Emperor Dual Overdrive

From the vendor

New for September 2024. Due to absolutely no demand we're now offering two different sets of daughterboards. Our design runs the channels from left to right, like how we read, yeah? Makes sense. The original pedal runs right to left. You could swap directions with some fiddly wiring, which isn't ideal, so there are now daughterboards that'll do just that, run channel B into channel A. Select your desired signal path in the options below.

Who doesn't love a Blues Breaker? What about a highly modified BB with magic beans for diodes and some fine tweaking to make it oh-so-sweet? Now put two in a box and hold on tight.

Y'all know what this is based on so no need to go into too much detail. We've board-mounted everything but the jacks and DC socket on this to make it as neat as can be.

There's a lot of debate on how integral the 'magic' diodes are to the sound of these circuits, and it's really down to personal taste. We no longer have any stock of BA282, MA856 or 1S1588. We'll supply 1N4148. There are lots of listings around claiming to be genuine sets if you'd prefer to source some for your build

There's an optional 18V charge pump on board, and both circuits can be individually switched for 9 or 18V operation for more/less headroom. You can have mini slide switches or, or leave the charge pump out altogether if you prefer.

The original has internal trimmers for presence control, but we've given you the option to have these as external pots. It makes enough of a difference to make the extra knobs worthwhile in our opinion. These extra pots mean we've had to venture away from the control layout of the original a little. If you go for an 8-pot layout, all good. If you want trimmers for the presence controls your Tone pots are going to be towards the edge of the box rather than centered below your Gain and Vol. You do have the option of bending the Tone pot legs out of the way and wiring them to the PCB if you really want to centre them up - no harm done. Please choose the correct enclosure option. Type A for all pots external, Type B for internal Presence and board mounted Tone pots, Type C if you don't mind bending Tone pot legs and wiring them up.

The kit is supplied with vertical-mount pots which have round shafts, so you'll need set-screw fitting knobs.

Oh, and you can choose between normal True Bypass with 3PDT footswitches, or go for the daughterboard with our OptoPuss optical switching and those slightly softer DPDT footswitches. The switches mount on a separate daughterboard that neatly connects to the main PCB via header pins.

All this AND we've left enough space for a battery.

Please be aware that this kit requires quite precise enclosure drilling if you're attempting it yourself. We're supplying Lumberg KLB series jacks to make it easier to fit everything in.

Note: If you have both sides turned up to high gain you may get screeching when both are engaged together. This can be solved by putting the pedal after a buffer.

If you want the PCBs without parts there's a link for that at the bottom of the page.

Partial kit: PCBs, all board-mounted components (not footswitches or bypass-related components, or mojo diodes unless selected as an option), pots.

Full kit: As above, plus footswitches and appropriate daughterboard/components for your selected bypass type (see Downloads section for details of those), jack sockets, DC socket, battery snap, hook-up wire, LED.

Enclosure (pre-drilled) is available as a option with full kits, and will take a battery. Knobs are not included.

Builds are only available with full kits including enclosure and vertical-mount pots. Please choose appropriate knobs.

Inspired by: King of Tone

Difficulty: Semi-hard

PCB sizes: 100 x 47 / 100 x 29

Knobs required: 6 / 8

Enclosure: 1590BB

Check Specials for powder-coated enclosure availability.

Download the INSTRUCTION PDF