MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I've been wanting to build this drive for a long time but somehow it kept slipping off the plate.
I finally grabbed the board with the latest Fathers Day coupon code and built it out. I haven't built a lot of Thorpy pedals but the ones I have have all turned out to be faves. I love the Dane, and the HeavyWater boost but my true love is my General Tso, still my all time favorite always on pedal.
Anyway, the PeaceKeeper is supposed to be a low gain transparent drive but I've found that there's actually quite a bit of gain on tap. It IS probably the most transparent overdrive I've built yet. Meaning it doesn't really alter the guitars tone, just adds more grit and of course volume.
It works great as a standalone drive and also as an amp pusher.
There's an extremely useful set of tone controls. If I'm reading the schematic correctly, there's an active 2 band EQ that's post gain, and there's a presence control that's pre-gain. You can pretty much set this drive up for any kind of guitar/pickup/amp combo.
Sounds just as good with singles as with hum buckers. Really really cool pedal and I can see it becoming a fave.
My all time two favorite low gain overdrives is the Mach 1 (Greer LightSpeed) and the Acer Overdrive (Altero Kaede).
In my demo below I've compared the Guardian to both of those pedals both in a clean amp (VHT-D-Fifty) and slightly crunchy amp (Marshall Origin).
Highly recommended build for low gain fans (yes, I mean you @HamishR
). I think you're gonna dig this.
The gain with the pedestrian 4148 clippers sounds more than the sum of its parts.
As far as I can tell from the schematic the NPN is only acting as an output buffer, so I'm not really sure where the gain character is coming from but it's really cool. Somewhat aggressive yet low at the same time. Kinda hard to describe. It can get a bit fizzy at high gain settings but the Presence control can really tame that nicely.
First time using the Tayda silver hammered enclosure (many thanks to @Bricksnbeatles for keeping Tayda on their toes with offering new colors!)
I finally grabbed the board with the latest Fathers Day coupon code and built it out. I haven't built a lot of Thorpy pedals but the ones I have have all turned out to be faves. I love the Dane, and the HeavyWater boost but my true love is my General Tso, still my all time favorite always on pedal.
Anyway, the PeaceKeeper is supposed to be a low gain transparent drive but I've found that there's actually quite a bit of gain on tap. It IS probably the most transparent overdrive I've built yet. Meaning it doesn't really alter the guitars tone, just adds more grit and of course volume.
It works great as a standalone drive and also as an amp pusher.
There's an extremely useful set of tone controls. If I'm reading the schematic correctly, there's an active 2 band EQ that's post gain, and there's a presence control that's pre-gain. You can pretty much set this drive up for any kind of guitar/pickup/amp combo.
Sounds just as good with singles as with hum buckers. Really really cool pedal and I can see it becoming a fave.
My all time two favorite low gain overdrives is the Mach 1 (Greer LightSpeed) and the Acer Overdrive (Altero Kaede).
In my demo below I've compared the Guardian to both of those pedals both in a clean amp (VHT-D-Fifty) and slightly crunchy amp (Marshall Origin).
Highly recommended build for low gain fans (yes, I mean you @HamishR
). I think you're gonna dig this.The gain with the pedestrian 4148 clippers sounds more than the sum of its parts.
As far as I can tell from the schematic the NPN is only acting as an output buffer, so I'm not really sure where the gain character is coming from but it's really cool. Somewhat aggressive yet low at the same time. Kinda hard to describe. It can get a bit fizzy at high gain settings but the Presence control can really tame that nicely.
First time using the Tayda silver hammered enclosure (many thanks to @Bricksnbeatles for keeping Tayda on their toes with offering new colors!
)
