MXR GT-OD Overdrive Guitar Effects Pedal

This review is for the metal guitarist in mind.I tend to use this pedal most for texture/layering guitar lines underneath main riffs. It is NOT my go-to lead pedal or clean boost. I apply the pedal to bring out more dynamics in our band's METAL music - using it rather as a cut in volume on quieter parts. Weird as it may sound it delivers a great Lo-Fi sizzle type guitar sound, which I use several times during our set. It is an awesome pedal to give your base sound a raw gritty alternative to kick in time to time - I suggest using it for for breakdowns and for leading off crunching riffs.The other thing I really like about it is using it in conjunction with other pedals. Example: the GT-OD loves my EHX Small Stone phaser pedal. The MXR thins the deep swoop of the Small Stone and keeps the phaser effect cutting through the mix of the band. Alone, the phaser gets a bit lost.I've yet to flip the internal switch for that Zakk Wylde mod though...maybe soon. For now, I'm happy this is readily available on my pedal board.

I'm a bit of a pedal junky and go through a lot of gear. I currently have MXR classic Fuzz, Fulltone OCD, Red Llama and two modded Rat pedals for dirt(and those are just the ones I have kept). I had a Bad Monkey and got rid of it because it was a bit of a tone sucker although I liked it as a clean boost. I thought I'd try this pedal to have a tube screamer type of pedal in my arsenal and figured with true bypass it wouldn't be as bad as the monkey in degrading tone. This pedal is fantastic and lives up to the youtube demos. The reviews here on Amazon are spot on. It's very transparent and makes a great clean boost. The overdrive sounds great on all my amps and the option of doing a little mod to the internal switch to have a selectable 2 in 1 pedal just puts this over the top for me(you can turn it into the Zack Wylde OD). It's about the same price as a TS9 but I love how it retains bottom end more than other tube screamers. I don't think you'll be disappointed. I could see this becoming my favorite.

A tube screamer in essence, though I must say this pedal gives you a little bit more low end which explains why it also gets into hard rock/metal territory when combined with your amps distortion. I've tried digitech's bad monkey which also provides a slightly beefier sound than the TS9 but whereas the Bad Monkey tends to color your guitar sound a bit, sounding a bit muddy at high volumes, this pedal still retains your guitar sound while adding warm sounding overdrive. This is indeed probably one of the best pedals I have ever bought; having had a tube screamer before, the GT OD is a fierce competitor, I would say even better for my particular musical tastes and MXR's reputation of building tough pedals built for the road also contributes to my verdict. This is definately a keeper that will stay in my pedal board. Really happy with this buy.

I play a PRS custom 24 through a Vox HW AC15. It took me a while to find this combination, but I finally loved my sound. Then, I hit a problem ... playing live I couldn't get that extra boost for solos and playing just with the master volume (the bypass channel on my amp sounds the best) I just couldn't get enough drive for some of our songs. Enter the GT-OD. This pedal BARELY touches your tone, in fact, I'm not even sure if it dampens anything at all, and it gives that extra boost I was looking for with the gain on 1. Then, for those heavier songs that need that extra "something", cranking the gain gets that creamy pure overdriven distorted amp sound that I needed. I mostly play rock, but this would work great across the board. I hate playing with pedals, but I will never play without this one now. Good job Dunlop!*** Great sound for recording with too!

It’s a nice take on the classic tube screamer circuit. A little flatter response and doesn’t have such a pronounced mid spike. Using it as a boost in front of a high gain amp adds a lot of noise though.

Tough beautiful and sounds great- LOTS of boost (if needed), and that brown distortion.

Have 1 in front of my mesa and 1 in front of my HK!

Just a heads up. Internally, this is identical to the custom shop version. However, MXR does not produce this custom shop version any longer. I was oly a little disappointed to find that it wasn't the same one pictured as I had purchased the custom shop version a few years ago and couldn't find anything else that sounds as good so I wanted to have a second. As I said, internally, the board is still labeled as the custom gt-od. Without completely disassembling the unit, the board appears to have the same switch to modify between the zw-44 option as the original custom shop version.