Transparent overdrives are their own unique category of pedals. Very touch-responsive, focusing on less-colored, high-headroom overdrive, they allow the sound of your guitar and amp to be at the forefront. Not as gain-y as a distortion but with more drive than a clean boost, these pedals can help you dial in edge-of-breakup sounds or push your distorted amp into higher-gain territory. If you love the sound of your guitar and amp and simply want to add drive, here are six great examples of pedals that will get you there.
JHS Morning Glory
The Morning Glory is a pedal you could leave on all of the time; it sounds that good. Very neutral EQ, also very low on the gain spectrum. It’s an exceptional boost pedal, great for vintage-style tones.
Emerson Custom Paramount
The Paramount is another tonally neutral pedal but it has slightly more gain on tap. Higher settings on the gain knob stay sweet. It’s most effective powered at 18 volts but can operate beautifully at 9 volts.
Wampler Tumnus
The Tumnus is designed to have a sound — it does color your tone, but what a nice color it is! It offers a fair amount of gain, yet the sound is uncompressed so your articulation stays detailed. The Tumnus also has a lot of output, enough to pummel the front-end of your amp so it pairs well as a boost with a semi-distorted amp setting.
Seymour Duncan 805 Overdrive
The Duncan 805 has even more drive available, but it’s still uncompressed. It has a powerful 3-band EQ; with all knobs at 12 o’clock it’s neutral. A very flexible pedal that sounds great powered at 9 or 18 volts.
Way Huge Saucy Box
With the most gain of any pedal on this list, the Saucy Box still keeps the sound of your guitar and amp intact. It’s more compressed than the others, but the articulation and note clarity are tremendous. Even at extreme settings, it responds well to volume-knob changes and picking-hand dynamics.
Electro-Harmonix Crayon
The Crayon colors a bit outside the lines of the transparent overdrive category (sorry, couldn’t resist). But the fact that its gain is fairly uncompressed and uncolored nudges it back onto this list. The Crayon also cleans up well at lower settings. My favorite use of this pedal is with a mildly distorted amp; it adds chunk and definition, and a bunch of gain.
