Lovepedal Hermida Dover Drive

Tipping a wink to Eric Johnson and his love of tone and fuzz, this is a new pedal that claims to bridge the space between overdrives, which you might have gathered I LOVE and fuzz,which I usually don’t.

It’s designed by Alfonso Hermida, whose Zendrive is legendary.  Apparently he likes designing but hates manufacture and marketing, so hes done a deal with excellent makers Lovepedal to handle that side of things.

With such a pedigree, I felt pretty safe ordering one sight unseen and it arrived promptly thanks to the guys at Lovepedal.  I was probably the first one to land in the UK though there may be others now – none of the shops had even heard of it when I ordered it.

It’s a brilliant pedal, not transparent like a drive but very clear, not mushy or spitty like most fuzzes I’ve tried.  Each of the three controls actually does something, so there are many sounds in it from low gain/high volume to slam the amp input, to lower volume/higher gain for creamier sustaining settings. playing.  It’s pretty easy to get some Bonamassa and Gary Moore sounds.

It also has an internal trim pot if you want to make it spittier or even creamier.  I played around with this – as you do – but came back to the factory setting, which is perfect for my blues/rock/(jazz).

It loves the single coils on my Strats and Tele, and it surprised me by how well it takes humbuckers, espcially my ‘burst.  The only tinge of sadness is that I haven’t – yet – got it to really sing with P90’s, which is a pity as they are thepickups I keep going back to out of choice.

I expect the reviews will be pretty favourable, so snap one up now!