Wampler Sovereign Distortion Pedal Reviews

INCREDIBLE NEW FLAVOR OF DISTORTION!

For me this pedal, just as advertised, has "The" Sound. True distortion but every note rings through clearly on chords, no distorted mush that I get with some distortion pedals. For single note leads every note sings! A bit heavy for some lighter music but when looking for a strong distorted sound, this pedal is awesome.

This thing is amazing. Such a wide variety of tones from a transparent overdrive to full-on metal. My favorite features are the mid contour and the vintage switch. I ultimately decided to return this pedal because I have a Friedman Smallbox and a DS-1, so I was able to get a very similar tone between those two and I couldn't justify the money and space on my board for this.

Killer distortion pedal for someone looking for versatility!

If you take all the DISTORTION PEDALS that are available in the pedal marketplace, the SOVEREIGN does it ALL. From slight overdrive to creamy notes to all out metal. This is the pedal that you need.

So in the quest for "that sound" I did lots of listening to demos and talked to some fellow guitarist ect. actually bought a $300.00 amp in a box after hearing it online. So it was the Bogner Red pedal and it is all the beast and beauty that people say pretty much. The thing in all honesty amazed me in tone quality and clarity just a very harmonically rich liquid glass distortion sound. However I was pretty quickly turned off by it because I found it hard to get enough sag out of it. When id bend a note for instance, it seemed like you had to really dig to get all you wanted out of that note, like there was a measure of rigidity to it. The sovereign is very similar in harmonic richness, has a pinch more clarity, and sag like crazy if you want it. When you pick a note and hold it, it is like modeling putty in your hand! Bend and hold, vibrato, turn it into pinch harmonic whatever. So musical and usable and very amp like.

I needed a pedal with the little crunch, and this was it. Great sound, versatile and dynamic. Can"t go wrong with Wampler.

I was looking for a versatile dirt pedal to run into my Roland jazz chorus. I was probably asking a lot, but I was hoping to find something I could get the full range of tones from (from vintage Marshall, to slighly dirty, to tight fusion, to full blown 80s metal). After a bunch of online homework, I decided to pull the trigger and buy the Soverein and have been truly amazed.

Upon first plugging it in I had a little "uh oh" moment in that it sounded pretty fizzy and "solid state". However, within minutes of playing with some of the controls I had a very natural and incredibly usable high gain distortion sound. Round, full, with just the right amount of bite. Within the hour I was able to get pretty much any tone I set out for. I'm still working on some of the lower gain tones, but I already have a couple of settings I'd be happy to go gig with.

The real power in this pedal are the mid and tone controls. between those two knobs, it is really easy to dial in the sound you want. Add in the modern/vintage and boost/gain switches and the sky is the limit.

I would absolutely recommend this pedal for someone looking for a "do it all" distortion pedal to push into a clean amp. This was my first Wampler pedal and based on my experience here, it will not be my last.

Don't let the title of distortion pedal fool you, this pedal does way more! Wampler is by far my favorite pedals. You can not go wrong with this pedal. Everything from a clean boost to classic crunch to metal. I can't say enough about this pedal!

I am starting to really get into wampler pedals nice range of tones ,....very tweakable, round and crunchy

Previously I had wrote a review, on Sweetwater actually, about how I kept searching for the distorted tone I had in my head and kept returning to my ProCo Rat. A few Google searches led me to an article mentioning the Sovereign in which the authors said it was the best sounding one they had tried in their comparison, including the Rat. I immediately was intrigued and purchased one from Sweetwater. Within the first hour of receiving the Sovereign, my Rat was back in its box and out of my chain. This pedal, my oh my this pedal. Designed to be an original distortion rather than be an amp in a box, this pedal has blown me away. The tone this thing delivers IS the sound I've had in my head this whole time. With its vast amount of controls, the Sovereign lets you dial in any dirt sound you can imagine and may very well be the most versatile distortion pedal I've owned (DS-1, Super Bad***, Rat and just to mention, Big Muff). My favorite part of this pedal is that it actually lets each chord/note ring out musically and not be fizzy. Brian Wampler has my vote for favorite distortion pedal design and I bow to his creation, the Sovereign, which is truly the king of distortion. My search for an ideal distortion is over, I've found it. I recommend this pedal to anyone who wants a killer distortion tone ranging from an overdrive to an all-out distorted tone that maintains note to note clarity.

I've owned a good many distortion/overdrive pedals over the course of 25 years or so. This is absolutely the best I've ever heard, used, and/or owned. It's surprisingly flexible for something called a distortion pedal. It's capable of nice warm overdrive as well as crispy high-gain rock n' roll distortion. The Mid Behavior knob is incredible. Any dirt pedal without a mid control should be taken off the market. It's critical. I lot of pedals on the market have EQ controls that have minimal affect on the tone, but the Mid and Tone knobs on this pedal, along with the Bright switch give you pretty much anything you could want. There are really no bad sounding settings on this pedal. The knobs are very active over the entire range and sound GOOD! I need to throw in my experience with Wampler support. They are fantastic. My Boost/Standard toggle switch broke. I'm not even sure how, but Wampler didn't seem concerned with the how, only with making sure it got taken care of. I shipped it to them, they fixed it, and sent it back, no fuss. Very quick turnaround. They even dropped a fresh 9V in it before they sent it back. I'm a Wampler fan for life.

After several hours of using this pedal while playing a Gibson SG Standard and a Fender American Ultra through a Fender Champion 40, I can say that Wampler builds an incredibly versatile distortion pedal in the Sovereign. As I read in other reviews of this pedal, I also found settings that range from a boost to the clean side to crunchy metal such as Metallica, Slayer, and Pantera. It doesn't chug into the realm of Amon Amarth however, and that is the "almost" part of my Review Title. I read the reviews before buying and I was sold on the quality and versatility of the pedal. When I opened the box it was bubble wrapped and placed inside a drawstring bag which I interpreted as quality and pride in craftmanship. Then the build quality - WOW! It's built solid. This pedal really does cover all flavors of distortion and does so with authority. The Mid Contour dial is amazing and really makes this pedal shine. Then there's the Gain/Boost switch - HOLY **** Batman! You want a little more horsepower to that sound you THINK is already killer? Well flippin' to "Boost" is like a 150HP nitrous shot to your street car already rippin' at 100 mph! Yeah, it's that good. The Modern/Vintage switch is pretty cool to get better dialed in to classic rock. So yeah, it's THAT good.

I highly recommend this pedal for the player who likes distortion ranging from clean boost to Metallica/Pantera heavy metal. Buy this and you'll never need another distortion pedal. REMEMBER however, this pedal will NOT produce chugging, face-melting death metal distortion. That's another animal (pedal) that has it's own home.

It does what it claims. It produces a nice high gain metal distortion. Role back the volume for more tamed distortion for classic rock. Like all Wampler Pedals it is pure quality. Lots of options with switches and EQ control, Low noise. I find the best use of this pedal is for shredding and heavy metal tones,

Similar to the Dracarys by Wampler, Saturated tube like distortion very good for metal and prog metal shred, Sounds better with humbuckers

Got a lot of pedals on my board that are dedicated to a specific amp or sound. This one gives a large sweep of voices to find your own tone. Solid built and quiet. Plenty of headroom. My first Wampler pedal...I am impressed.

The pedal does well for most of my playing. Haven't tried to use in a band setting to know how well it cuts through the mix. Tend to like the vintage setting a little smoother with less top end frequencies.

I bought another Wampler pedal a year or two ago (the Dual Fusion), and it's absolutely one of my favorite pedals ever -- so versatile and so sweet. I got the Sovereign to use as a one-trick pony -- I just wanted some cranked, single-minded, gnarly distortion, and all of the videos I watched seem to say this would be perfect. Oddly, it turns out that it's not really as cranked, single-minded, and gnarly a device as I expected. Even at full gain, it's a little less distorted than I had hoped. I imagine that if you sent it into a slightly overdriven tube amp, it would be amazing, but I like my amps like I like my water: super clean and sparkling.

At any rate, the Mid-Contour knob on this box is excellent and really makes a difference to the tone; and the Vintage/Modern switch is pretty cool too. I'm sure I'll find some good uses for the pedal; maybe just not the use I was thinking of.

Oh, and as with all Wampler pedals, this thing is beautifully made and solid as a rock.

Decent pedal with good tones. Have owned it for over a year, bought it from Sweetwater like 99% of all my purchases. I like it and use it often but like a lot of people, I am still searching for a certain tone and although this pedal gives you a good tone it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. It is one of the better pedals out there but wasn't blown away with it right out of the box like I was with the Boss Angry Driver.

I like this pedal a lot but it is lacking in a little gain. But that's just my opinion because I try to get Ultra gain in my tone

The reviews relating to tone are accurate, the Sovereign produces a very nice distortion. The flaw that I refer to is that if you have higher gain pickups (Seymour Duncan Pearly Gate in my case) and really lay into the guitar the pedal sags, you lose volume for a second. The FAQ on Wampler's page recommends lowering the pickup height to fix this but a pedal shouldn't require me to change the setup of my guitar for it to work. I contacted Wampler and they do offer a fix for about $30 but they don't recommend it, saying that it sucks the tone out of the sound.

So if you play with pickups that aren't too hot you're probably fine, but for me it means that while I'll hang onto the pedal for studio use it won't be a permanent fixture in my pedal lineup.

I don't get all the hype about this pedal I tried it with every setting,at 9,12,and 18 volts.no matter what I did I could not get rid of the fizziness this pedal had I have other pedals that absolutely blow it away for high gain and medium gain stuff with much better note definition. I wish s.w. would carry amt products.to me they are superior, and less expensive.