The Analog Drive from Elektron is a pedal designed to provide eight different kinds of distortion in one stompbox, accomplishing this task with completely analog circuit paths. Not only can you dial in a distortion perfectly tailored to your needs, you can also store your tonal preset in one of 100 user-programmable slots. To do this, simply use the provided footswitches to select a preset, which will be displayed on the dual-digit, seven-segment LED display located towards the top of the pedal. Now, just hold down the Bypass / Select footswitch and you're good to go. Alternatively, you can work the pedal in manual mode, thereby manipulating distortion sounds on the fly without accidentally overriding any presets. Manual mode is triggered by a switch on the upper right hand corner of the pedal.
Distortion isn't the only tonal characteristic offered on the plate here; the pedal also features bass, midrange, and treble controls, as well as a knob that can sweep between different midrange frequencies. In a static position, this knob affects the Mid knob, but hook up an expression pedal to the appropriate 1/4" jack and you can sweep through the midrange with your foot, accomplishing a sort of wah effect.
An additional 1/4" expression jack, labelled "Exp Gain," allows you to create gain swells. With a pedal hooked up in the manner, you can crescendo into the full glory of a distorted tone, rather than merely turning the pedal on and off. For further control, the Analog Drive can both accept and send MIDI messages via 5-pin DIN ports. A power supply is included with the pedal.
- Clean Boost: A boost ranging from 0 to 20 dB, run at a high internal voltage, this option gives you plenty of headroom.
- Mid Drive: Let's say this distortion just "screams" to be compared with a famous green stompbox. If more bass is needed, just increase the Low EQ setting.
- Dirty Drive: For swampy, dirty sounds; a gate-like timbre can be obtained at low gain settings. Higher gain results in an old school fuzzy sound.
- Big Dist: Adds distortion without skimping on the bass response. A good reference would be a Marshall stack cranked to eleven with a lot of power amp distortion.
- Focused Dist: This distortion gives you a strong focus on the upper mids, similar to the mythological horse/man pedal, but with more flexibility.
- Harmonic Fuzz: An octave fuzz with a smooth feel, this distortion is modeled on a fuzz box currently out of production.
- High Gain: A clearer sound with lots of gain, allowing you to maintain string separation and achieve great sustain.
- Thick Gain: This setting adds a lot of gain, even more than many preamps. It can give you a really crispy tone when palm-muting the lower strings and using the EQ to add some top end.
- 100% analog signal path
- 8 analog distortion circuits
- 3-band analog EQ with sweepable midrange
- 2 expression-pedal inputs for gain swells and wah-like tones
- MIDI I/O for MIDI messaging
- Programmable Presets