MXR M294 Sugar Drive Mini Effects Pedal

Let me start by saying that I've never owned a Klon, and I don't plan to. My review is based solely on the merits of this little blue pedal, and the bottom line is that it's a keeper! I'll break it down according to the three control knobs. VOL: The first thing I noticed is that this pedal has a TON of clean headroom. Maybe that's owing to the 18V internal voltage, but this is by far the hottest pedal on my board. With the drive at 12 o'clock, I have the volume at about 9 o'clock for a modest boost. If you desire loud, clean leads or want to slam the front end of a tube amp or dirt box, this thing has a scary amount of power. TONE: Does what you expect - it sweeps from fat and mellow to almost treble booster territory. I will mention that the tone was not "transparent" for me at all...to my ear, there's a very pronounced mid to upper-mid boost that comes through no matter where you set the tone knob. For this reason, I have no intention of using this as an "always on" effect (although you might if you find your amp's mids to be lacking). DRIVE: As advertised, cranking this knob clockwise slowly but surely piles on gain AND the original clean signal. (Because of this, you may want to back off the volume as you increase the gain...it can get quite loud.) I can't say I've ever heard an overdrive pedal like this before, and the effect is really captivating. At lower gain, the boost is very clean and will only break up if you dig in or slam chords. At higher gain, it opens up to a smooth growl that still allows you to hear each note ring out. Like I mentioned, I won't personally use this as an "always on" effect, but I'll kick it in for lead breaks on a tube amp that is right at the edge of saturation. And with that mid boost and clean-sounding gain, it's incredible on a dirty channel or in front of another dirt box...honestly, this is the first overdrive pedal that I've enjoyed using in this way. If you can, try it with your own gear since its sound will depend heavily on what it's interacting with.

Been playing guitar for about 12 years. I buy everything as cheap as possible, right now I'm running a Squier Mustang (2 humbuckers) into a Cube 01 10w practice amp. Adding the Sugar Drive as a clean boost really pushes more brightness and clarity on the neck pickup, enhances the attack on the bridge pickup, and just makes all the tones feel less dull. I don't play with much drive but this is definitely the thing I needed to make my Digitech distortion (Hot Head) sound beefier. I'm not sure if this is better than a preamp or just buying a better amp, but I think this pedal is giving me $120 of better sound, 6/6 guitar string.

This is a solid little Klon clone. It sounds sweet, just as the name suggests, and it can be soft or rough, depending on your need. It also has a handy little buffer/bypass switch on the outside, for those that are interested in this. Although it sounded grand, I just couldn't get past the immense tone sweetening power that the Wampler Tumnus provides. Both pedals are Klon clones, but the Tumnus sounds so much sweeter, so I ended up returning the Sugar Drive, and purchasing two of the Tumnus's.

This is one of my favorite OD pedals, even better than the Ibanez TS. It's extremely versatile as it can go from clean boost and enhancer all the way to pretty thick OD, almost distortion territory. Stacking this other OD pedals can result in some really nice complex distortion with great overtones and harmonics. This pedal responds very well to volume changes as well, much better in other ODs in my experience, which tend to get muddy. I have one of these on my gigging pedalboard and I'll probably get another for my studio pedalboard - it's that good. The compact design was s perfect as well.

Great pedal! An affordable version of the Tumnus! It is klon type circuit (aka the mythical circuit). It gives you a "transparent" sound and is supposed to make everything sound better (assuming you like how your gear sounds). If you're looking for high gain, probably not for that. However, in a rig run down, blues player and singer "Kingfish" raved about it and demos it as his high gain lead booster. So there ya go!

I was really excited to replace my Ibanez Mini Tube Scrwamer with this pedal. In the end, the TS sounded better (to me, at least). See, the thing with the Sugar Overdrive is that it "blends" your clean tone as you increase the drive. That didn't work for me and my ears like I thought it would. I prefer the mini TS as it instantly colors my tone and gives it the sweet sound I crave (sorry, Sugar). I guess I had to do a side-by-side comparison to appreciate it. Also, the buffer is a cool feature, probably helps the signal if you're having to run long cables (which I don't). Overall, good pedal, MXR has great quality (I have the Super Bad-ss Distortion and l love it). Try before you buy (preferebly with your own gear).