TheseusDual Overdrive

From the vendor

One of the earliest boutique “waitlist” pedals, this dual-channel drive is made up of two modified Marshall Bluesbreaker circuits in series.

The Theseus Dual Overdrive is based on the Analogman King of Tone, a dual-channel drive pedal first released in 2003 that played a big part in kicking off the boutique/handmade pedal trend. In the past two decades it has only grown in popularity, and as of this project’s release, waitlist is around 4 ½ years.

The King of Tone is essentially two modified Marshall Bluesbreakers in series, each independently switchable so they can be used on their own or stacked one into the other for a more complex and natural overdriven sound. Each channel has an internal presence control as well as DIP switches that control the clipping diode configuration.

In 2009, Analogman began offering a “high gain” modification that can be selected as part of the customization. We’ve added a third DIP switch position to allow this to be switchable per channel instead of being a hard-wired modification.

Otherwise, the Theseus is a direct clone of the King of Tone, but with one added convenience: a send/return loop between the channels. This allows the two pedals to be split up so you can have more flexibility in where they are used on the pedalboard, or put something in between them such as a boost or EQ for added tone shaping. If nothing is plugged into the send/return jacks, the loop is disabled.

In 2012, Analogman released the Prince of Tone, a single-channel version with a few extra tweaks. The Prince of Tone is available from Aion FX as the Achilles Amp Overdrive.