The Benevale Colt 45 is an overdrive pedal built by Benevale, a boutique company based in New York City. It was designed with recording in mind by builders who describe themselves as music studio engineers, and their stated goal was a transparent overdrive that reproduces the organic slight breakup of a tube amplifier pushed into its zone1.
What it does
Benevale describes the Colt 45 as a transparent overdrive: rather than reshaping your core tone, it aims to add the slight, organic breakup you get from a tube amp that has been pushed. The builders say they designed it from their experience as music studio engineers who wanted more articulation and organization in their sound1.
"Our goal with the Colt 45 was to create a transparent overdrive that gives you the organic slight breakup from a pushed tube amplifier that is in its zone."
The pedal is aimed at a specific pairing. According to the builder, the Colt 45 works best with a Fender-style amplifier set clean or at the edge of breakup, where the pedal supplies the gentle drive on top of an already open platform1. That places it in the transparent, low-to-moderate-gain end of the overdrive family, as opposed to the heavier clipping of distortion pedals or the saturated fuzz character of fuzz pedals.
Controls
The Colt 45 keeps things simple with two knobs, and the builder notes that they interact1:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Drive | Sets the drive level. At low settings, around ten or eleven o'clock, the output volume needs to come up to compensate1 |
| Output volume | Sets the output level. When drive is at ten or eleven o'clock, the builder says to raise it to three or four o'clock on the dial1 |
The drive and volume knobs are meant to be set together: low drive settings call for a much higher output volume setting to keep the level where you want it1.
The pedal uses a true bypass footswitch system, so when it is off, your signal passes through without the pedal's circuitry in the path1.
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Questions
What kind of pedal is the Benevale Colt 45?
It is an overdrive pedal built by Benevale, a boutique company based in New York City. The builders describe it as a transparent overdrive intended to give the organic slight breakup you hear from a tube amplifier that has been pushed into its zone. It was designed by people with experience as music studio engineers, with recording in mind.
What amp does the Colt 45 work best with?
According to the builder, the Colt 45 works best with a Fender-style amplifier that is set clean or at the edge of breakup. The pedal is meant to add the slight, organic breakup of a pushed tube amp on top of that kind of platform, rather than to heavily distort the signal on its own.
How do the drive and volume knobs interact?
The two controls are meant to be set together. If you run the drive knob low, at around ten or eleven o'clock, the builder says you must increase the output volume to three or four o'clock on the dial to compensate. In other words, low drive settings call for a significant volume boost to keep the level up.
Sources (1)
- Benevale Colt 45 Overdrive, Delicious Audio, 2024-04-12