MXR M294 Sugar Drive Overdrive Pedal Reviews

Awesome! I love this pedal, boost's my playing. Thank you.

I use it as a booster pedal. First in line on my pedal board It makes a huge difference. Booster only most of the time. Not as a Driver/Effects pedal.

This pedal is a perfect addition to my rig! Just enough to allow clean channel break up and if need slightly more juice this little devil is awesome. I highly recommend this pedal you won't be dissatisfied at all!!! Thanks Tyler for getting this and others out to Michigan so quickly. Sweetwater delivers again & again!

Everyone loves to clone the Klon. And in most cases, you get something that sounds great. The Sugar Drive has a little something extra, though. Of all the transparent overdrives that I've tried, this seems to be the most versatile. I feel it's because of it's Tone knob. I feel it has more range than most.

I use this with my Strat as an always-on pedal. The Sugar Drive gives it just the right edge on my amp with the Drive at about 2 o'clock. It pairs well with other Overdrive pedals either before or after the Sugar Drive. Try this after a TS to tighten up the tone.

Far and away my favorite pedal, and one of the few that never comes off my board.

I'm one of those guys that when I buy a paddle I don't sell them anymore. I have drawers full of them in my home studio. This pedal right here really stands out from the rest of the pack. I have bought several Klon clones and I like this one the best by far. It's got lots of Schmoz (Ask Luke) and an unbelievably beautiful overall timbrel. It works great with everything from a twangy telecaster to a huge Beefy Les Paul. Sometimes buying pedals even when you're at the retail store or a roll of the dice, this one is definitely a winner.

I have multiple drives on my board, but this one is always on. Enhances the already wonderful tones from my Anderson Raven with P90's. Several high end pedals on my board, but this little gem is a keeper.

The MXR M294 Sugar Drive pedal has become a quintessential piece of equipment on my pedal board in a noticeably brief period. Somehow, MXR has managed to pack the sound and dynamics of an overdriven tube amp into one of their mini-pedal housings!

I am aware the Sugar Drive is supposed to be a Klon Centaur clone, but it is a derivative work. There are differences between the two circuits – the M294 uses Si diodes whilst the Klon and its' descendants use Ge diodes. What does this amount to? A more uniform sound through-out different production-runs; lower manufacturing costs, etc... Whatever the reason the design choice was made to go with silicon diodes for the M294, it worked and worked darned well! The Sugar Drive is SO sweet! Pardon the pun…

The transparency in tone and touch dynamics, brought forth by the voltage-doubler internally powering the pedal when cranked, simply must be heard to be believed. This gizmo has incredible headroom.

There have been several famous and infamous overdrive pedals throughout guitardom, each engineered in their time using readily available components to provide the best possible sonic outcome for players and listeners, alike. MXR has taken the "elusive" Klon Centaur circuit and evolved it for modern day usage. No $800 - $3000 price tag. No small batch runs. No waiting for product to be manufactured and re-stocked. Just a sufficient supply of great gear.

Great engineering with impressive results. Wanna drive your amp? Sugar Drive it.

I've tried a bunch of Klones and this is the only one I've kept. It does exactly what I want, just adds a little sparkle and doesn't suck the tone out. Boutique fuzz and distortion pedals sound even better with the SD on in front of them. MXR knocked it out of the park with this one.

Did a shootout with this, a Tumnus, a TS Mini, and a few other drives.

If you're in a 3-piece classic rock band, the Tumnus nails the Klon sound. Very spongey, gritty.

The Sugar Drive, however, has a crisp "sparkle" to the top end that the Tumnus doesn't have. Like someone else said, it's like a Nobels ODR-1 on steroids.

If you play in a band with pads, backing tracks, or thick keyboards (or another guitarist) the Sugar Drive cuts through a mix where a Tumnus won't.

Killer pedal.

This is a fantastic little pedal. Add as much sugar as you need to sweeten your tone. Sometimes you get a pedal that is like opening up a tap and this is that pedal. It allows you to blend in as much overdrive as you need for nearly any situation. I really don't see myself ever turning this pedal off for any reason. I even placed it behind a compressor and in front of a fuzz and my mind is still blown. Its well worth the money.Thanks to my sales engineer Tom Koch for sending it out so fast on a Friday afternoon. Cheers!

I have always loved the Klon-type overdrives as opposed to the Screamer types. Just a preference. I knew if it was MXR it would be durable and dependable. It does the job perfectly. You can leave it on and it doesn't take away your guitar's natural tone, it just adds that dimension of "sweetness" to your drive, and it responds to your guitar volume. Great Value!

I'm not big on mini pedals for whatever reason but this thing is a game changer haven't turned it off since I got it!

I got one of these when I found out that my other K style overdrive was taken out of production and the prices went up. To my ear I am able to replicate the sound I want out of using it as a second overdrive pedal after a certain larger preamp or the very popular BB type "transparent overdrive". The size of the pedal is very convenient and the switch is not clicky or anything like that. I would recommend giving this slightly more affordable option a shot!

I purchased the Sugar Drive to give a nice clean boost to my new Mesa Fillmore 25. I wanted to add the fatness of a boost without taking away from the natural beauty of the Fillmore's tone. The Sugar not only does this wonderfully, but has enough gain available to add just a little something gritty and sweet, (sugar!) to the tone. I absolutely love this thing!

I plug in into my HX stomp, works great and always leave it on as a clean/edge of breakup boost, great for a warm jazz tone to pushing screaming distorted leads.

I really love it, I use it to boost my clean and dirty tone and adjust the treble. This pedal sound very good and well build. You may need a noise gate (if Single Coil, Stratocaster...) and you definitely need a 9V DC power supply (sold separately).

It sounds the best and takes up the least space out of all the pedals I own. You're a fool if you leave this page without buying this pedal.

Excellent pedal! Works wonderful with my marshall and my blues jr., as well as using my humbuckers or single coil guitars! I love the way it mixes the signals. Highly recommended!

This is it. Out of all the Klones I've tried this is the one. The high end is super clear yet warm, the drive itself is organic and super sensitive to the touch and the clean boost side of it is the best. It's always on. Who needs to turn it off when it makes everything better? I'm not certain of how the buffet works or even what it does but who cares if the pedal is always on. I want to make a board just comprised of sugar drives. Best part of sweet water? Candy and great customer service. Pls send a bag of bit of honey and laffy taffy pls.

Got one for Christmas. Fantastic pedal. Great tone lots of drive. I like it much better than the TS9 I used to have.

I'm loving this pedal! Im just a home hobbyist-guitar-enthusiast who has no need to worry about fitting into "the mix", and would rather have a nice big tone with bottom end. Im always looking for just a bit of drive, maybe occasionally a bit more, and the ability to move back and forth just by pick dynamic. With my Blues Jr tweed a notch below the edge of breakup, i run from guitar to a clean boost to the Sugar Drive. Clean, Cleanish with a touch volume boost, warm lush sugary grit. Perfect 3 options for me. I love the tone restoring buffer. And if you like to get really dirty this pedal has a lot of gain to reach. Cut the bass and you can do the "fit into the mix" thing too.

Truly blown away by the tone from this tiny and blue box. Take my word for it and buy one! I have spent hundreds on all of the "best" drive pedals over the years and this Sugar Drive is my grail piece.

EASILY my favorite pedal on my board (and cheapest)! This thing packs a ton of punch, headroom, drive, and shaping. It can tame the brightest amp and brighten the darkest one too. I typically always leave it on and just modify the settings according to the amp. It's a must-have for me.

After a few hours of play time ive got a handle on what it sounds and feels like to me ... MXR says this pedal is based on a 90's mythical pedal... i agree it is 'based' on it... but it does its own thing... and REALLY well in fact... one of the best production drive pedals of all time ... in the top 5 for me !

The Sugar Drive is like the Nobels ODR-1 meets a Klon Centaur... with a wet/dry mix on the signal.... like the Klon does of course... where it blends the clean and dirty signals together in magical musical way... What is a Nobels ODR-1, you ask? Look it up and you'll find it is the secret weapon of many Nashville session artists...

The Sugar Drive is more quick and percussive on the notes where the Klon is more compressed and sag-like .... like a solid state vs tube rectification kinda thing .... the more you turn up the drive on the Sugar Drive the closer you can get to that Klon-like compression... so it will get close...

Soooo, to me,the Sugar Drive is more of a Nobels ODR-1 on steroids, steroids courtesy of the Klon lol ... The Sugar Drive is a great pedal to pair with an actual Klon clone type pedal .... You'd have both quick/percussive and sag/compressed onboard ....

Thats a must have pairing in my opinion.... Sugar Drive is a winner indeed... Well done MXR !!

this unit works great! I have tried it with a new dsl 20 head where the clean channel is sort of shrill. This thing gives it just what I needed. I also have a Friedman be od and a boss od-2 overdrive pedal but they are sometimes too much drive or manipulate the sound of the amp too much.
it also can push the drive channel over the top with the drive knob turned way down to 1 and the volume on 5-6 and tone on 5.

I was going back and forth on whether to get this (I love Klones). For the price it's better than every other one I own currently (KTR, AF, Ikon). It seems to have a bit more bite as well (at least with the buffer on).

I got to play this in a local guitar centre and it really impressed me through the solid state amp they had it connected to. I play at it at home through my Ibanez TSA / Marshall JVM410 amps and it sings.

Best bang for the buck Klone you can get, maybe even a bit better than the others (I'll have to wait for the new shine to wear off before I decide that one).

How many times have you heard "Best overdrive ever!"? Researched it. Found out it internally converts your signal from 9 volts to 18 volts or something like that. It's a high-headroom overdrive. Not exactly high gain, though I must say it sounds killer at 3:00-4:00 or even fully maxed. Stays warm and reasonably tight. No shrillness to the highs, yet still open and airy. As you know, mostly with of your 3 knob overdrives it's all about that tone knob (mostly, imo). This one seems to get a bit warmer no matter what (in a most pleasing way) but otherwise transparent at around 7:00-9:00, opens up nicely as you roll it in, brings in mids if you want it for that application but doesn't get nasally or whatever the unpleasant adjective would be. Considering it has the internal voltage pump to 18 volts it is the tiniest yet most powerful pedal on my board. I gain stack with another MXR overdrive set up to take me to metal territory. I just wanted to draw your attention to the drive knob being a MIX or blend of your dry signal and the overdriven signal. To reiterate: as you roll in the drive your dry signal amount is decreased proportionately and vice versa. So unless you are MAXED out, there's always some of your dry signal going through. I've found that at most gain settings you feel like you HEAR the guitar, the wood, the strings. It's truly killer. The voltage thing makes it a killer clean boost, but you couldn't ask for more honest sounding saturation at the pedal if you want to get raunchy with the drive knob. There's tons of similar overdrive circuits, but I suspect you'd be really pleased if this was your first step into this category of overdrive as it is mine. My wife made me tell you all that she bought it for me for my birthday.

This is one great drive pedal, for driving your AMP that is! Very good at fattening and fluffing up the bottom end to offer lots of butter under the fingers, plus it has the buffer switch like the KTR (great feature). Great boost to leave on all the time, also can be stacked with other pedals, though I personally prefer not to...

I"ve had a KTR, Mythical Overdrive, RYRA Klone, Monsterpiece Stud, Walrus Voyager, Wampler Tumnus, a few Rockett Archers, Rockett Ikons and a handful of EHX Soul Foods including a JHS and I modified some myself and yet the Sugar Drive has come out of top, especially with my rig (ES-335 into a deluxe reverb. As a clean boost it works great for pushing the amp into overdrive without being harsh and the overdrive retains better lows and smooth gain. I actually had a Tumnus when I got this and side-by-side the Tumnus seemed harsher in the highs, grittier gain yet less of it, more "honk" in the midrange that kicked in earlier on the gain knob, less sustain and more low end than unity which made the amp flub out when you push it. Needless to say I sold the Tumnus and kept the Sugar Drive. Couldn"t be happier with the sugar drive.

Similar to the Tumnus . has about 98% of the same magic . Buffered or true bypass is nice . A little more gain that the Tumnus. Just a great pedal , Thanks Robbie Reznick

I'm not a pedal geek and I often get overwhelmed by the thousands of distortion and overdrive pedals out there, but when I listened the the demos of this pedal it caught my attention. I primarily used a tube screamer clone and a Boss Overdrive. Somewhere in between the two is what I really want. I was very impressed that this pedal delivers what I like. It has a classic almost Marshall tone and the best part it cleans up and responds well to the volume knob on my guitar. I'm very happy with it and I think I'll use it for a long time to come.

I love it. I use it as a clean boost, and find that it thickens up lead notes in a very satisfying way. It sounds great with single coils and with humbuckers. I was surprised to find that I preferred the buffered bypass to the true bypass; I thought it sounded just a tiny bit better. However, the true bypass option is really nice--you never know when you'll want this in front of a pedal that doesn't play nice with buffers. I settled on using it with buffered bypass, the drive around 8 o'clock and the volume around noon. I thought that adjusting the volume control was key to finding the tone-thickening that I wanted. The overdrive sound is nice, but not my cup of tea; I bought this for the boost. I cannot recall where my tone knob landed--but I was easily able to get it to sound nice. Just for the record: I was using a Marshall DSL15 combo & a Fender Blues Jr combo, with a Squier Strat & a Fender Tele HH.

To keep it short , if you wanna tame any beast of and amp with something that wont color it or be to dominant with its tone character , this is the pedal! The ton knob works as a treble booster in the cleanest way and there is enough drive to take you to lead territory. The out put can be massive! But it will also work to boost a clean and into breakup and get you all that twang and clean gritty spank you need.

Best part of this pedal is the way it keeps a lot of the character of your amp/guitar as you increase the gain. Not quite as bright as when using the tumnus but for the price, you get a little more gain and a very useable light od.

Sadly I was disappointed by the Sugardrive.
I play an American Strat through a '65 Deluxe Reverb. The Sugardrive muffled my tone top to bottom. Especially
the top end. Switching the buffer off made no difference.

I wanted to like this pedal, I expected to like this pedal. It is highly recommended by some people I respect. I watched a lot of demo videos.

But on my small board it muffled everything, across the spectrum. Not completely, but enough to notice. I tried it with and without the buffer engaged, and with the knobs in all sorts of combinations. This is my first experience with a Klon type pedal. I don't know if this is typical.

This is the first time I've been disappointed by an MXR product. I usually really like every other product of theirs and other Dunlop products.