A couple of months ago, I demoed a killer overdrive pedal called the Appaloosa...and now, the good folks at Bolt & Forge have sent me its brother to check out! Introducing the Ol' Ephraim Germanium Sustainer!

It houses four hand-selected Germanium Diodes, and sonically sits somewhere between a fuzz and distortion. It has the thick, scoopy, woolly tones of a Big Muff; the mid-focussed sizzle of a MXR Distortion Plus, and - in its middle settings - the biting attack of a cranked Marshall! So today, I'll be taking you through the full range of what this pedal can do. It's not one for you clean tone players, but if you're wanting some hard-edged 80s hard rock power, this is one for you!

What do you think? Killer cranked amp distortion tones? Or not for you? Comment below!

Guitar is a Gibson Les Paul Standard w/ ThroBak SLE-101 PAFs. Amp is a Vajra JTM45 clone running into a Zilla Studio Pro 2x12 cabinet loaded with Celestion AlNiCo Gold & G12M Heritage Greenback speakers. Recorded with Aston Spirit Condenser, '70s Sennheiser MD441 and sE RNR1 ribbon mics, with a Schoeps CMC6 room mic. Spring reverb is a Dr Z Z-Verb unit.

0:00 Intro
2:06 Playing

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