Description
MXR M294 Sugar Drive.
The Axe Palace take: This little pedal is entirely to cute for its own good. But under the facade of a light blue sparkly paintjob and a teeny tiny mini-housing, there is an incredibly versatile overdrive circuit. It works perfectly well for boosting hi-gain modern amps, without adding in the usual nasally midrange tones. But unlike most other boost type ODs, the Sugar Drive sounds great when used for its own gain into a clean amp. The drive knob blends in some of your clean signal until you get to about 20% which works great in either situation. Its absolute strongest suit is boosting early breakup sounds into a lead sound by adding a little extra grit and compression without oversaturating it.
(I know, I know. I basically said this thing does all of the things an overdrive pedal does. But I have yet to find another that does all of those jobs as well as this one. The only thing this review is missing is the word transparent. So … TRANSPARENT. There. Now it is complete.)
The MXR Sugar Drive Pedal provides a diverse range of clear and transparent overdrive tones, from sauced up boosting to blown-tube distortion. It’s based on a rare overdrive pedal that has acquired a mythical reputation among fanatical tone-seekers thanks to its unique circuit design.
