Jonny Brelliott's TODP is an ingeniously expansive and a superb sounding Modular Tube Overdrive with a built-in upgrade and customisation path

This is the most glorious Tube Overdrive that I own to date, and I have quite a few now. The controls are actually rather expansive - you just need to get used to cutting and boosting tones and textures via those various switches. All the other controls are incredibly familiar.

 

The 4 switches require a little more explanations - namely the REC (Recovery Gain), BST (Low Frequency Boost), (Tube) LOAD, and CUT (High Pass Filter). I will explain how I use those and what my typical defaults are. You typically apply those in reverse order - i.e. Cut, then Load, BST, and REC - and there's a degree of balancing you can do there too!

 

Generally 3 of those switches are fairly fixed for me, and the 4th one is more variable. I use all the LOAD options, particularly 47K and 220K, and mostly the latter - those alter the verve of the tube output - with generally the 220K options being the best sounding and most harmonious one for me - but all 3 options sounds really great. The 220K seems to generally deliver the best harmonics for me!

 

I then tend to have the other 3 switches all in the down position - i.e. CUT @ 200Hz, BST @ 80Hz, and REC @ +12dB.

For me it's all about achieving the best balanced and most richly harmonically textured output. I then ride my guitar volume quite a bit - so I set the dials relativelyy high - and the Recovery Gain at +12dB - so when I roll off the guitar volume, I can mostly maintain an even output as the gain changes - and the +12dB helps enormously with that as well as combatting the more aggressive clipping (and resultant volume drop) for the Germanium clipping option.

 

Generally for the Pentode Boards - the LED and NAB No Anti-Blocking Diodes Clipping sound the best to me - and the Silicon, 2AB, and 4AB options are all pretty decent - while the Germanium Clipping really only comes into its own for the Fetzer Board - which delivers by far and away the most glorious Germanium inflected sound. In fact the Fetzer Board is the one that clips consistently the best across the sum total of the 6 Clipping Options. The NAB No Anti-Blcoking Didodes options is still going to impress on all 3 boards - but you do very much end up with different favourites for each board.

I'm so happy that I have all 3 boards - and was able to experience all the finer nuances between each of those - obviously with somewhat more overlap for the 2 Pentode Boards.

• Original Purple Tube-V Soviet Miniature Rod Pentode / Power = Most dense and intense sound, and most 'charged' and saturated sounding
• Blue Soviet Miniature Rod Pentode / Mixer = slightly more open / less dense than the Purple one - with a distinctly punchy character and super quick and elastic response
• Green Fetzer = overall the least saturated and most open-pored - but still very richly textured and poised. Delivers the best Clipping outputs across all 6 options - where all sound pretty much equally great, but especially the Germanium option - which is probably my favourite on the Fetzer and  significantly weaker for the 2 Pentodes

Henry Kaiser mostly lives on the NAB No Anti-Blocking Diodes Mode on his unit as he tells me - where I actually really like what I call the second half of the Clipping Options - LED, 2AB, 4AB, and NAB - for the Pentodes especially - occasionally even the Silicon too. While for the Fetzer every mode really sounds equally great and nicely balanced.

Jonny is thinking of making the Fetzer Board the default one now for the standard edition, and I thoroughly approve - it's the one that delivers the most consistent palette of quality sounds across all 6 Clipping Modes - they certainly don't all sound equally good for the Pentodes - but the FetzerBoard reacts somewhat magically with all of those.

I still like the Pentode options - and have struggled to decide which of the two - Purple and Blue I prefer - where on any given day I seem to prefer a different one of those. For sure the Fetzer board is the most consistent, and easiest to set up and maintain! But all 3 are really exceptional and each is a worthy choice.

 

The TODP delivers a variety of full-bodied tones - which include most of those 70's and 80's sounding classic rock and metal tones - there's a definite Marshall / TrainWreck Express edge to the Pentode tubes' output - with a pretty authentic Dumble / D-Style output with the right settings. It's really no surprise that this is a big favourite of Henry Kaiser - I would love to include one of his demos for this pedal - as soon as he gets around to making one for this pedal. Jonny provides 16 key suggested settings - which come with the instruction sheets included in the box, It's become quite the trend now to have QR codes linking to solely digital manuals - while I still rather like getting paper instructions with the pedal

Jake Leigh is working on a demo for this newest TODP edition like mine - which will be the first of this iteration. That should materialise very soon - and I will add it below when it's up.

Generally this pedal delivers exceptional Marshall style and Dumble style tones and extending into various different amp style textures and tones - it deliver a very vibrant and lively output with a good amount of sear and nuance - and across a very expansive range of gain.

Johnny has delivered a really extraordinary smart circuit here - perfect for Modders and DIY-ers to get stuck in, He's advised me on a number of further modifications that I can carry out on this circuit myself - beyond he point of simply swapping boards.

People can design their own boards here and simply slot those in, but there are plenty of other parts that can be modified too - which is much easier to accomplish in this incarnation, and wasn't really present yet in the older version that Henry Kaiser has. The Moduar elements only emerged at the end of last year - just before Christmas!

 

Johnny will also be putting out blank boards that you can populate and configure yourself - so there really is an infinite upgrade path here.

 

Jonny has further advised me :

 

"See the little capacitor to the top left of the switch? If that is removed, then more high end signal can go into the pedal, meaning you can go for a more transparent signal path."

 

and :

 

"Also, under the overdrive board there are a resistor and capacitor, mounted similarity. If these are removed, then the LPF range is narrowed, giving you more focus...but you do lose some top end"

 

Both of those seem to involve small square light-grey components - they seemingly stand out very obviously. There is also a nearby 'leaning' silicon transistor whose face is pointing straight down - so I cannot make out what it is and how significant to the circuit - that may be yet another path to modification!

The other component which is socketed and easily changeable is the OpAmp, which in my pedal is the TL082ACP - it sounds great!

 

The pedal and its board are already perfectly calibrated for my preferences and sensibilities. I like the option of the different add-on / swap-out board, but I'm unlikely to start manipulating individual components - particularly when the circuit sounds as good as it does by default already. I like having the option of being able to evolve and change up my sound - and at some stage we will see some further interesting board . module variants - surely including  a Fuzz element / circuit at some stage in the not too distant future.

So by default you can already switch out 2 boards, and manipulate individual components - possibly some 3rd modular board may be added at some stage - to include say a filter or a different EQ circuit - say Tilt EQ for instance. Will be great to have all those elements swappable and upgradeable!

I look forward to seeing where the TODP format has evolved to in a few years' time - and all the different boards you will be able to switch around then - it's all very exciting for sure!

I've been hugely impressed with every aspect of this TODP - how it looks, how it functions, and how smartly it has been designed and conceived, and of course it's wonderfully textured output - which is everything I would hope for in such a pedal. All things considered - this is probably my favourite pedal of this type to date - where interestingly the Fetzer Tube Emulation Circuit / Board is the most versatile one here and most consistent across all 6 clipping options.

 

So from hereon in - the default / standard version of the circuit will come with the Fetzer Board installed, and you will then need to pay extra for whichever additional boards you decide to add. The standard edition will retail for £259 (circa $335), and additional tube-loaded boards will be between £70-£90 ($90-$120) depending on their inherent complexity in setup and configuration. You can see those Pentode tubes are really smart - to work with a Current Draw of just 90mA max, and a standard 9V DC [-] supply. This makes the TODP format / platform so easy to get into. To get those tiny tubes to perform optimally takes a lot of setup and calibration - so those boards will always be somewhat more expensive.

We will also have some blank boards before long - which should retail for £10/£20 ($15/$25) - and which you can load up yourself with whichever configuration you so desire.

 

I'm definitely buying a second unit - so I can have one pedal dedicated to the Fetzer, and the other  alternating the two Pentode circuits. I think two will serve me really well into the future - while as the range of boards expansion - I may want to add other units for maximum impact!

This is such a smart system - and it's really well priced - and set to grow with you as your own rig and needs evolve. I feel two units is probably optimal - and then I will be diligent about buying new boards when they materialise - I may get Hello Sailor Joe to do a custom board too - in fact I hope Jonny gets some of his pedal buddies involved too with custom Boards / Modules - and this can become the sort of 'Synergy' of Pedals - where that one chassis can host a grand variety of circuits!

 

This pedal is slightly high concept, but it's wholly genius in how it's been developed, evolved, and so smartly executed. Jonny finalised this latest Modular Edition a little before Christmas - so it's not been around for very long. A number of guitar luminaries now have one of these - and there will be a future TPS episode which highlights this pedal. Viewers may even have caught a glimpse of one during the final pre-Christmas episode or so back in 2023.

This TODP pedal is only currently available direct from Jonny's Brelliott Webstore where I expect them to be in high demand once people have been alerted to their existence. I'm very proud to be leading the charge here - this is for sure a worthy cause.

Note that Jonny is currently unable to ship to the EU, while most other destinations are considered. You can reach out to Jonny via his Brelliott Website for further answers and clarifications. I can also liaise with Jonny if you have specific questions about any aspect of this marvellous TODP pedal - both Henry and I highly recommend this pedal, as does Ed Pettersen!