Marshall Guv’nor

Thanks go to Ernesto for this submission.

This pedal is associated with some wellknown lead tones, but it either works with an amp or it doesn’t. It’s made for driving a Marshall JCM 100 Watter I believe, because then it gives the optimum result in my opinion. But it’s actually a quite versatile pedal, kind of like the pedal ancestor of the JVM amps, designed to be able to emulate all Marshall tones from low gain to high gain, in a time where that included hot rodded Marshalls, because there was no production model that could provide the hardrock tones some got out of it without hotrodding or modding. It does a wonderful job in crunching a JCM-type setting into brown Van Halen territory, without having to brown-out the amp like VH did.

It surprisingly enough is not a tonesucker, and it ages quite well, gets more grainy and thick sounding with the years, and as you can see by the state of it, and notwithstanding the extreme care I take of my gear, the mileage shows.

Some parts will have to be replaced anytime soon I’m afraid, because this pedal was made in a time that’s not known as the finest hour for UK manufacturing in terms of product quality. The biggest problem is the switch, which is a drag to replace because of the small board that’s connected to it and that does the signal dispatching. I want to keep the board because the value drops once that is gone.

The housing is thick and heavy steel, the housing will never give in, whatever you do with the pedal, the pedal needs 3 (three!) velcro bands to provide enough adhesive power to keep it to the pedalboard.

A nifty feature is the FX insert. That was actually a very good idea. the inserted effect kicks in after the gainstage, in a serial way, so you can add for instance a chorus or univibe effect or a delay even, and that effect will be engaged together with the guv’nor, for instance if you fancy a delay or phase or chorus or vibe with your lead, this was a very effecive way to do that with only one stomp. The effects is inserted by means of a standard insert cable, dual mono jack on one side, TRS on the other.

This distortion pedal is from an era where most cars still had carburettors. Most of you will not have driven a carburettor engine car, but they were much nicer to drive than injection engine cars, because they “hung on to the gas”. That is exactly what this pedal does, it is very nice to play through, and makes you sound tight and fluid. In that sense it doesn’t ruin the fluidness of a good tube amp and a good guitar, it enhances it. One of the nicest feeling distortion pedals ever made in my opinion, and the sounds are very good also, but delicate tweaking is necessary. The tone controls are very effective, half a millimeter on any dial will have a great effect on the tone. The same goes for the gain control, and the level control can provide a hefty boost.

I suspect quite a few modern pedals are modelled after this pedal, but none have the same feel.

My wife likes me to use this pedal on the clean/crunch orange channel of my JVM with quite a bit of gain for chugging rhythm sounds, with the texture of the amps of yore, but the tightness of the modern metal amps. Does a good alter bridge type rhythm when played with a mahogany dual humbucker shortscale guitar and works great with baritones ad 7-strings also.

I don’t know whether or not these are easy to find. I guess they might be relatively easy to buy, but often not in original state, because of the production quality. Mine is 100% original, I actually bought a few spare parts shortly after I bought the pedal in 1990 or so. My pedal was manufactured in 1989 by the way, and I bought it new. I still have the original box also.  Not that I ever would consider selling it, I don’t like selling gear that I’ve used for a long time, because I know it too well. The time it takes for me to learn the different facets of a new pedal often kill all benefits of a new pedal sounding better or being of better quality than the old one, and I’ll use what works for me.

The cool thing with this pedal is that you can get JCM800 sounds from a fender HRD or another US style tube amp with it, not some of the sounds, but basically the full range of sounds. That is the way I mostly use this pedal myself: instant JCM800 sounds from my Fender if I also need good cleans for a gig, because that’s something Marshalls just don’t do, you can’t make a Marshall amp to sound as nice as a fender in clean mode, but you can get damn’ close to Marshall head crunch with a Fender using this pedal. I also use other pedals that give a Marshall sound. If I want a more Plexi style sound, I’ll use a COT50 if I need very little gain, but the moment I need more gainy Plexi tones, I’ll just kick in the Guv’Nor because it feels more fluid and it’s just nicer to play.

For more pictures of the MIII and other Classic, Rare & Vintage pedals then check out the Classic, Rare & Vintage Vault in the DirtBox forums and whilst you are there, why not submit your own?