Authentic tube amp spring reverb that captures every detail of vintage sound.
● Plate Reverb: Bright and smooth, recreating the lush tones of vibrating metal plates.
● Reverb Decay: Adjust the decay time using the REVERB/ALT SWITCH while turning the Level knob.
● Reverb Tone: Modify the tone of your reverb using the REVERB/ALT SWITCH while turning the Rate knob.
Tremolo: Sounds & Controls
● Sine Wave/Volume Tremolo: Adjusts the volume of the signal up and down with smooth sine wavemodulation.
● Harmonic Tremolo: Replicates classic tube-amp harmonic tremolo, creating a phaser-like effect withphase-split filtering.
● Pitch Vibrato: Delivers pitch bending effects that let you control how far and how fast notes shift.
● Alt-Control Tremolo Boost Volume: Adjust the boost volume by holding the REVERB/ALT footswitch whileturning the Depth knob.
The ZOMA is built with artfully designed circuitry and housed in a proprietary angled aluminum enclosure, ensuring both simplicity and durability. Like all Keeley pedals, it’s proudly designed and manufactured in the USA.
ZOMA Stereo Reverb and Tremolo
The first sound effects built into amplifiers were tremolo and reverb. Keeley’s legendary reverbs are paired with their sultry, vocal-like tremolos to give you an unreal sonic experience.