MXR Duke of Tone Overdrive Effects Pedal Purple

Overall fantastic low-medium gain drive pedal. There is good reason this and the original KOT are so prized among professional guitarists--as it can be used in almost any context. The boost setting is that perfect always on tone that adds clarity and sparkle with just a touch of harmonics. The overdrive mode is also great--all the buzzwords "transparent" and "touch sensitive" apply here. It retains the character and clarity of your amplifier while adding more gain which is exactly as advertised. The distortion setting i didn't like very much. I tend to run more bass in my clean sound, so the added bass frequencies ended up muddy. Also when you push the drive too much it can get spikey which is ok on the neck pickup with lower gain, but on the bridge it can get uncomfortable. The sweet spot is definitely in the low-mid gain tones. There are other pedals and amplifiers that do higher gain better--but I don't think that's the point of this. Anyone would benefit from adding this to their board, and since its small, you can do it no problem. Easy 5 stars for me.

Prepared to not like, due to big-hype. I will state 1)I feel my tone is being respected and 2) there's more available overdrive than people say. As an always-on clean boost this is right up there. Its a "floor" pedal I can see placing on my amp to adjust by hand as needed. The range of drive is perfect. "Distortion" setting sounds like a slightly edgy overdrive; I dont use distortion so that is fine. Pedal does not add a specific character, the way a tube screamer does; thats a good thing for a change. Behaves like a tube amp naturally breaking up; it is impressive. Respect to MXR; they could have launched this at a much higher price.Get one and sell you other 4 unused overdrives.

I read a lot of hype about this pedal (along with the KOT an POT, of course), but after getting it, I'm not hearing what everyone is raving about. It's a decent overdrive, very transparent, and very flexible for such a small package, but it has it's "features" that I'm not exactly celebrating. First, there's a significant volume shift among the three different modes on the toggle switch (OD, Distortion, Boost). It makes me wonder if I have a defective pedal. The output of each mode doesn't sound like it corresponds to the mode description... the boost mode sounds like it has more gain than the OD mode, for example. It's a little on the bright side, and the gain is weak overall. All these characteristics can be compensated with a twist of the Level, Gain, and Tone knobs, so it's still usable. I have found one amp so far (18 Watt Marshall) that it pairs with very nicely, so I'll keep it, but I've also ran it in front of a few others where the affect was negligible.

It's a Bluebreaker clone that adds thickness and grit to your tone. Despite it having a Distortion setting, it's not heavy at all. The Overdrive setting is where it's at. This option can be used as an always on setting and it stacks very well with other overdrives or distortions or fuzzes. It takes a while to get (I preordered when it was announced and it still took 5 months to get), but it's worth the wait.