Oliver Brennan's Obie Audio makes an impressive debut with its really rather useful Great Raven 3-in-1 Full Spectrum Gain Platform

The Great Raven is Obie Audio’s very first pedal, which you could rather reductively describe as a super extended-range modified TS808 overdrive with additional features - as that is the very initial origination point. But this is a rather more expansive evolved gain platform - allowing you to cleverly combine and stack a +20dB Pre-Gain Clean Boost, Classic Overdrive, and Post-Gain Active EQ section.

The TS808-derived core Overdrive is that soft-clipping classic green screamer style - but calibrated slightly differently along with sustaining LED clipping, and augmented tone-shaping.

The +20dB wholly transparent / clean boost comes first in the signal chain. And the 2-Band Active EQ comes last. So you have 3 Independent Tone Blocks here which you can smartly combine.

A central toggle-switch allows you to select whether the Right-hand Footswitch Engages Either of Boost and EQ, or Both together. I might have been tempted to take a page out of the Jackson Audio Bloom playbook here - where smart digitally controlled footswitches allow you to forego the middle switch - as the left Footswitch can engage One function, the right a Second function, and both together a Third - meaning you could control all 3 Tone Blocks here from just the 2 footswitches - perhaps something to be considered for the V2 iteration.

Controls - OVERDRIVE } Gain, Tone (LPF), Voicing (HPF), Volume, Overdrive Footswitch; BOOST } Pre-Gain Boost Level (+20dB); EQ } Weight (Active Lows / Bass), Clarity (Active Highs / Presence), Boost + EQ Footswitch.

In any case this is a very well thought out and smartly executed entirely analog affair - with primo components and higher quality of fit and finish applied.

I really rather like the look of this - and as mentioned in the intro - you can think of this as both a massively extended features modified Screamer, or an advanced 3-level stacking gain platform.

Considering everything you’re getting here - the $229 | €222 | £190 price tag seems eminently reasonable, while the shipping cost of $59 seems a touch high.

I believe these Great Ravens are currently only avialable from the Reverb.com Guitar Pedal Shoppe.

This is a very neatly engineered and executed pedal - where the included featured set would typically mean a much larger enclosure, it’s a real bonus that Oliver managed to fit all of this into a compact enclosure.

These look and sound pretty great - and have an extended versatility and practicality in application - I feel they are going to do rather well!