Most of you may know the story about Brian Wampler modding a pedal and throwing it onto the stage in front of Brad Paisley? Well, if you don’t. That’s exactly what happened. During the show, Brian threw a modded pedal onto the stage in the hope that Brad would pick it up and try it. Fortunately for Wampler, Brad’s tech picked it up, played it - digged it and gave it to Brad who took it away and LOVED it. From that point on, he has used and loved Wampler Pedals.
After a few years of using Wampler pedals (Ego, Underdog and Faux Analog Echo) Brad’s new tech, Chad, mentioned to Brian that Brad wasn’t 100% content with his tone and maybe Wampler and Brad should work together to make the perfect overdrive for him to record and tour with.
Paisley’s requirements were quite “simple”. It needs to be clean but get crunchy with some “beef” to it. It needs to have a fluid tone when soloing. It needs to add a little hair to the tone but then but then has to be able to give flat out ball busting gain, oh… but please do not wreck the tonality. It needs to have everything, in a pedal format, but do not make it sound like a pedal!
Over a period of months, Brian made some circuits and sent them off, there were a couple of “tweaks” here and there to be made and then finally, when official “prototype #2.0” landed, it went straight into the live rack and out on the 2010 “Brad Paisley: H20” world tour.
The truly great thing about this pedal is that it’s not only Telecaster style guitars that it works so well with, it brings the best out of your Strat or anything you may have loaded with humbuckers. You no longer need to have individual pedals for your guitars; the Paisley Drive will make each one sing.
The built in tonal controls, the presence and mid contour switches (giving three completely different EQ styles – warm mids, neutral, and a more mid scooped character, will make this pedal one of the most versatile and complete overdrive pedal you have ever owned.
Brad Paisley: “we actually recorded this (pedal) in the studio, you know, trying it out. I turned up a Trainwreck Amp that I’ve got and compared the sound of the distortion and it was very, very similar. And that’s a very good test because any time a pedal can mimic a great overdriven amp then you’re on to something”.
Features
- Built in the U.S.A
- High grade components picked for their superior sound and response
- 2 switches – Presence and Mid Contour
- Relay true bypass with soft switch
- Top mounted input and output jacks
- Battery connection and 9v power jack
- Power draw: between 9mA (9v) and 17mA (18v)
- Exact same pedal used by Brad Paisley live and in the studio
- 2.5” x 4.5” x 1.5? in size (63.5mm x 114.3mm x 38.1mm) – height excludes knobs and switches