It's the turn of the excellent Victory V1 The Copper and The Sheriff Preamp pairing to take on the Brian and Eddie slots of the board

Readers will know that for the longest time - I've always had Brian May and Eddie Van Halen pedal slots on the board - to be able to get me as close as possible to the sounds of those guitar heroes. Back in March of 2023 I did an Overview of 9 x AC30 + Plexi Pairings  - most of which had already had a run on the board, but some that were due to get into the rotation too.

Different opportunities come up all the time - and you get given offers you can't refuse - so inevitable some things get pushed back in the schedule - which is what happened to The Copper and The Sheriff pairing. Hopefully I've left the best til last!

All 9 of those pairs are in the reference collection - and some of those pedals have held sway for a very long time - for sure plenty of favourites in the mix. There are also further separate pedals that fit into those slots, but were never deployed as a pair - perhaps I will do a rundown of those later.

For now it's the turn of The Copper and The Sheriff to show us what they've got!

These two impress right off-the-cuff - with both being incredibly easy to dial in - despite the slightly different control topologies. The Copper is the more instantly satisfying - it has slightly more volume and gain range onboard than The Sheriff - and a slightly more harmonic and richly textured breakup.

The Sheriff doesn't quite fully get into those Eddie Van Halen Variac tones - it kind of straddles the JTM45 / Plexi Divide - and leans a little more overall for me into JTM45 territory. As mentioned it's not quite as instantly appealing or as vibrant as The Copper. It still has a very recognisable Marshall tonality - while the mids are somewhat softer to what I'm accustomed to - and don't quite deliver that perfect chewiness or fully crispy crunch you often get with Plexi pedals - and which really appeals to my preferences. The gain range / sweep is pretty decent - while it does't really get you into that Hot Rod Modded Plexi range.

Generally I really like both - and they each have a wide range of uses, while The Copper, as mentioned, is quite a bit more instantly satisfying, It's a tough competition to define which of The Copper or The Jack reigns as the supreme champion and ambassador for this V1 Series. I think there are plenty out there that will love the softer side of The Sheriff. While for those that love the chewiest of mids, and crispiest of crunch - The Sheriff might not be your ideal candidate.

The Copper doesn't quite get into the Searing Top Boosted Brian May tones - but with the right boost in front of it gets plenty close enough, and even when normally aspirated it sounds quite superb - just a really gorgeous and richly harmonically textured breakup.

Both these pedals are instantly identifiably as representing those genres they sit within, while players may get slightly different mileage out of each of them - depending on their particular usage scenarios and needs!

Here follow the individual details - with personal preferences, references and demos!

Thanks to Victory Amps' Dan and Aislinn for helping me acquire The Copper.

Controls - Volume, Gain, Bass, Tone, Treble.

The Copper certainly seems to deserve its sterling reputation - you can see how loved this pedal is by how rarely it is available second-hand. It has the most exquisite and articular output - you really feel the harmonics when you max out the Tone and Treble. And it definitely delivers that Sparkly / Chimey Vox AC30 profile in spades.

It has excellent range on each of those dials in really quite a potent Volume and Gain Sweep. While it doesn't take you all the way into Brian May's searing Top-Boosted AC30 tones - you need some additional Treble Booster action for that to happen.

While generally this pedal delivers instant satisfaction. Its tonality is so obviously Vox flavoured - and it's for sure one of my favourites of its kind. I would love to see a DLX version of this with a second Top Boost (Treble Boost) Footswitch. While overall this is fantastic Vox AC30 take.

These are beautifully put together - as you would expect for a collaboration between detail-obsessives Thorpy and Martin Kidd.

The V1 Copper really stands out!

Preferred Settings : Volume @ Max, Gain @ 3 o'c, Bass @ 10 o'c, Tone @ Max, Treble @ Max.

Controls - Volume, Gain, Bass, Tone, Treble.

The Sheriff is rather a more subtle hit than The Copper. It's not quite as vibrant or extended range, and as mentioned in the intro has a somewhat softer take on the Marshall Plexi style amps - with a significant part of the overall profile lying rather in JTM45 Territory for me than full-on Plexi.

I typically like my Plexi to be somewhat more Searing, more Crunchy and more Chewy than The Sheriff can deliver. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a place - as it's great on those slightly softer and more subtle Marshall tones - with actually really decent range, just not quite at the level of The Copper.

It's very obviously Marshall in texture, and does have a fairly rich breakup texture. It's nowhere near as immediately impacting as The Copper though. And doesn't quite get into the Variac Eddie tones that I'm used to.

It's interesting to see that Victory's latest Amp is 'The Deputy' - a sort of Junior Sheriff! Which very obviously leans even more into the JTM45 side of that profile. In fact that very amp was included in Andertons recent Marshall JTM45 rundown.

I still really like the Sheriff - and for sure it will stay on the board for a good while. It takes a boost really well too - so you can definitely get it into more suitable Eddie territory. While generally its profile leans slight rather more into the softer side of things as far as I'm concerned.

In some ways for me this is little more a JTM45 style overdrive with serious extension into the Plexi range rather than the other way around.

I like my Marshall pedals to be full on jangly, chewy and properly crispy crunchy in output typically - and The Sheriff isn't really quite that. It's kind of its own thing really which is no bad thing. Nearly all the Victory Amps and derivates are Signature Artist editions to a degree, and someone very much specified this flavour of Marshall somewhere along the way - which means there must be plenty of usage cases for this variety - while it doesn't exactly match my own preferences - but I can recognise its finer qualities.

I think I have nearly 50 Marshall style pedals in my reference collection to date - and each one is fairly unique and pretty distinct in its core character and timbre - and they all seem to have slightly different Mids and EQ Profiles - even while they all sound very distinctly Marshall. Guitar pedals for me are always about having the right tools for a job - and this The Sheriff certainly has enough about it to be a versatile workhorse - while the pedal doesn't quite seem to reach the 'Hair Metal' levels of Victory's same family of Tube Amps!

Preferred Settings : Volume @ 3 o'c, Gain @ 3 o'c, Bass @ 2 o'c, Middle @ c.12:30 o'c, Treble @ Max.