Anasounds Extended Savage

The Anasounds Extended Savage is an analog overdrive and booster pedal, a limited edition version of Anasounds' Savage overdrive. It uses the same circuit board as the Savage, with tone, gain and output volume controls, but adds two things the standard pedal does not expose on its panel: a clipping switch and a voicing knob¹.

The voicing knob is the pedal's distinguishing control. RockBoard's PedalPedia describes it as a way to "walk from vintage to modern tones," which puts the tonal character of the overdrive stage on a dial rather than locking it to one voicing¹. The clipping switch moves between silicon and germanium diodes, the two classic clipping flavors in overdrive circuits, so a player can compare them without opening the enclosure².

What it does to your sound

The Savage circuit the Extended Savage is built on is described by Anasounds as more than a boost or overdrive. The maker says the pedal "becomes, in addition to a simple boost/overdrive, a beautiful enhancer, able to magnify the tone of the guitar/amplifier duo," and that it "will provide clean tone and overdrive at the same time"⁴. That blend of clean and saturated signal is what the gain control shapes: Anasounds says it blends the saturated and clean sound and can push the overdrive to saturate further⁴.

Delicious Audio's Paolo De Gregorio placed the Savage in a specific family when he described it as a "Klone overdrive," meaning a take on the famous US transparent overdrive circuit⁵. For a player, that points to a midrange-honest, amp-like drive rather than a mid-humped Tube Screamer style, though the voicing knob and clipping switch give the Extended Savage a wider range than a straight clone.

Controls

The gain control's clean/saturated blend is worth noting for beginners: rather than only adding dirt, it mixes your dry signal with the overdriven one, which is how the pedal keeps the clean tone present at the same time as the drive⁴.

Where it sits among the Savage versions

Anasounds positions the Extended Savage as "a version between the mk1 and the mk2, in a small footprint"¹. The Savage line has several entries:

• The Savage Originale mk1 reissue, a reissue of the first Savage with a large body. Anasounds says the mk1 sounded "warmer and more vintage than the mk2," with different clipping management and some changed component values⁶.
• The Savage mk2, whose voicing and clipping options live inside the enclosure. Guitar Pedal X's Stefan Karlsson described it as having "2 additional trim-pots - Voicing and Light/LED, alongside 3 x 2-way Switches - Treble Boost, OD_Bass Boost and Germanium/Silicon Clipping internal, not externally accessible"⁷¹.
• The Extended Savage, which brings the voicing control and the silicon/germanium clipping choice out onto the panel in a compact box¹.
• The Savage & High Voltage ltd edition, which packs one Savage overdrive and one High Voltage overdrive into the same enclosure⁸.

The practical difference between the Extended Savage and the mk2 is access. Both offer voicing and germanium/silicon clipping options, but on the mk2 those are internal trim-pots and switches you reach by opening the pedal, while the Extended Savage puts a voicing pot and a clipping switch on the outside for adjustment between songs, or mid-gig¹⁷.

Availability and history

The Extended Savage was sold as a limited edition, finished in silver plexiglas with black engraving in place of the classical bamboo used on the standard pedal, described by Anasounds as one of the creations of Magali¹. It is an analog overdrive pedal, listed at 229,00 € with a weight of 0,4 kg².

The enclosure itself was part of the limited run: silver plexiglas with black engraving instead of Anasounds' classical bamboo, described as one of the creations of Magali¹. As a limited series, the Extended Savage was offered at a list price of 229,00 €², so a player looking for one today is looking at the secondhand market.

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