Origin Effects' Halcyon Green Overdrive is a clever new spin on the Tube Screamer - with Adaptive Circuitry Dynamic Frequency Profile Shifting

Just when you thought that there was nowhere new for the venerable Tube Screamer to go - Origin Effects has found an innovative way to get yet more out of the circuit.

At its core it’s a classic Tube Screamer with Clean / Dry Blend and a second up-shifted Mid Hump Mod Voicing, while the really smart stuff is its ingenious and unique Adaptive Circuitry.

A problem for traditional Tube Screamers is that at lower volumes, the mid-humped profile can sound a little thin. To counteract this, when you apply the Halcyon’s new Adaptive Circuit, as you lower your guitar volume - the pedal elegantly transitions to full frequency profile - to give you an equally rich sound at that lower level of output.

You get a 3-way selector where O is off, II is Full Adaptive Frequency Shift, while I is an Intermediate / Milder Adaptive Shift.

Controls - Level, Adapt : O (Off) / I (Intermediate Adaptive Shift) / II (Full Adaptive Shift from Hump to Full Frequency Profile via Guitar Volume Cleanup), Voice : 808 (Classic Tube Screamer) / MOD (Up-Shifted Mid-Hump for more Presence and Bite), Dry (Classic 808 @ noon, more Dry CW), Tone (High-End Roll-off).

The other toggle is a Voicing switch - which is classic TS808 style to the left, but to the right it shifts up the Mid-Hump Frequency for more Presence and Bite - particularly useful when deploying the pedal as a Metal / High Gain style Boost!

Tone is really a sort of Hi-Cut or High Frequency Roll-off, while the Dry knob is classic Tube Screamer in the middle - and you can then remove or add Dry / Clean signal by tweaking that dial. Level and Drive are fairly self-explanatory.

The real genius of this pedal is in its dynamic playback - where I would just have it on II : Full Adaptive Shift to beef up my output when I drop the Level. That way you can really ride the Volume control of your guitar to shape the nature of your playback.

There’s a lot more to the Halcyon than most Tube Screamers, and you can do really clever things in combining the different output options - like applying a somewhat cocked-wah / ’Money for Nothing’ tone with the Mod voicing applied and the Drive suitably cranked.

I have a dozen or so Tube Screamers as is - while this one still rather intrigues me. I’m not sure yet where exactly it sits on my priority list - possibly a nice-to-have at the moment - which may change as I warm to it further. Origin Effects prices are typically somewhat lofty, but £239 for us Brits and £199.17 ex VAT seems fair enough - considering that is essentially the new default price level for boutique pedals. Of course the Halcyon Green Overdrive is available for order right now from the Origin Effects Webstore.

Where are your thoughts on this - is it a nice-to-have or must-have for you? Or are you over Tube Screamers already?