sonic fusion

We see how far Way Huge, J. Rockett, Visual Sound, T-Rex, Sonic Fusion, and Svi Sound can push classic designs without losing their glorious, low-gain goodness.

To some players, overdrive is the most essential effect of all—a low-to-mid gain kick in the pants that can add pep to leads, juice up your jangle, and add that just-right dose of grit and crunch to power chords. Given their intrinsic utility, it's little surprise that there area lot of overdrives out there. So when it came to compile a sampler of new overdrives shouldering their way into the marketplace, we decided to explore the relative diversity of the overdrive ecosystem, rather than focus on a single type.

While such classics as the Ibanez TS series and the Klon Centaur remain benchmarks, milestones, and inspiration for many builders (the Archer in our roundup is a spot-on Klon klone), it's fascinating to see the ways designers have manipulated those circuits to deliver fresh sounding and sometimes more dynamic evolutions of those ancestral forms.

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