Part of a new three-pedal Jr. series, it works as an overdrive, a preamp or a standalone amp sim.
Warm Audio has teamed up with boutique builder Dirty Boy to shrink one of the brand’s more unusual pedals down to pedalboard size. The Dirty Boy Jr. Overdrive recreates the circuit behind the Dirty Boy Preamp, a touch-sensitive drive that doubles as an amp and speaker simulator. Now in a smaller enclosure, it arrives as part of a new three-pedal Jr. series alongside a Booster and a Fuzz.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
The pedal runs on Dirty Boy’s all-analog T.A.E., or Tube Amp Emulation, the proprietary circuit developed by current owner Danny Gomez. It gives the drive a tube-like response that firms up or cleans back depending on how hard the strings are hit, and it can sit on a board as an overdrive, run as a preamp, or stand in for an amp entirely.
Gain, Tone and Volume take care of the drive itself, moving from a transparent boost to thicker vintage-style breakup as the gain comes up. The fourth control, Variac, is where the fuzzier textures live. Modelled on the way a real amp sags when its voltage is starved, it adds compression and a looser, spongier feel as it’s brought up, tipping the sound towards fuzz.
A standard preamp output feeds an amp or the front of a rig as normal, while a speaker-emulated output, voiced after a 4×12 cabinet, lets the pedal run straight into an interface, a mixer, front of house or an FRFR speaker with no amp in the chain. True bypass keeps it out of the way when it’s switched off, and it runs on a standard 9V centre-negative supply – but you’ll need to BYO power.
Dirty Boy has a longer history than the Warm Audio badge suggests, having been founded back in the 1980s by Alex Saraceno. His amp designs for his son, session guitarist Blues Saraceno, are the root of the tone the Jr. now carries onto a board.
For local enquiries, head here.
