I recently received the Mad Professor Sweet Honey Overdrive and had the pleasure of taking out for a test drive this afternoon. So before I get going on this, I would like to thank the fine people at Mad Professor for sending it my way! Thank you very much!
The Mad Professor Sweet Honey Overdrive falls in the type of overdrives I love. The medium grit / touch sensitive style of overdrive. I love the organic breakup I get from my amps and is what I look for in an overdrive like this. This is a perfect pedal for dirtying up your signal or to take your leads another notch up in volume and sustain.
Typically overdrives have tone, gain and drive. The Sweet Honey definitely allows you to dial things in a little bit better. The Sweet Honey comes with Volume, Drive, Bass, Treble and Focus. I like having the bass and treble options to help preserve the midrange (especially for leads). While working with these controls I noticed how much they affect each other. You definitely can find yourself finding a variety of sweet spots in combination.
The feature I thought was absolutely great was ‘focus’ Their description states – “Controls how easily the circuit distorts as well as adjusting overall EQ. Turning CCW gives less distortion and a mellow effect, turning CW gives a slight treble boost and earlier distortion. A good starting point is 11 o’clock”.
When I was messing with the focus, I initially felt it was a ‘presence’ control, but definitely goes beyond that. I felt that focus provided “punch” for higher dirt pieces. I was loving this. Cranking a little more low end and adding more focus provided a great rhythm guitar tone.
The other feature I liked about the Mad Professor Sweet Honey Overdrive was the touch sensitivity. Playing lightly definitely cleaned things up and hitting the strings a little harder provided that grit. I felt that this was very organic and amp-like (though I don’t like say that about pedals too often).
Overall, the Mad Professor Sweet Honey Overdrive is an absolutely great sounding overdrive. For only $169, this guy is worth every penny. Check this guy out!
