ThorpyFX makes The Dane Drive + Boost even more essential with a new more pedalboard-friendly MKII edition, and the addition of the left side of the Heavy Water Boost

Pete Honoré’s signature Drive + Boost pedal has long been a ThorpyFX favourite - in fact currently right on the cusp of overtaking the Fallout Cloud Fuzz as the all-time best-selling Thorpy pedal.

Up until now it’s been one of just 3 Thorpy pedals I had still to add to my reference collection - the others being the Fat General Parallel Compressor, and FLIR Mini Buffer. I somehow had an inkling of a feeling that The Dane would eventually evolve into just such a compact format and held off until that very opportune moment!

I previously mentioned that the jump-off point for The Dane was originally The Peacekeeper - which it kind of was right at the start of that project, with The Dane originally intended to be a slick mix of The Peacekeeper and Gunshot. Next the consideration shifted somewhat more towards Pete’s then favourite Greer Lightspeed and T-Rex Møller overdrives, but eventually the project took on a life of its own and the end result was an entirely new circuit based on a shared ideal that evolved over that period between Thorpy and Pete.

I recall covering the original pedal back in September of 2018 - around 5 years ago. When the Dane was the first of the larger format Thorpy pedals to get shrunk down - shaving off a good 10-15% of its then footprint. Now for 2023 we go from the original 100 x 125mm dimensions to 65 x 125mm - a real-estate / floor-space saving of 35% of surface area - which is very decent indeed! Many people don’t realise that the Thorpy Compact enclosure pedals with their top-mounted jacks - take up less space than a typical compact single. For some reason - I suppose partly to do with the intricacies of the enclosure - some people assume it’s larger than it really is - while those compact Thorpys are about as pedalboard friendly as standard size pedal can be!

Inside the pedal - the circuit is the same as before - and being assembled from exactly the same parts package / parts bin as the previous model - all the full fat goodness of the precious edition is fully intact in the new version. In fact it’s even a little bit better as we now have both sides of the Heavy Water Boost in play. Where the toggle-switch gives you access to the left Germanium Diodes High Capacity side of that boost now too.

Controls - Level, Boost, Boost typed : High Capacity (Ge Diodes) / Danish Pete (Original Smooth Dane Boost), Gain, Tone, Lows.

I was very fortunate to be visiting the ThorpyFX HQ or ’Bunker’ the day before launch - i.e. yesterday - where Thorpy and I did an exercise on both versions of The Dane - just to fully substantiate that indeed both circuits were identical and sounded identical. Note that with parts variances - you’re never going to get exactly the same sounds with all the knobs in exactly the same position. So in our experiment - with everything at noon the MKI was sounding just a smidge softer - nudging back the Tone control on the MKII ever so slightly brought both pedal back into total unity. 

We did some fairly exacting tests - and we were almost instantly able to achieve wholly matching results - with just the tiniest movements of the dials - which is wholly within those parts tolerances. Every which way the smaller MKII variant sounded equal to its larger predecessor - and understandably so as it contains all the exact same parts as the larger predecessor.

It definitely has that further ace up its sleeve in the guise of my favourite Germanium Boost side from the Heavy Water - here labeled HC - meaning High Capacity. I use the Heavy Water extensively day-to-day - where the Germanium side is pretty much always on; occasionally I switch over to the smoother original Dane Boost side, and every now and again I apply both of them together - you obviously cannot do that on The Dane - so my Heavy Water is going nowhere - it’s a proper monster 3-in-1 pedal for me!

I am though delighted to have finally gotten my hands on a Dane of my own in my preferred format! The other good news is that despite these several innovations, the price holds steady at £264.99. You can read more about The Dane MKII on the ThorpyFX Website.

As a MKII edition this is something of a soft launch - which will be phased into dealers gradually, while there will be some MKII’s already in distribution at launch - including of course Andertons in the UK.

I had a fabulous time at the ThorpyFX Bunker yesterday - which is situated in a somewhat secret compound sort of half-way between Banbury and Bicester - you would never stumble upon it if you did not know where to look!

I got to meet a large part of the team - obviously I have known Adrian and Georgia for years - and it was fantastic to witness Georgia in full Operations Director mode - as well as working on one of the many top secret prototype projects.

Then there was Sophie - who’s in charge of shipping and ensuring that all the necessary parts are kept in stock. And Steve and Solomon - ThorpyFX’s main build engineers. Where Sol was working on 20 MKII Danes at a time, and on the other side of the divide - Steve was building 10 Coggins Audio Cogmeisters simultaneously.

Team day is Thursday - when there are as many as 8 or more staff members in the building - including some of the field operatives - Chris and Mitch, and Terri and Janice who do final assembly and finishing touches - including a final polish of those pedals.

Thorpy FX Analogue Design Engineer Dan Coggins also comes in on Thursdays typically - where he completes the circuit design and prototyping team alongside Adrian and Georgia.

I expected there to me some pre-launch tension and bustle - while all was relaxed and measured calm. In fact there’s a wonderful calming ambience that pervades the building - except when Adrian is doing an impromptu sound test! The entire team shares testing duties and it’s very satisfying to see a very well oiled machine as such at work. By the time I arrived - all the first phase pedals had already been shipped out to he main MAS Distro hub and Andertons. This will be a fairly soft launch as mentioned - so don’t expect a huge fanfare - and there will likely only be a handful of videos to accompany the release. One of course involving Pete Honoré, and one by Sasha Invantic for whom The Dane is his all-time favourite overdrive too!

I was very privileged to hear 3 fantastic new prototypes being put through their paces - which aren’t due for release for quite some time. In fact Thorpy’s prototype and projects list is breathtakingly long! Covering several years of potential launches with at least half a dozen prototypes in their final stages of testing - but not scheduled for release for many months or years to come even. We have some very exciting times ahead!

I’m already looking forward to my next visit!