Ogre Tubeholic Overdrive Pedal
Ogre’s Tubeholic pedal overdrive contains no tubes and, as far as I can tell, no alcohol. It does however feature a barking mad piece of metal-craft weighing 440 grammes as its case, which almost certainly costs far more to make than the circuitry inside it. The forehead of the alien face slides back to reveal three controls for level, gain and tone, so nothing too radical there as far as control layout is concerned, while stamping on the alien’s chin activates and bypasses the pedal. As a bonus the Roswell style eyes light up blue when the pedal is active.
The battery compartment is recessed into the non-slip base and requires no tools to open though a standard Boss compatible nine Volt power supply may be used as an alternative to the traditional PP3 type battery. However, with only 6.5mA current consumption, an Alkaline battery should last a fair time.
The circuit is traditional analogue and we’re told it uses NOS (New Old Stock) diodes to achieve symmetrical clipping but that tells only a very small part of the story. Exactly how the circuity is configured is not revealed, but then what does it matter as long as the pedal sounds right, and I can tell you now that it does. Based on looks alone I probably wouldn’t have asked for this pedal to review but having been persuaded to try one, I realised that the designers were onto something — and not just a cheap source of hallucinogenic drugs!
Drive is adjustable from virtually clean, via blues to classic rock grind and it does so without swamping the natural tonality of the guitar. The pedal has a natural ability to pull out harmonics yet it manages to retain a bright edge while avoiding adding any unwelcome grit at the high end. There’s also no significant added circuit noise, which is particularly important for studio work. Think Tube Screamer but with a wider frequency range or a Fulltone OCD with a little more mid warmth. There’s also plenty of dynamic range allowing the guitar’s volume control to back off the drive so you could leave the pedal in circuit and then just dial up the guitar volume for solos. As expected the tone control goes either way from centre allowing the tonality to be made smoother or brighter where the mid position retains the essential tonal balance of the instrument being fed into it.
In terms of audio quality then, this pedal is up there with other respected boutique offerings and it works its magic just as effectively with single coil pickups as it does with humbuckers. The over-the-top case design might not be to everybody’s taste but the practical benefit of the sliding control cover is that your settings won’t be lost when you drop the pedal into your gig bag. It is also fair to say that the pedal isn’t significantly wider (89mm) than a typical conventional so it won’t take up too much space on a pedalboard. While there are cheaper overdrive pedals, given the sound quality and robust construction, the Ogre Tubeholic Overdrive is actually very reasonably priced, so even if you’re not convinced by the Game of Thrones Cod-piece styling, do try to hear one as I think you’ll be impressed.
OGRE 