TC Electronic Mojo Mojo Overdrive

TC ELECTRONIC MOJO MOJO OVERDRIVE
By Adam Ironside

The Mojo Mojo Overdrive is part of the new Tone Print series of effects pedals. Unlike most of the other pedals in this line however this is NOT a digital effect, and therefore also does not have the new toneprint technology.

It is also worth noting that I wrote this review and the one for the Dark Matter Distortion in the same short time period, so there may be some overlap in ideas and descriptions etc, but I have done my best to keep the two as separate as possible, as if I had tried them months apart.

Features

Identical to the Dark Matter in terms of layout and design; four knobs and a toggle switch plus the same rugged, road-worthy housing, true bypass switching and TC’s fantastic new batter access method; a single, simple to turn screw holds the entire back plate on, a massive time saver for those people who use batteries. It also features an easy-to-see, ultrabright red LED.

To the controls…

Drive – Naturally this controls the drive or gain, depending on your preferred terminology.

Level – The volume knob. A lot of boost is available as you would expect so you can combine the dirt from the pedal with a kick in the valves (ooh err!) to drive your amp into natural breakup.

Bass – The low end of the two-band EQ.

Treble – And the high end control, capable of getting pretty glassy. Plenty of cut and boost are also available on both EQ pots and the knobs have a sort of centre detent that locks the pot slightly at 12 o clock. Whether this removes the tone circuitry from the signal path I’m not sure, but this is where the tone settings seem most transparent.

Voice Switch – A simple, two-way switch that alters the bass response. In the up position there is a lot more emphasis on the low end and in the downwards position the bass seems cut a little and perhaps a presence area boost is also employed.

Sounds

Everything at twelve, clean channel, go!

This is how I start most reviews and how I first check out every pedal I get. In this instance nothing really special happened for me. I got a moderate amount of dirt but it sounded very warm, too warm almost, and this is coming from a guy who lives for warm tones. The low end seemed a little muddy and undefined. The dirt from the pedal sounded somewhat different. Like the Dark Matter the Mojo Mojo is ran at upto four times the voltage of ‘regular’ stompboxes (probably done via an internal current amplifier) which gives the pedal more headroom and more dynamic range. In this case I’m not so sure this is an entirely good thing, or at least not what I look for in an overdrive.

After some experimentation I was still struggling to come up with a tone that complimented my rig. I tried all the various gain settings with the toggle switch both up and down, but struggled to get anything concrete. You can get some nice open, gritty tones by turning the bass down low and the treble up somewhat which is contrary to what I generally do with overdrive pedals. The majority of my success came by having the voice switch in the downwards position to cut a lot of the low end. This gave a clear sound, but still not quite I was looking for.

At this stage I was a little disappointed. The Mojo Mojo didn’t seem to have any of that open chime and crunch that I had hoped for, SRV tones seem off the menu here. One great thing about this pedal though is the touch responsiveness, pick lightly and you get a bit of crunch, pick hard and you get a lot more dirt. Very few pedals I have tried have this level of touch responsiveness, alongside the Dark Matter Distortion and the Bearfoot FX Honey Bee OD, this is about the most responsive pedal I have come across, it reacts a lot like a cranked up valve amp.

This discovery brightened my day somewhat so I thought I would try this pedal in front of an already dirty amp. I have to admit I was not expecting much. Thankfully though I was surprised! This pedal seems to really excel in this department, more so than many other drives I have tried and owned. I’m not sure whether the ideology of ‘let’s make this pedal work bet in front of a dirty amp’ was on the agenda when the pedal was being designed, but it certainly seems that way.

In front a dirty rhythm channel I find boosting the treble and using the voice switch to remove some low end gave a really tight sound, the kind favoured by rock and metal rhythm players the world over. I never really got the gain above about nine o clock, I found the volume a lot more effective at this task, pushing the volume up really hit the valves hard and got them cooking which created a really great rhythm tone.

So in front of a lead channel? The same applies; a great sound. You can afford to have the gain a little higher (around eleven o clock was my preference) in this situation and what you are rewarded with is a big, fat, singing and sustaining lead tones that really crack a smile. In this situation the warmth that became a problem on the clean channel is no more, the low end is not muddy and you can actually boost the bass a little for extra roundness and almost fuzzy goodness.

Overall

The Mojo Mojo has disappointed me to be honest. After becoming a fan of the Corona Chorus, Dark Matter Distortion and Flashback Delay within the first few minutes of me trying them out the Mojo Mojo failed to leave that kind of lasting impression. It certainly is not a bad pedal, but perhaps it is just not what I look for personally. A review is of course a personal experience based on opinions but I also make an effort to be as impartial as possible at the same time as there may be things in this pedal that I hate, but that work really well in other people’s setups. The low end is a good example of this. There is a LOT, and I mean a lot. As most of you who read this site will be aware by now I too am a fan of rich, deep, warm tones but I found the Mojo Mojo to be just TOO warm for my needs, now maybe if I was running a telecaster into a Fender Twin we would have a different situation on our hands, but I’m not.

Rating

7.4 – Sadly a reasonably low rating (in comparison to most of those DirtBox) but the Mojo Mojo just did not do it for me. It is an above average stompbox by all means but I just didn’t take to it. It must just be me though as the rest of the Tone Print series pedals I have tried I really like and there is a lot of praise going around for the Mojo Mojo.

Apologies for the (comparatively) short review, but when you don’t click, you just don’t click. Please leave your comments and opinions below, I am particularly interested to know what people are thinking about this one and if anyone agrees and disagrees with me.