The GLASS is the next pedal of the CORE Limited series!
Preorder is open and pedals are estimated to ship in 4-6 weeks (Mid ot late March)
 
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The GLASS Transparent Overdrive
 
Ten years ago, when we started PJE, the term "Transparent Overdrive" was the hottest buzz word in the pedal world. At the time we released the PettyDrive, Chime, Iron and Gold, opting to embody the flavor of our favorite recorded amps over then overused fads. Well, now after a decade of playing with overdrive circuits, we have finally discovered a circuit we feel worthy of the slightly ambiguous, infamous tone descriptor "Transparent Overdrive"! The cool thing is it didn't start as the quest for transparency but we think it does it so well that its truly worthy of the term. Check out our audio samples on the demo page to hear it for yourself! 
 
THE STORY 
The GLASS started as most good pedals do, in curiousity, exploring the famous Blues Breaker circuit. The Blues Breaker, BB for short, style overdrive has been one our highest requested circuit that we have never done, up until now. The GLASS is by no means a clone of a BB, but it's clipping structure is inspired by the classic BB circuit, we started there and followed the rabbit from there, realizing right away this this is a very natural, dare we say "transparent" sounding overdrive circuit. So, we spent alot of time tweaking the circuit to become what we consider both transparent AND musical. 
TRANSPARENT DILEMA
I think the one of the main reasons I've avoided this one for a decade is the whole idea of a Transparent overdrive is a bit of a misnomer, as an overdrive circuit changes the tone by definition. In talking to a good friend of mine over the years, I've drawn inspiration something he often says to me regarding what he's looking for in an overdrive, "something that sounds exactly like my guitar and amp but with just a little extra dirt". So natually, when the GLASS was ready I took it to him to see if it would pass the test and kick off his current pedal, which has been a Timmy for many years. Since he approved and the Timmy is going into retirement I think we are ready! 
 
THE TRUTH
The truth is every overdrive fundmentally takes the guitar signal and clips it in some way that adds harmonics and changes the EQ curve. The BB inspired clipping structure is remarkably natural sounding with very limited inherent EQ, especially when dialed into the low gain/ edge of breakup tones! I found it so balanced that I didn’t have to use any internal filtering with this BB style clipping and thus all tone shaping is left to the user via using the sweepable Lows and Highs filters off the CORE series. This allows the user to get a very natural or transparent sound or feel free to shape it to be as colored you need for your rig. Our modified BB clipping structure produces a unique harmonic response that is very pure compared to most overdrives IMHO, consisting mainly of a sub harmonic and a second harmonic, at times it can even sound a bit like an octive pedal and it produces pure octive up and down harmonics around the fundemental single note. This does have the effect of thickening the sound, but it never reallly breaks fully, no angry bumble bees here!  With very little in-harmonic distortion the GLASS has a clear, touch sensitive sound that can enhance nearly any rig is amazing to sweeten up your base tone or thicken up chords and lead lines. Crank the gain past noon and get some very nice sustain on single notes and a rich harmonic pur on chords.
WHO WANTS ONE? 
 
We think this is the perfect pedal for those who like classic Blues Breaker pedal or any of the classic "transparent drives" like the Morning Glory, Pale Horse  or Timmy but with our Pettyjohn take featuring 2-4x the headroom and uncompromising Pettyjohn componant quality. The gain range of the GLASS is low to medium gain, as I found the higher gain levels were less compelling and felt thus pedal should focus on its strengths. Great for modern, edge of break up tones and blues players or anyone who loves their core tone but wants to just add a little bit of dirt without fundamentally changing the sonic identity! 
 
CORE Series Simplicity
The CORE Series features a streamlined control set for quickly dialing in killer tones with four knobs to adjust Level, Gain, Lows and Highs in a custom painted sleek Gorva pedal enclosure.
 
CORE Series Dual Rail Power
We designed the CORE Series with a dual rail doubling power supply. This design can scale from +/-7v to +/-18v, effecting the headroom, tone and feel of the pedal, achieving up to four times the headroom over standard 9v pedals. The internal supply achieves this by mirroring whatever input voltage you apply via the external power supply and we always encourage people to experiment. Requires clean power supplty of 7-18v with minimum of 100mA of current.
 
CORE Series Quiet Bypass
Our entire CORE Series features our quiet bypass switching system. It is a true bypass, relay based system for minimum pop when engaging the effect.