Brent Mason Signature Overdrive/Distortion Pedal
The Brent Mason Hot Wired Overdrive is the carefully-crafted collabora-
tion between legendary studio ace Brent Mason and, if we do say so
ourselves, pretty darn good pedal maker Brian Wampler!
It took 18 months of adjustment to dial in the pedal to do what Brent
needs in the studio. While he might be most famous for his clean pickin'
(with a healthy dose of Wampler on-board in the form of customized
pedals and Wampler Pedals stock products!), the reality is that a studio
gun of his particular caliber has to be able to wear a lot of hats, and wear
them well. When your job is to lay down the sound, you don't get the
luxury of insisting that it has to sound like this, or like that.
Brent Mason's needs in the studio range from cleaner than clean to heavy
drive, and the
Brent Mason Hot Wired
Overdrive is a pedal that can
deliver. To that end, Brian designed a two-in-one pedal. Channel One
covers lower gain to medium crunch duties, Channel Two covers medium
crunch to higher distortion duties, and if that's not enough they can be
used independently or stacked together for three possible options with
any given settings! That's the kind of flexibility that ensures great studio
prowess.
If it's good enough for Brent...
To get the most out of your new pedal, you'll want to become very familiar with the controls. The
Brent Mason Hot
Wired
Overdrive features two channels, each with three adjustment knobs and a "Fat" switch. Each channel is
adjusted independently, and even apart from the fact that the two channels sound quite different and have different
levels of gain, it's also important to note that Channel One's "Fat" switch is different from Channel Two's. We'll go over
each control in detail, and offer some suggestions that will give you a great tone so you don't have to start from
scratch unless you want to. Remember, this is a two-in-one pedal. Even though each channel's controls have the same
name, the two sides have very different sounds. Experiment and enjoy!
Bypass Switches
– Simple enough, these footswitches are wired up for true bypass switching to ensure that you don't
have anything in the way when you disable either channel. Stomp on each channel's respective footswitch to turn the
pedal on, and the LED indicator light will show that it's active. Channel One has a blue LED indicator light, Channel
Two has a red LED indicator light. When both channels are on, so are both LEDs.
Volume
– This control works the same on each channel, and simply allows for more or less volume. There's a great
deal of this on tap, especially on Channel One, where you can use it as a clean, fattening-up boost – Brent has used it
like that in the studio and on the stage many times. It's great for kicking in your amp, or hitting Channel Two's heavier
gain hard. Channel Two has plenty of volume as well, though, so it's up to you how you want to set up their relative
volume levels.
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