This thing isn't even a dirt pedal and compressor...it's basically an entire amplifier, power section and preamp, that you can make any toys r us solid state amp sound like a freakin Bogner, or a JCM800, or a Fender Twin that's on fire, any kind of distortion type you can think of. It's internally wired compressor first, with a noise gate at the very front that never gets in the way no matter how gentle you tickle it. The compressor is a one knob wonder that stays useful over the entire range, all the way at max sounds like what a fender twin does when you turn up the master, squashed and sagging and flexing when you dig into it, pushing back dynamically and never getting in the way. The compressor has a tone circuit you can switch in that sounds just like a presence control on the amp, so you can smash the peanuts out of the signal but keep the high end still bright and clinky. You can switch the tone circuit out to let the compressor suck tone the way the blue boss does, if you like that. The compressor has a mix knob so you can blend in parallel compression with the dry guitar. This all feeds into the 2 channel overdrive side. It's got voice A and voice B... A is a stiffer/cleaner/louder overdrive, and B is a lower-wattage variac sounding softer/smother/light powered-glass breakup, the kind of overdrive you get out of a Bogner or a Mesa Triaxis. Are you ready for the obscene part? The overdrive tone controls are both PRE-GAIN STAGE. That means when you jack the treble, it's a treble boost into the distortion. You can tune it to clink just like an HBE. Bass knob is also pre-gain stage, so you can boost it all the way to get the low end to completely fall apart before everything else, or when you roll off the bass, it's a low cut filter, in front of the overdrive, so you get to tune the distortion characteristic, just like on a Mesa Mark IIC+ to crank the distortion and treble but roll the bass down so it stays together and you can do palm mute violence to it . DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?? It means this Route 66 v3 is an absolute tweaker's wet dream of a distortion circuit sandbox. Oh and that compressor tone control, guess where it is. ALSO IN FRONT OF THE gain stage. So you can slam the treble there, which also removes some low end, you can slam the level into the drive side with the comp level knob, then you can take that thin treble boosted hot super compressed signal and distort it to oblivion, add in the bass until it starts resonating just right...and all of a sudden your practice amp and guitar is flexing and screaming like a Marshall half stack, all at whisper volume. It has buffers in it on both drive and comp, but you can open it up and turn them off. I did and it sounds way better without the buffers. This is without question the best pedal purchase I have ever made.
Man I just found one of these at a good price on Reverb and your comment put me over the edge so I snatched it up. The seller owes you some cosmic commission! Seriously though, thanks for the thorough write-up. I can't wait to plug into this thing.
Yet another awesome demo John. I love overdrive too. I kind of wish you guys would give an estimate on retail cost on the stuff you review though. On the other hand, that would become outdated quite quickly in today's marketplace with prices going up and up so rapidly, so perhaps this isn't a very good idea in the long run. I don't know, I am just throwing the idea out there for you to give some thought to, on the off chance it hadn't been thought of before. Anyway, I am sort of trying to break an addiction to effects myself. As long as you have known me I have wanted this effect or that, but I have recently found out that there is a lot one can do with the volume and tone controls on the guitar itself. I still love effects though. Thanks for the idea.
I still have the original Route 66 pedal. It's a bit noisy (um, very noisy with both channels engaged), but the overdrive tone is amazing. Tube Screamers be damned! I use the compression channel sparingly, mostly as a clean boost for guitars with single coil pups.
The old Route 66 was an OK overdrive and perhaps the new bloated one is better although it has large footprint which is bad for us needing many stomps om our pedalboards. However. The best overdrive from Visual Sound (now apparently Truetone) is their Garage Series Drivetrain Overdrive, which is a reissue of the discontinued Reverend Drivetrain II. It costs near to nothing, gives you instant SRV sound with a strat and a Fender amp and has a smaller footprint (compared to both the Route 66 and the original Drivetrain II). I own one of these and also an original Reverend Drivtrain II and it's hard to tell them apart soundwise.
+Daniel Bailey That may be, but it doesn't sound very similar in my opinion and not as good, again in my opinion. The Garage series re-issue of the Drivetrain, does however come very close to the original. For me, the Drivetrain is the optimal pedal for fat SRV style riffing on a single coil neck pickup. No other pedal I've tried has quite cut it.
This pedal does not have a large footprint whatsoever. It's barely wider than say a boss pedal. Add in the fact that it has a compressor side, and it's a space saver. In fact, that's why most people use them (other than sounding great), they save on pedalboard space.
I feel like this company has tried so hard that they actually tried too hard and looped back around to eh. Really have a hard time buying a pedal that has so much stuff going on as well,
wow...not a great review at all! there must be hundreds of overdrives on the market and maybe 10 with a clean blend...one being the klon!...having the mix all the way up / dimed means completely off...the clean blend is what makes this pedal shine..why do you think it "came alive" when you used the compressor with some clean signal coming through!
Damn John.. Youre the best thing that ever happened To premiere guitar.. Keep it up!
I DON'T CARE WHAT HE REVIEWS. EVERYTHING JOHN DOES SOUNDS GREAT.
John is an underrated player! That was an awesome review on this pedal. I'm sold!
Everything I've seen this guy demonstrate was pretty amazing.
This thing isn't even a dirt pedal and compressor...it's basically an entire amplifier, power section and preamp, that you can make any toys r us solid state amp sound like a freakin Bogner, or a JCM800, or a Fender Twin that's on fire, any kind of distortion type you can think of. It's internally wired compressor first, with a noise gate at the very front that never gets in the way no matter how gentle you tickle it. The compressor is a one knob wonder that stays useful over the entire range, all the way at max sounds like what a fender twin does when you turn up the master, squashed and sagging and flexing when you dig into it, pushing back dynamically and never getting in the way. The compressor has a tone circuit you can switch in that sounds just like a presence control on the amp, so you can smash the peanuts out of the signal but keep the high end still bright and clinky. You can switch the tone circuit out to let the compressor suck tone the way the blue boss does, if you like that. The compressor has a mix knob so you can blend in parallel compression with the dry guitar. This all feeds into the 2 channel overdrive side. It's got voice A and voice B... A is a stiffer/cleaner/louder overdrive, and B is a lower-wattage variac sounding softer/smother/light powered-glass breakup, the kind of overdrive you get out of a Bogner or a Mesa Triaxis. Are you ready for the obscene part? The overdrive tone controls are both PRE-GAIN STAGE. That means when you jack the treble, it's a treble boost into the distortion. You can tune it to clink just like an HBE. Bass knob is also pre-gain stage, so you can boost it all the way to get the low end to completely fall apart before everything else, or when you roll off the bass, it's a low cut filter, in front of the overdrive, so you get to tune the distortion characteristic, just like on a Mesa Mark IIC+ to crank the distortion and treble but roll the bass down so it stays together and you can do palm mute violence to it . DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?? It means this Route 66 v3 is an absolute tweaker's wet dream of a distortion circuit sandbox. Oh and that compressor tone control, guess where it is. ALSO IN FRONT OF THE gain stage. So you can slam the treble there, which also removes some low end, you can slam the level into the drive side with the comp level knob, then you can take that thin treble boosted hot super compressed signal and distort it to oblivion, add in the bass until it starts resonating just right...and all of a sudden your practice amp and guitar is flexing and screaming like a Marshall half stack, all at whisper volume. It has buffers in it on both drive and comp, but you can open it up and turn them off. I did and it sounds way better without the buffers. This is without question the best pedal purchase I have ever made.
Man I just found one of these at a good price on Reverb and your comment put me over the edge so I snatched it up. The seller owes you some cosmic commission! Seriously though, thanks for the thorough write-up. I can't wait to plug into this thing.
Yet another awesome demo John. I love overdrive too. I kind of wish you guys would give an estimate on retail cost on the stuff you review though. On the other hand, that would become outdated quite quickly in today's marketplace with prices going up and up so rapidly, so perhaps this isn't a very good idea in the long run. I don't know, I am just throwing the idea out there for you to give some thought to, on the off chance it hadn't been thought of before. Anyway, I am sort of trying to break an addiction to effects myself. As long as you have known me I have wanted this effect or that, but I have recently found out that there is a lot one can do with the volume and tone controls on the guitar itself. I still love effects though. Thanks for the idea.
Ace Ventura is back!
" When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign; that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him". - Swift
Great review!
Very cool sound and great playin!
I still have the original Route 66 pedal. It's a bit noisy (um, very noisy with both channels engaged), but the overdrive tone is amazing. Tube Screamers be damned! I use the compression channel sparingly, mostly as a clean boost for guitars with single coil pups.
I use it the same way (with a fuzz in the pedals loop), and I agree with everything else. Great pedal.
love the sound of route 66!
What is “a Memphis wiring?”
The old Route 66 was an OK overdrive and perhaps the new bloated one is better although it has large footprint which is bad for us needing many stomps om our pedalboards. However. The best overdrive from Visual Sound (now apparently Truetone) is their Garage Series Drivetrain Overdrive, which is a reissue of the discontinued Reverend Drivetrain II. It costs near to nothing, gives you instant SRV sound with a strat and a Fender amp and has a smaller footprint (compared to both the Route 66 and the original Drivetrain II). I own one of these and also an original Reverend Drivtrain II and it's hard to tell them apart soundwise.
+MatsDagerlind O/D side is based on the Drivetrain
+Daniel Bailey That may be, but it doesn't sound very similar in my opinion and not as good, again in my opinion. The Garage series re-issue of the Drivetrain, does however come very close to the original. For me, the Drivetrain is the optimal pedal for fat SRV style riffing on a single coil neck pickup. No other pedal I've tried has quite cut it.
This pedal does not have a large footprint whatsoever. It's barely wider than say a boss pedal. Add in the fact that it has a compressor side, and it's a space saver. In fact, that's why most people use them (other than sounding great), they save on pedalboard space.
So this particular one is pre-Truetone?
10 millions hits is how they say they footswitches last
I feel like this company has tried so hard that they actually tried too hard and looped back around to eh. Really have a hard time buying a pedal that has so much stuff going on as well,
wow...not a great review at all! there must be hundreds of overdrives on the market and maybe 10 with a clean blend...one being the klon!...having the mix all the way up / dimed means completely off...the clean blend is what makes this pedal shine..why do you think it "came alive" when you used the compressor with some clean signal coming through!
+kevin r 121