Wampler Pedals Plexi-Drive. British Overdrive User Manual

Plexi-drive. british overdrive

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Plexi-Drive. British Overdrive

One of the classic Wampler Pedals, the Plexi-Drive was born when Brian,

early on, really wanted that classic JTM45® Plexi® tone, but didn't have the

amp.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, but this time, tone envy

played a big part too, because another guitarist in his band at the time

had the amp. Thus began one of Brian's focused, intense quests to design

a pedal that takes the sound, the feel, the responsiveness of a special amp

and replicate that magic, by whatever means necessary, in pedal form.

After a lot of design adjustments and plenty of time spent over the

breadboard getting it just right, the Plexi-Drive was born, and to this day

it remains one of his personal favorites among the many fantastic pedals

he's designed, a constant companion on his own pedal boards.

Combining carefully-honed simplicity of function with enough versatility

to make it useful for a range of different guitar and amp setups, the

Plexi-Drive has become a favorite of many guitarists. Some use it to give

their totally different amp that classic sound; others use it to allow them

to use their JTM45® at lower volume levels without sacrificing tone.

How you use it is up to you, but you have in your possession a fine piece

of design and workmanship, responsive and powerful, truly a premier

"Marshall®-in-a-Box" pedal..

To get the most out of your new pedal, you'll want to become very familiar with the controls. The Plexi-Drive has a

straightforward control scheme, and doesn't take a great deal of time to understand, but there are some subtleties to

how it works its magic that should be explained. It features a three-knob control layout, the classic Volume, Tone, Gain

setup, but to add an extra layer of versatility it also has a Bass Boost toggle switch that can give you more low end

when engaged, especially helpful with single-coil pickups and amps that don't bring the thunder on their own.

The Tone knob and the Bass Boost toggle provide a degree of interactivity that goes beyond your average three-knob

overdrive, and the pedal uses carefully designed JFET transistor circuitry to give authentic, tube-like response and

tone, possible with a 9V pedal. As with all Wampler Pedals products, the Plexi-Drive includes a high-quality true-by-

pass switch which takes it completely out of the signal path when bypassed. Experiment and enjoy!

Bypass Switch – A true-bypass footswitch ensures solid, mechanical removal of the circuit when it isn't wanted,

meaning you don't lose any tone when the pedal is off.

Volume – This control adjusts the output level of the PlexiDrive. There's plenty of volume on tap, so whether you want

to go farther than your input level or just make sure it can do unity volume (the same level of signal going out as you

feed it, when active), you're covered. The output volume, Gain and Tone controls all have an impact on the total

volume, so you're probably better off waiting to adjust the Volume until you've dialed in the other controls. Re-adjust-

ment might be necessary if you get it to the desired level and still need to tweak the sound.

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