Which Dual-Channel Blues Breaker Derived Overdrive Pedal is Right for You?

So this is the one I've been seeing a lot of late, and this pedal is as stated quite a bit older than I thought it was. It started out as a collaboration between Browne Amplification's David Brown and Guitarist/Prodcues Adam Sniegowski. The Green / Right Overdrive side is based on the Nobels ODR-1 to a degree, and the Blue / Left Channel is based on a Blues Breaker -style circuit. So really not that conceptually different to the King of Tone. In the above head-to-head comparison you can hear some differences in character, and there will be players that will lean one way or the other. There is no dispute though that this is another great sounding pedal. It is seen mostly in its olive green colourway, while you can also get it in black, white and red and possibly some rarer colours too if you ask David nicely. These are made in batches and typically sell out very quickly - so you need to move quick when they are made available, I can't see any in stock right at this moment.

Jesse Davey's The Duellist is supposedly engineered to capture that Stevie Ray Vaughan signature Strat-led sound, and despite the Dumble-esqye monikers for each side - String-Singer and Heavy-Hand those are actually respectively based on Tube Screamer and Blues Breaker style circuits. The added differentiation here comes courtesy of those two Fat/Stock/Glass voicing switches per channel which significantly change up the character with more low-end or high-end emphasis. Single-coil specialists swear by this pedal, while RJ Ronquillo per the above demo show that humbuckers sound just as great too. This is a another fantastic sounding pedal, and I've found a number of these in stock as of this moment. Aesthetically also this variety is somewhat pleasing and has been released in a variety of enclosures too - including a really cool Chrome variation.

This is described as a Low Gain Overdrive on the right-hand Channel and a Medium Gain Overdrive on the left - both of which have been beautifully balanced for optimal stacking prowess. It does not state so explicitly, but the low gain channel certainly sounds something of that Tube Screamer family, and the medium channel has that lovely mid-range character which is so familiar in Blues Breaker style circuits. So this is a certain shoe-in for this category and remains VS Audio's best-selling pedal of all time. Chris Buck obviously puts it into excellent use per the above demo, and he is known to have both this and his King of Tone on the same pedalboard - so while they share certain similarities they are not the same thing. Much like the Browne Amps Protein - this is a very straightforward variety with no additional switches or trimmers - it's been beautifully calibrated for easy dialling-in. These are made in small batches still, while I note there are a few in stock with dealers at the moment, and two on Reverb.com.

A reader rightly pointed out that I omitted the Double Barrel from the above quartet. I was aware of it, it just did not fit the aesthetic at the time of its devising, but I do think it should be included in this roundup, as it does offer something a bit different and a little bit more, while being based on the same overall formula. Here we have JHS's Moonshine V2 Tube Screamer on the right-hand channel with ± switch and fairly unique Clean blend knob, while on the left is the Version 4 of Josh's Morning Glory. The pedal does have a Red Remote socket - so you can connect one of those mini switches to trigger the Gain switch of the Morning Glory - meaning you have 5 different degrees of saturation to play with - along with a toggle to change order of drives. I feel this is easily equal to the other 4 listed here, and some may likely prefer it. I noted in my previous article that there were many more Tube Screamer + Blues Breaker dual overdrives out there, so there will undoubtedly be a few more notables that I may have omitted here!

I occasionally forget that the D&M Drive is somewhat based on one of Dan and Mick's favourite pedals - the King of Tone. Devised in conjunction with Robert Keeley, this has a Mick Boost Channel on the right and a Dan Drive Channel on the left. The Boost is a mid-hump Tube Screamer derivative - likely evolved from Robert's Red Dirt circuit, while the left Blues Breaker style Drive side is probably based to a degree on Robert's 1962X circuit. The tow advantages this has over a typical King of Tone - despite differences in calibration and voicing obviously - is firstly the 2-way series toggle switch, and secondly the ability to use TRS splitter cables to effectively splits the inputs and outputs into two separate midi-controllable pedals. Had I not acquired the JHS 4-Star Modded KOT - I might well have been in line with one of these as a great alternative, as I already have the special edition of KOT - that offers me a few more options that the D&M does not have. I still really quite like the D&M Drive - and it is in a more convenient and practical form-factor - and it looks great particularly in its super-rare Black livery - If I could get hold of one of those for reasonable money I might well consider it - but it's largely a nice-to-have rather than essential in my own context.