Animals Pedal Major Overdrive

Walls of amplifiers onstage have been seen behind some of the world’s most famous rock acts. The UK made amps that became the beginning of the legend is one of the classic tone goals for many guitarists. Enter the Animals Pedal Major Overdrive, designed by Marc Ahlfs of Skreddy Pedals to bring everyone the legendary rock tones.

Our latest version of the Major OD has improved access to the footswitch by placing it to the front right spot on the pedal, while also making it easier to change the battery when needed. The art has been upgraded, and the circuit has been fine-tuned and expanded to work well with a wider range of guitars and amplifiers.

Call it what you will – the “British” sound, the “UK” style, or variants such as the “Plexi” – these unique amps made in the late 60s and early 70s became a legendary amp that everyone wanted to acquire. The Major Overdrive will take you to the plexi-palace of tone in an easy-to-use package that sounds great with even solid-state practice amps. When you think of that “plexi” style tone, it is easy to imagine much more distortion than is actually there. One of the secrets to this tone is using less gain than you might think. The Major has been tuned to take you from the 60s to the late 70s and “brown sound” style gain.

Set the Major OD GAIN knob in the middle, and you can immediately hear the magic – this tone we are seeking is distorted but also very easy to play legato lead lines with. The early plexi tones are more forward and sound big when combined with a band, while the later 70s sounds have more gain and compression, much like when a certain guitarist in LA plugged his plexi amp into a variable power transformer to lower (brown out) the voltage to the amp, causing a different sort of distortion to occur. Crank up the GAIN knob on the Major OD and feel the change in dynamics and sustain!

Experience the characteristics and tones of a genuine vintage British valve amplifier with the Animals Pedal Major Overdrive.

“The tone from the classic rock albums. Animals Pedal Major Overdrive creates a brown sound of clean to rich harmonics as well as high gain neoclassical tones in one pedal. It’s highly responsive and you can control the gain with the volume and picking dynamics of the guitar”
---Marc Ahlfs (Skreddy Pedals)

The enchanted “plexi” tone of British tube amplifiers from the early 1970s inspired the Major Overdrive’s goal to be a classic high-gain machine that can be controlled by picking dynamics and resolve cleanly at any time. It has the “brown sound” flavor that dares to reduce the voltage to the amp, resulting in a tone with clearness, low-mid focus, and long sustain with a smooth sound. Palm muting are perfect for cutting through the mix and the sound is compressed enough to be even.

Even with heavier distortion, each note in a chord can be heard clearly. It’s an overdrive pedal that you can get a brown sound played by a “Guitar God” from the late 70s to the early 80s. It’s a “Hall of Fame” guitar tone that makes you want to play and listen forever. When you hear and feel a great sound, it makes you want to play and come up with new riffs and licks. The sound that used to require heavy amplifiers and cabinets is now easy to bring along with the Major Overdrive.

Animals Pedal x Skreddy Pedals

Effects pedals crafted with serious attention to detail. The vintage tone produced by Marc Ahlfs of Skreddy Pedals has continued to create inspiring sounds that have players around the world drooling – and once they taste it, they never forget it. The effects that Marc builds create an overwhelming sound and are known for luxurious construction with vintage and rare parts. So, it would be impossible for us to recreate these in any numbers.

Our founder Tomokaz Kawamura wanted to deliver the highest quality sound that everyone recognizes to as many people as possible. To achieve that, we released this pedal designed and supervised by Marc himself. It was very important to us to live up to the legend of Skreddy Pedals and not compromise in any way. At first there was concern if the sound could be achieved with standard off-the-shelf parts. But the moment we heard the finished pedal, all the anxiety was blown away. Marc Ahlf’s work managed to capture the Skreddy sound and tones due to his careful and brilliant design. Even if you don’t use “vintage and rare” parts, great tones can be achieved with careful design.

This collaboration between Animals Pedal and Skreddy Pedals shows new possibilities in the world of effects pedals!


●Control
VOL: Adjusts the volume.
TONE: Adjusts the tone centered on the high frequency component.
GAIN: Adjusts the strength of the distortion.

Major Overdrive adopts true bypass footswitch and is powered by a 9V battery or a standard center minus DC9V adapter.

※When using batteries, please unplug the input jack to reduce battery consumption when storing the effector. Also, if you don't use it for a long time, please remove the battery and store it.

Size: 64 W x 112 D x 50 H mm (including projections)
Weight: 378g