scheffehcs
Well-known member
I got these PCBs a little while back not realizing how similar they are. I had heard the Zendrive was great, and I had tried an Ultraphonix that I liked, so I wanted to try both.
Maybe someone a little more knowledgeable can chime in, but it seems like the Ultraphonix is a pretty blatant rip-off. Has a fixed resistor instead of the Voice pot in the Zen, and there’s an extra diode in there, not sure what it does.
The voice pot on the Zen is nice, not sure why Vertex took it out! It adds some brightness and gain, so it’s definitely interactive with tone and gain pots. Both pedals do sound great. I’m bad at describing tones, but to me it was like a nice alternative to a tube screamer - still compressed and focused sounding, but without the pronounced mid hump. I took a quick video noodling around for anyone thinking of picking either up. Of the two, I would recommend the Zendrive!