TC Electronic Zeus Drive Overdrive Pedal Reviews

I got this as part of a bundle with the Bugera PS1 and really wasn't expecting much from it. I tossed it in front of a Supro Delta King with an MXR Carbon Copy behind it and got some amazing tones. So glad I went for it.

My Number 1 Pedal I'm Thrilled With If You Can't Afford A Great Or Good Amp You Can Make Any Guitar Have Rock Star Tube Tone With The Screaming Licks And Thunderous Riffs!!

I have been playing guitar off and on for over 40 years and have owned many different OD and distortion pedals. I have to say this has quickly become my favorite one ever! Does a really nice job of adding warmth and grit without making the tone muddy. It can go from very subtle to nice and crunchy. If I want a really heavy rock tone, I use it with the TC Mojomojo OD. They play really well together! If you are looking for a simple yet great sounding OD pedal, this is it!

I have an Orange Micro Dark head I'm running with the Hughes and Kettner 10/30 speaker,
so I believe the Zeus od will work great as a clean boost since its transparent and will dwindle from no Od right up the scale. Not many ods will do that. I'm going to run the Micro Dark slightly dirty and the Zeus pedal as well, and think this would really sound good. By the way the Zeus has the soft click I like and is gold in color... not yellow as I first thought. A klon clone so to speak at a great price!

It's perfect for that light gain boost to a clean sound everything stays clean and tight with a nice edge from there if i want into my dis ped and again perfect with the same settings mean sounding stack,plus crank her up and she gets a good sound on her own if you go that route i like the switch non latching, also like the other guy said put it on buffered not that hard sounds incredible the missing link for me gonna be on a lot Sweetwater is thee only place to buy gear they get the best stuff ship it all free and stand behind it with great service

I've used just about every overdrive pedal that's on the market, and this is the best of the lot. This suckered has MOJO! The only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't use batteries. You have to get an adapter or use an external battery pack.

The sound is great, I like the active treble circuit. Knobs are easily adjustable and I like that it has an option for a buffered signal which I use. The form factor is great too. I wish all my pedals had this. Great work TC.

I wanted to try an affordable Klon style overdrive that was in a solid build by a reliable brand. This checked all of the boxes and sounds great. Excellent as a boost, low or medium drive. Huge volume boost available. The fat switch makes a noticeable difference in the overall tone. The only quirk is that the switch activated when released, not when pushed down.

It's not a Klon clone, there are other options out there if your looking for true Klon tone. That said, it sounds glorious! It's got more grit on tap than a Klon. For reference, I play through an Orange 35rt. It does best filling out a clean tone and can add some dirt. On the dirt channel, you really have to dial this back or it will sound like garbage, too much clipping (Could just be the way the Orange handles distortion). The Klon (mine is a StewMac Ghost Drive) can not dial in a bad tone on either channel. Klon make anything better with any setting dial in. The Zeus dialed way back and paired with my Klon on dirt channel, holy smokes! It's addictive.

I have never played an original Klon. Like most of guitar players, I have been intrigued with it for quite a while, but not enough to plunk down real money on one. But I have finally grown tired of tube screamers, and if this pedal is half as good as the original at a fraction of the price, I am more than satisfied. The touch sensitivity is better than any pedal I have played, including my Timmy. Both it and the Timmy compliment each other very well. If I am playing a Fender style amp or guitar I use the Zeus as my base overdrive, and stack it into the Timmy. If I am playing a guitar or amp with more mid-range I use the Timmy as the base overdrive. One more pedal that sounds great with the Zeus is my Rat clone which should not have surprised me since the Rat is mid-range challenged. The Zeus does what all great gear does; it inspires, challenges and rewards you for your efforts. Color me impressed.

Love the Zeus pedal. Mimics the Klon and so much more. This is becoming the pedal on my board that I leave on all the time. Just adds the right amount of boost and dynamics. Stacks well with a TS 808. Highly recommend it!

This is a great pedal! It works well with whatever guitar I use (Strats, Teles, LPs, high-end custom stuff, etc) and it always allows the personality of each guitar to come through. My Zeus Drive is one of the early ones that has the germanium 1N34A diodes which gives it has a nice "give" to it on hard transients. Overall this pedal has a natural openness to it sounds a lot better than the price tag would suggest. Much better than expected!

I am a long-time fan of TC Electronics, having had and played the entire set of their original pedals. For reasons hard to explain, it seems like no matter what their next outstanding offer is, it will be underrated. The MojoMojo pedal is a fantastic overdrive and even new, they are dirt-cheap compared to the competition. Zeus is another knock-out winner. This is a great overdrive (and I have 33 different ones to compare it to). Too many overdrives have what I call the vacuum cleaner sound on top, where it sounds like a vacuum is running in the same room. It's that high-end 'sssssshhhhhhh' interference. I believe when this sound is eliminated, the pedal becomes legend (think Klon). TC pedals do not have it and this creates a more pure, accurate sound. Zeus is very transparent in its push and the toggle offers some flexibility to the bare-bones three-knob classic layout. Every knob on every TC pedal is sensitive and there is no difficulty dialing in the exact sound you favor. Many if not most overdrives push the high end, many push the middle (think TS808) though few successfully push the low end. The "Fat" switch here does just that. This allows you to blend the low-end push with the treble knob, against dialing the perfect tone. One hallmark of TC is they manage, somehow, to do what many other pedal designers struggle to pull off--precise and actually useful controls in a minimalist package. Grab this one.

You can't go wrong if you are looking for a lighter gain everdrive that will get you that "klon" type response and sound. I did not mess with the Buffer switch change yet so I cannot respond. My other pedals in the loop have a buffer so I am thinking it might not make much difference overall.

I am really impressed. At this price point you cannot go wrong.

Best Tone pedal I Have Ever Used And Is Very High Quality Item For The Price I Don't See How The Do It Great Job Once Again Sweetwater!!

I actually love this pedal and I use it all the time, mostly by itself on the clean amp channel but sometimes stacked with the gain channel of my Fender Super-Sonic 22. I can get that perfect crunch with the drive control, and the treble control compensates when using different pickups or different guitars altogether. The volume can be used to add some volume come solo time.

My only complaint is that when the drive is turned up much past 12 o'clock, it gets noisy. I have tried different power supplies without help. This isn't a big issue because when I need more gain than my ideal crunch tone, I just use the gain channel on my Super-sonic and switch the pedal off.

One really nice feature is the true vs buffered bypass. Although I don't have long cable runs, when I switched it to buffered and the pedal is OFF, it completely quiets single coil pickups. Not so when the pedal is ON. I am not well versed in buffers but I wonder why that circuitry can't be used when the pedal is ON to keep the noise down a bit. I didn't notice any change in tone between the true and buffered bypass.

I am please overall. I found my perfect crunch and the price was right!

Great rock overdrive sound, the fat switch boosts the bottom end just a little for that punchy fat tone. And honestly I'm liking more and more the connections on the top vs sides, you can stack 'em closer together and more cleanly. Fantastic drive pedal.

Great Transparent drive.

Heard about this pedal a while ago, stoked to finally received it today and was quite surprised by how small it was. It's about as tall as a mini enclosure but about 1/3 wider, and quite well built, with 4 foam feet on the back and a tough enclosure. This is a clone of a 'legendary' overdrive pedal, the Klon circuit from builder Bill Finnegan used by many notable artists.

With an added fat switch (Bass\low mid boost) internal true/buffered switch, and concentric drive knob. When I opened the pedal to put it in bypass mode I could see the build quality was excellent. When I plugged it in, I noticed a subtle thickening of some mids just from the level control which was quite pleasant, and engaging the fat switch complemented this. This pedal apparently runs internally at 18v and you can feel the voltage from the drive knob, even set quite low it pushes your amp very well. Some reviews said it's tone range is narrow and I don't think that's true. The germanium clipping diodes engage at about 12' clock and can get quite heavy, into some fuzz territory, below 12 o'clock it seems just gain is increased, its nice to blend between these two for tonal palette and this is part of the original design.

I tried it before my purple mojo as a boost as many people use them as boosts, but with my rig, I feel it has its own character and ran it in front of another boost and it sounds great, especially with the treble rolled back a bit. Plan to use it for recording as well. Definitely has a grittier, 70's feel in terms of the quality of the overdrive, which makes sense since germanium historically has been around for quite a while. It helps to push your amp into its own overdrive with a sort of gritty booster versatility.

A great addition to any collection.

You may have never played one, but you've certainly heard it; the fabled Klon Centaur transparent overdrive. People are claiming that this is TC's version, so it's likely that the question on your mind is, "Does it Klon?" For the TL;DR crowd, I'll state right upfront that I knew this was a keeper after five minutes; it does the thing, and it'll suit me just fine. However, it may not be quite right for you.

What makes a Klon a Klon is a dual-ganged gain potentiometer feeding parallel diode-clipping and FET gain stages, and the Zeus checks that box; the first 1000 made reportedly have germanium diodes, but frankly, that's marketing BS. Germanium diodes are not magical and they can go out of spec if they get overheated. More a bug than a feature, if you play hot outdoor stages during festival season, but even then, 99.5 times out of a hundred it's nothing to worry about and certainly nothing to obsess over.

There are two basic ways a guitarist uses a Klon, and then there's what's between, which may not matter all that much. Firstly, one can feed an overdriven tone to a clean amp; the Zeus does this with aplomb and without buggering your carefully chosen guitar tones. Your tele is still a tele and if you bought the right amp, every notch on your Strat's five-way switch still sounds almost like a different guitar. It's YOUR sound, just with more hair on it. The other method us old-school cats love is to boost an already overdriven amp (or another pedal) into sweet, singing sustain; here, too the Zeus delivers, with only the slightest helpful thickening, not that nasty, honking mid boost/low cut you'd get from a tube screamer or TS variant. With either method,, the active boost/cut tone control is superbly voiced, enhancing or reducing edge and grit, and the level knob has juice enough to slap your amp's input stage silly.

Wow, brilliant! So is this a Klon? Well, no. It sounds amazing, has maybe a smidge more range, even, but to meet this price point, there were compromises. The case is smaller and lighter, a plus, for me and my rather crowded pedalboard, but the tiny size means that when you open the case, you'll see microscopic SMT components; that means you're not gonna be able to modify it to any degree, beyond maybe replacing the soft-touch , silent switch. The case is also dang difficult to open, with tiny, snubby, easy-to-lose screws, and you also have to remove the nuts from the cheap, plastic input and output jacks, but since there's no battery compartment, it's unlikely you'll need to open it more than once, to access the True Bypass/Buffered Bypass switch. You'll prefer one or the other; if you're not getting along with this pedal, try the other one. To sum up, if it lives on a pedalboard that goes in a case, this Klon substitute is pretty hard to beat, for the price. If you can't live with the relatively minor drawbacks, maybe look at the Way Huge Conspiracy Theory, which is also available at Sweetwater.

Sleeper pedal of 2021.very friendly for stacking.Heres a combo I'm using Zeus into the way huge conspiracy theory.very musical together.

First, the good. It's a very decent pedal, especially for the price. Very low noise floor - if your signal is clean, it'll respect that in spades. Switch is easy-on-easy-off, no audible click, which is a bonus. I wasn't expecting that. It does everything from very little grit to healthy rock overdrive (AC/DC et al is relatively easy to get maxed out with a Les Paul into a clean Fender at that point). Definition to chords and complex arpeggios that I rarely have found in an OD pedal.

Second, turn on the buffer. This is where the half star gets knocked off. It comes shipped with it off. The overall signal gets more sparkle, more life with it on and there is no functional difference when it's bypassed. To get to the switch, you need a 7/16" socket (or pliers and swearing, I recommend the former) to remove the input and output jack knobs. This reveals the shortcoming of the pedal in terms of potential longevity - the jacks while very secure especially with the nut reinforcement are typical budget affairs. Not surprising given the price point. Once you've got those nuts off, you have to remove four small screws. They are black and TINY. Use the box it comes to catch the screw as it falls. Finding it if it drops outside a confined space is a pain, especially with "I'm not young anymore" eyes.

If it'd shipped with the buffer on, I never would have guessed it didn't have standard jacks, but they're cheap SMD components throughout as I guess one should expect at this price point. It sounded MUCH better to me than the EHX Soul Food, which I didn't even bother to bring home for a trial after a short time with a demo model at a shop.

This will get the faux Klon/lower gain OD done nicely.

Does it sound like a real Klon? I, like the vast majority of us, have no idea, but it sounds very good.

Excellent! It reacts exactly as I wanted, sounds huge with a Strat, throaty with a Les Paul, and a nice buttery warm tone with a effective tone control that does a good job at shaping the overall sound. The gain and volume work very well to create a balance of breakup created either by pushing the front end of the amp hard or an overdriven sound from the pedal itself. Very versatile if this is the sound your looking for. It may be a bit mid-forwad for some players as the midrange is quite prominent, and the only reason I didn't give it a full five stars. Otherwise, Excellent product so far and exactly the sound I was after.

So i spent the better part of two months trying to find a good sounding transparent overdrive, that would also not bust my bank. The Zeus was the one i ended up choosing. I had five pedals that were on my short list and here's how they all compared (naming names): 1. was the Greer Lightspeed, which was honestly the best SOUNDING of the bunch, but also the most expensive. If money were no factor i would have gone with that. 2. was the Nobles ODR-1 with the bass cut it was a good sounding pedal at a decent price, but the more i played it the more i realized it wasn't really a "transparent" overdrive, might get it down the road for a different color palette. 3. was JHS morning glory which didn't have enough "ummph" for me and was probably intended to be used in conjunction with another pedal. 4. Was the Way Huge Conspiracy Theory which sounded a little dark/muddy at its most extreme left setting, but really started to bloom as you dialed the tone up/in, this makes sense after reading more because it is intended to darken a bright amp or brighten a dark amp. However, is the Way Huge worth its price? which leads me to 5. the TC Electronic Zeus sounds (to my ears) almost exactly like the WH Conspiracy Theory, but at half the price. I totally understand that one is made in USA and the other is made "elsewhere", but still, for my use in an at home studio, I don't honestly care about rugged components or superior build quality. Half. The. Price. The Zeus is just as durable and a very good sounding Overdrive on its own. The fat switch is very helpful if you switch between single coil and humbucker guitars, allowing you to give single coils more meat. Sometimes I've dialed out the drive knob and used it just as a boost, other times I've pushed the drive knob to get almost distortion. I've put it before other OD pedals, I've put it after other OD pedals. I haven't found a single scenario or setting yet that doesn't have some usable redeeming quality.

If you want to spend the money and get something else, be my guest, but there won't be any buyers remorse with the Zeus.

I like TC Electronics stuff, and this pedal has a great small enclosure, well made as usual for them. However, I did not find this to be completely transparent, it has a darkish color to the tone that you can hear in the official TC video. If that's what you are looking for, then it might be right for you, but as much as I played with the knobs and fat switch, I could not find the sound I was looking for. I have many clean boosty pedals, transparent and not-so-transparent OD/distortion pedals, including TC's Mojo Mojo. I find the Mojo Mojo is quite a bit more flexible tone-wise, and a superior boost/overdrive in my opinion.

I waited a long time for this as I recall and it now sits on the shelf. I get more excited using a klon centaur clone into a Timmy clone. Both are handwired and sound amazing. Sorry TC.

It's a klone. If you know what that means tonally and you're curious, then you'll like it. If you're like me and Klon sounds have never really been your digs, then you'll be meh about it. Construction/quality is great, appealing looking pedal, etc. Good pedal, just not for me