Mosfet
Overdrive 2S
BlaCkSTOne
aPPlIanCeS
BY MIchAEl ROSS
PRODUCT REVIEW
When you hear fusion whiz Oz Noy play, you
may wonder how he gets that fat, slightly
broken-up but extremely articulate sound
despite playing impossible flurries of notes
through a Stratocaster’s bridge pickup driving
a clean Fender amp. One secret to the Israeli
chops monster’s tone—in addition to gobs
of talent—is a diminutive black pedal. The
pedal we can help you with (for the talent,
you’re on your own): Toward the beginning of
Noy’s signal chain is a Blackstone Appliances
Mosfet Overdrive 2S pedal.
At 4. 4" x 2. 4" x 1. 25", the Mosfet Overdrive
2S is roughly the size of an MXR Dyna Comp. It
sports two footswitchable channels (hence the
2S), each with its own Drive and Level settings,
and true-bypass switching. The top of the pedal
contains what looks like five slot-head screws.
These are the controls for the two channels
and a master EQ. The flush control concept
is a good one, because the controls are easily
moved with a fingernail or a guitar pick, but
they’re unlikely to get shifted if you throw the
pedal in a gig bag or kick it around a stage.
While this setup does preclude any spontaneous foot adjustments on stage, it allows five
controls to fit on the minimalist housing.
The Mosfet Overdrive 2S is handcrafted
by Jon Blackstone in New York City with a
cast aluminum chassis sporting a powder-coat finish and FR- 4 (epoxy-fiberglass)
plated-through-hole circuit boards. Rather
than use the pair of head-to-toe diodes found
in many distortion pedals, Blackstone has
opted to use four gain stages of small-signal
MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors), each contributing a little
soft clipping. Blackstone maintains that this
avoids intermodulation and fizzy high-order
harmonics in the same manner as vintage
amps. Players who cascade different low-gain
overdrives into each other can testify to the
efficacy of this system.
What’s on Tap?
The two channels are called Red and Brown,
presumably for the changing color of a
center-mounted LED that indicates both
when the effect is turned on and which chan-
nel is active. The light appears more orange
than brown in Brown mode, and at some
angles a red tinge can be confusing at first
glance. Fortunately, the LED is bright red in
Red mode—no confusion there. Each chan-
nel has a Level control on the left and a
Drive adjustment on the right. The two Drive
controls work differently: Turned clockwise,
the Brown Drive boosts drive from a mild
grit to a fat roar that still cleans up when
the guitar volume is lowered. The Red Drive
starts with a healthy crunch at noon, and then
offers different-sounding distortion increases
depending on whether you turn it clockwise
or counterclockwise. Blackstone recommends
clockwise for single-coils and counterclock-
wise for humbucker-equipped instruments.
The different directions are essentially two
differently voiced drive boosts. Clockwise
adds some midrange girth to single-coils,
while the other direction seems to reduce
bass and emphasize some higher frequencies,
preventing humbuckers from getting muddy.
The fifth control is a post-distortion EQ that
provides a 10dB mid cut at 750Hz.
As with some vintage fuzz pedals, the
Blackstone circuit interacts with the inductance of your guitar’s pickups, translating
playing dynamics into changes in waveform
distortion, rather than passing them on as
changes in output level. The Blackstone
pedal also allows adjustment to the internal
circuitry. Removing the backplate reveals (in
addition to the 9-volt battery) a small switch
that converts the pedal from unbuffered to
buffered. In unbuffered mode, it is recommended that you place the pedal immediately after your guitar in your effects chain,
like some fuzz pedals. If you need to place it
after another effect, engaging the buffering
prevents fizziness at high-gain settings.
A jeweler’s screwdriver can be used to
simultaneously adjust Gain and Treble settings for the second stage of both channels,
and the more electronically adventurous can
experiment with the two replaceable, socket-mounted capacitors: One limits output presence and the other tunes Red-channel bass at
counterclockwise settings.
PREMIER GUITAR MAY 2010 167
Plugging In
The Mosfet Overdrive is not like some boost
pedals that drive the amp into distortion or
sound best with an amp that’s already slightly
crunchy. Blackstone recommends that you
use it with an amp that provides a great clean
sound, and use the pedal to provide any
breakup. For my great clean sounds, I chose
Egnater Rebel 30 and Orange Tiny Terror
