Steve Demedash's 112+ Preamp / Distortion is a Beautifully Calibrated All-Rounder Tone Texture Machine

I’ve had the original primary-coloured Red, Yellow and Blue 112+ on my wishlist for quite a while, and first featured that version on this site nearly one year ago. I am delighted though to have picked up this more subtle Coral-accented colourway with tinted aluminium knobs and somewhat more elegant feel.

Controls - Drive, Voice : Modern/Vintage/Fat, Level, Bass, Mids, Treble.

The starting point for the 112+ was the Fender Princeton 112 Plus - the original plan had been to build an amp in a box derivation of that. While there were certain aspects of that circuit that Steve did not particularly like and as part of that breadboarding exercise it evolved into something else - a sort of all-rounder Drive/Distortion Preamp with significant range and versatility - punctuated by 3 distinctive playback Modes or Voicings.

Steve has done a wonderful job with the tuning of the different Voicing Modes - with Vintage being the most mellow / soft option, Modern bringing in quite a lot more punch, and Fat taking it up another notch with a powerful low-end boost.

I tend to operate mostly within Modern and Fat Voicing Modes, but love having Vintage in the corner for when I want to go rather lighter and softer. Note that each mode has a slightly different frequency accent and gain level too.

The 112+ does a great job of being an all-rounder drive unit as within its 3 Voicing Modes it properly covers the full range of overdrive into fairly significant distortion. There is a very significant range available on each control - with plenty of gain and volume on-tap.

Personal preferred settings are - Drive 12 o’c, Voice : Fat, Level 10:30 o’c. Bass 4 o’c, Mids 8 o’c, Treble 10:30 o’c.

While Steve recommends cranking the drive to 10 o’c on either the Modern or Fat settings, with Treble cranked, Mids somewhere between 12 and full, and Bass at 12. And another great trick is setting drive at about 10-11 o’c and running a dimed out fuzz before it - like indeed the Demedash Spidola.

Those new Coral editions make the 112+ even more appealing, and I feel the variety I selected it the one to have - so keep your eyes peeled for when Steve decides to release another batch. I believe only around 10 were released in the Tinted Knobs edition, and another 10 with black knobs - those were priced at $205 at the time.

I have so many great overdrive pedals in my collection - that it’s genuinely hard to decide what goes into rotation on each weekly and monthly cycle, while I feel that the 112+ will feature fairly significantly because of its wonderful versatility.