Loopy Demos

Gus-Drive - Summer School Electronics

The Gus-Drive by Summer School Electronics is a wonderful take on the classic distortion/overdrive topology based on the DOD 250.

This is my first time playing a 250-style drive, so I can't tell you how it compares with the original. According to Summer School Electronics, it's a modded 250 with more output, compression and a few other little tweaks.

Whatever tweaks were done to the circuit, this thing rips. At higher gain settings, it comes close to a RAT-type distortion, but with more clarity and punch. At lower gain settings, it feels like a recording console preamp that is working extra hard.

Recording Notes

Guitar

• Fidelity Guitars Stellarosa Lite II with Lollar Firebird pickups (bridge pickup)
• Gus-Drive
• Strymon Iridium (chime)

Overdubs

• Stellarosa with different pickup configurations
• Most parts double tracked and hard-panned left and right
• Overdubs in the first half of the loop are:
• Catalinbread Soft Focus, mix about 50% and tamed decay into ...
• Gus-Drive
• Walrus Audio Polychrome and Slö used selectively to add movement and space

Ambient Pad

• I used the the D.I. signal form the main guitar track and reamped it to the following chain:
• Catalinbread Soft Focus Reverb, fully wet
• Walrus Audio Polychrome
• Gus-Drive
• Iridium

Bass

• JMJ Fender Mustang
• Keeley Compressor Mini to even it out
• Gus-Drive, unity volume and gain cranked. Works surprisingly well on bass.
• Strymon Iridium (round) with bass cabs
• Mixed with some D.I. signal, low-passed, to recover some bass frequencies.

Drums

• GarageBand Drummer Gavin (indie rock) on the Brooklyn kit
• Kick and snare treated with the stock GarageBand RAT-style pedal plugin

The whole mix was "mastered" with exciter, limiter and mild compression in the DAW.

Links

• Get detailed specs on Summer School Electronics' website

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