ToneCandy
Pedals
Sweet Drive
First up is ToneCandy’s aptly-named Sweet
Drive. Mike Marino’s goal was to create
a pedal that sounds as good at gigging
volumes as it does at small room volumes.
“That’s my problem with TubeScreamers,”
he says, “They only really sound good when
amps are really cranked. I think Stevie Ray
Vaughan knew that.”
Using the best electronics available, including SwitchCraft input and output jacks, a
SwitchCraft on/off switch, true hardwire
bypass, a Hammond-cast aluminum shell
and back, all metal pots and military-style
building techniques, the Sweet Drive is a
three stage overdrive unit that allows the
player to independently adjust each of the
FET-based gain stages.
The Sweet Drive is aimed at players who are
looking for a pedal that will take them from
purring blues sounds, with its lower gain settings, to classic rock-level overdrive sounds
when things really get cooking. With my
Michael Dolan-made Strat, I fired up my
trusty Princeton Reverb, set all of the Sweet
Drive’s controls at 12 o’clock and hoped for
the best. The tone from the amp was fat,
incredibly smooth, organic and extremely
touch-sensitive, if a little on the dark side.
Turning up the Tone knob to about 5 o’clock
cleaned things up quite a bit, but interestingly enough it seemed to act more like a
wet/dry knob on an effects loop rather than
just a standard Tone knob. The guitar and
amp’s natural sounds became a little more
apparent as the tone knob was turned up,
but the Sweet Drive’s original signal was still
present and supportive.
Switching to a humbucker-equipped Guild
Bluesbird, the pedal really came to life. The
Sweet Drive churned out sticky sweet, tube-like tones somewhat reminiscent of Mesa’s
“blue” settings from their V-Twin pedal, only
smoother and more refined. Kicking up the
pedal’s Intensity setting, it was easy to move
into Billy Gibbons land with plenty of greasy
