Colortone shrinks its fantastic Parasite JFET Overdrive down to compact enclosure, and retains all the magic that made the original so special
Supposedly I’m one of the inspirations for this particular edition, which was simply based on my suggesting a more compact version of this excellent all-rounder original Parasite JFET Overdrive. I don’t take too much credit though - as my good friend AD Hauser did all the heavy lifting here!
I enormously enjoyed the partial collaboration on the new generation of Colortone knobs, and the creation of their ’Headliner’ silicon caps - for extra hi-vis legibility. I certainly had some say in that. While the Parasite Overdrive was created before I was involved with Colortone, so this is really just a natural continuation and evolution of that pedal format. Obviously the smaller format led to all manner of parts sourcing and accommodation challenges - and hence the move to an SMT / Hybrid circuit - with only the key THT components at full size - but more of that later. AD’s pedals are really a fantastic marriage of Art and Musicality - with their excellent combination of etched and enamel-infilled polished enclosure - with those very attractive ’Cog’ style knobs - as referenced below!
Controls - Drive, Level, Post-Drive Active Low, Post-Drive Active High, Pre-Drive Bass Boost, Pre-Drive 'Bright' Treble Boost.
There really is something wonderful in how those controls are calibrated - where there is a degree of interactivity and interplay between each of those controls - which most of the time require a careful balancing of the Low and High controls - with the last bit always tuned by ear!
This Parasite is a beautifully dynamic and warm sounding overdrive - big on harmonics and break up texture - and with excellent feel and guitar volume cleanup. There's a degree of liveliness and vibrancy here which you rarely encounter.
The Drive taper is a little odd, in that signal is cut from around 8:30 o'c and down to 7 o'c - where it needs to be sort of just before 9 o'c to give you usable output. Mostly the usable gain for me is from around 9 o'c to 2 o'c - it ramps up quite quickly really, and has copious amounts of volume - which of course I love.
For the previous model I settled on 2 key setting at sort of the two extremes of the pedal's range.
A soft and smooth lower gain voicing sort of Honey Bee adjacent - with Drive around 8:45 o'c, Level at 1 o'c. Low @ 9 o'c, and High @ circa 8 o'c, both Boost switches Down / Off.
At the other end is a wonderful fuzz-edged / tinged sort of favourite Dumble Drive style voicing - with Drive @ Noon, Level @ 10 o'c, Low @ 2 o'c, High @ 2 o'c, both Boost switches Up and On. Note that you need to carefully balance the Bass and Treble to give you that right fuzz-tinged character, and be careful that it's not too searing! The final bit really needs to be dialled in by ear and feel!
As mentioned in the intro, there was no way that this smaller format was going to be able to accommodate all those full-size THT parts in the original V1 model, and thus AD had quite and intense period of sourcing equivalent SMD parts - which would still rended the same broad spectrum and magical dynamics of the original.
AD reports "Regarding the reworking of the design to a smaller form factor and converting from an analog thru hole circuit to mostly SMT was a new challenge. I had done SMT designs before on digital pedals but this was new to me on an all analog pedal, and so I wanted to ensure the ‘mojo’ wasn’t lost through the use of the machine precision micro components. Surprisingly it sounded identical with the added benefit of less noise in the updated circuit design. The essential parts of the circuit (the JFETS) are still thru hole as they need to be carefully analysed and hand-matched to create the real magic heard in the circuit. The SMD components mostly take care of technical pre or post gain tone filtering and power conditioning. Aside from the SMD componentry the rest is still hand assembled by Colortone together with the hand finished faceplates."
"The most tricky part was retaining the visual design of the original and having to rework the placement of the tactile Controls within the smaller footprint. The visual design usually takes me the longest amount of time on any pedal because I love that side of the process just as much as making tone shaping tools."
The new edition features 3 JFET Transistors of the CEN2N547 variety, alongside a custom J201 JFET IC, and ST Electronics D741 OpAmp. We also have 2 internal trimmers - for Q1 and Q2 Bias - I suggest you leave those well alone as the pedal is already perfectly calibrated, and you may struggle to get back to those optimal values!
Full Spectrum Range Coverage
The above visual represents the ballpark of the key tones that you can expect to generate with the Parasite Overdrive - they're not exact replica voices necessarily - but rather variants and 'in the ballpark of'. AD describes the core profile as being very JTM45-centric - and you definitely get that feel and flavour of Marshall - which bleeds into other MIAB types, and OCD style outputs in particular.
I feel that the Parasite can get you well into all those characteristics and tonalities - while the tone-stack may not always work in the same way as those target reference models. You definitely have an extensive range of tones and timbres - with that Marshall feel about them - which takes you down all manner of interesting avenues.
A lot of this is ballparking to a degree - and some may disagree with some of my findings - while I very much feel that the Parasite is suitably representative for all those genres. Some readers may misconstrue my meaning here, and may lean rather more into the tiny differences that separate rather than the similarities that correlate, and proclaim those complementary tones to be nothing alike - evidently their dialling-in skills are not a match for mine. I do have other tone components in my signal chain in any case to further enhance those profiles - with typically elevated vibrancy and range - including of course my front-of-chain trifecta of JA Prism, Becos FX Stella, and ThorpyFX Heavy Water Germanium Boost - which do so much!
As I identified earlier, I gravitated immediately to a smoother tonality - which is kinda sorta ballpark Honey Bee, and then at the other end of the range, I encountered a great fuzz-tinged Dumble ODS style voicing. As mentioned - focusing on the similarities in tones and textures versus the exactitude of minor differences!
There are no demos yet of this new model - which has been so recently released. It is though every bit as vibrant and dynamic as the original - and very much identical sounding in every department - and so all those original demos are still entirely valid!
The Parasite Overdrive V2 2024 Model is available for orders on the Colortone Webstore, where it goes for $199 which is circa £159 equivalent. This is for sure one of my favourite overdrives - supremely versatile and vibrant, and a little reminiscent of my Tanabe pedals - where I frequently include the Parasite in my Dumble Pedals rundowns - while it covers quite a bit more territory than that variant alone - leaning very much into Marshall flavours most typically!
Demos
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
