MI Effects Super Blues Pro Overdrive

MI Effects Super Blues Pro Overdrive

The Blues Pro, along with the Crunch Box, have been a couple of
pedals that have gained a lot of fans over the years we have been making
them. When I designed them long ago, I wanted to create a pair of
pedals crammed with many different sounds, accessible via three knobs.
The simplicity of the design grabbed the attention of a lot of musicians
but as the years ticked on, and more and more overdrive pedals hit the
market, we received feedback from the fans asking for a bit more from
these designs.


This feedback saw the birth of the Super Crunch Box idea (that is still in prototype phase), and now the Super Blues Pro!


The Blues Pro has always delivered in the low/mid gain overdrive
tones, and sounds great through any amp or guitar/pickup combination. As
the gain goes up, you can get more compression and super-squishy fuzz
tone at a flick of a toggle switch. The mid-focused TS sound is a
classic found on a lot of blues and rock recordings, and the Blues Pro
took that initial design a step further. That is how the Super Blues Pro
was tackled – but what could I add to keep the pedal true to its
origin, but extend it a bit further?


First, headroom! Like the new Boost ‘n’ Buff v.3 and
soon, the Super Crunch Box, we have added internal voltage multiplying
circuitry to boost the operating voltage from a 9V only input, to give
the Super Blues Pro 18V supply. This added headroom gives more clarity
in the top end and attack and really adds that sparkle for low-gain
boosting your amplifier.


Next, I wanted to expand the kinds of overdrive tones that can be
dialled in and stand alongside the tone of the original Blues Pro. This
has been done with the introduction of the DETAIL, BODY and TRIM
controls:


DETAIL – This is essentially like the original tone control on the Blues Pro


BODY – One of the main features of the Blues Pro is a bass/low-mid
boost to help get rid of the typical mid-hump of the typical TS type of
pedal. The BODY control essentially makes this variable, so you can go
for a more mid-focused tone, traditional Blues Pro (with the BODY set to
12 O’clock), or even more low end by cranking the BODY


TRIM – This is essentially a second gain control, which affects the
gain in a different part of the circuit. The TRIM and GAIN controls have
different frequency responses, so you can achieve a wide variety of
tones by adjusting these two controls. The standard Blues Pro sounds can
be achieved with the TRIM control set to 2 0′clock.


Finally, I wanted to give users the control of the clipping structure
of the overdrive signal – allowing anything from a low-gain, open
overdrive tone to the super-compressed, mid-gain fuzz found in the
previous version. This is controlled via the two toggle switches, each
having three options; Silicon, MOSFET or none.


The interesting thing (which I don’t think has been done before,… I’m
certainly not aware of any instances) is the ability to choose the
clipping device for each side of the waveform individually. The top
switch controls the clipping of the top of the waveform, while the
bottom switch selects the clipping device for the bottom of the
waveform. This means that you can now experiment with say, diode
clipping on the top, and MOSFET on the bottom, or No clipping for the
top of the waveform, but diode on the bottom etc.


Another thing to point out as well is that the silicon diodes for the
top and bottom are in fact different diodes, to add a
slight asymmetry to the waveform in Silicon mode. But this also means
that you get a slight difference in the tone and feel of the pedal swap
switch settings. Also, the MOSFET mode actually uses the clipping
characteristics of the MOSFET itself, not the reverse protection diode
commonly integrated into the devices.

MI Effects Super Blues Pro Overdrive Features:

True bypass switching
18 volt internal supply
Toggle switch clipping control
Highly versatile OD








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