THE PROTEIN - DUAL OVERDRIVE

Thierry L'Écuyer February 17, 2022 Pedal Reviews

Today, (almost) a modern classic: the @browneamplification Protein overdrive. Bluesbreaker circuit on left, Nobels-style on right, amazing stacking.👌

In the words of the makers:

The Protein 2 in 1 Overdrive is a collaboration between David Brown and guitarist/producer Adam Sniegowski. After years on the road and in the studio using backline amps that could be very inconsistent, Adam came to Dave wanting to create a dual overdrive that would sound great with any backline he encountered. They started with two drives they loved, stacked well together, but had a few inherent issues. Dave set out to fix those issues without losing the soul of the originals.

The Blue Side is based on the classic OD used by the likes of John Mayer on the “Continuum” album. Dave addressed issues like the lack of output, tweaked the tone control, and experimented to find what we think is our favorite version of this type of circuit while still being true to its roots.

The Green side was inspired by the classic “Nashville” overdrive. This pedal has been used on the pedals boards of session greats from Tim Pierce to Jerry McPherson. We lowered the amount of gain (distortion) to make it usable through the entire sweep of the pedal, added some of the mids back to make it not quite so scooped, and eliminated some of the woofiness in the low end. This allows it to add some low mid “beef” back into your tone without becoming muddy.

The secret “third” channel of this pedal might be our favorite. When running the green side into the blue of this pedal, you get added gain and fullness without sacrificing note clarity or getting that “mushiness” that can happen while stacking some overdrives.