Westerlund releases its first pedal, the ONE preamp/overdrive

July 13, 2023 · 4 sources

The Westerlund One is the first pedal release by a young Oklahoma-based builder, Delicious Audio reported on July 13, 2023¹. Guitar Pedal X later described it as the first pedal from the partnership of Matt Stansberry, Shane Henry and Jim Robinson².

The pedal combines a preamp and an overdrive with a separate gain boost that has its own level knob and footswitch¹. Its five clipping modes come from a 3-way switch for hard clipping, soft clipping or no clipping, paired with a 2-way switch for silicon or germanium diodes; with clipping off, the pedal runs in what the maker calls "Amp Mode"¹. The maker says three FET-based op-amp gain stages and a FET tone recovery stage "lend to a very tube-like tone and feel"¹. The boost sits before the gain stage and runs from a subtle volume increase to pushing the sound into amp-like saturation and compression¹³. Tone controls are bass, middle and treble, plus a Bright/Dark switch¹².

Guitar Pedal X listed the controls as bass, middle, treble, gain, boost, level, the hard/soft and Ge/Si clipping switches, a Bright/Dark voicing switch, and engage/bypass and boost footswitches². The enclosure measures 5" L x 3.5" W x 1.5" H and runs on 9V center-negative power at about 50mA¹.

The price is $379². Guitar Pedal X's Stefan Karlsson wrote that the figure was "a little on the higher side of things," saying he would have expected closer to $299². The pedal is available to order from the Westerlund webstore².

Pedal of the Day reported that Vince Gill was Westerlund's first customer and that the ONE is on his pedalboard, and that it is also on Mark Lettieri's board and on Owen Barry's board with The Chicks⁴. The same report quoted Muscle Shoals session guitarist Kelvin Holly calling it "One of the best drives I've played through yet"⁴.