Greer Amps Black Mountain Crunch Drive

The Black Mountain Crunch Drive is a crunch drive pedal from Greer Amps, the boutique builder based in Athens, Georgia. Greer describes it as a "Giant stack based CRUNCH drive!" aimed at the natural, amp-like crunch of British heads, from simply adding crunch to what the maker calls "that famous midrange snarl and growl of those metal panel amps that came out just after the plexi era"¹. In other words, the target is the post-Plexi, metal panel Marshall sound rather than a modern high-gain distortion.

The pedal is part of a wider family of Greer drive pedals, alongside the Greer Amps Gorilla Warfare MkII, the Greer Amps Hammer and the Greer Amps Sucker Punch Distortion, and it sits in the distortion lane while leaning toward the amp-like end of overdrive²¹.

A British-style crunch drive

The Black Mountain grew out of a specific tone chase. Pedal of the Day reports that the pedal is "rooted in a tone quest for the sound of one particular recording of a crunchy British amp"⁴. Greer's own product page adds a colorful detail about the development process: the circuit "was inspired by many conversations with many friends, and developed with The Darkness' album Permission to Land blasting in the background"¹.

Delicious Audio's coverage, updated in December 2023, places the inspiration more concretely, describing the pedal as "inspired at least in part by the post-Plexi era Marshall amps, also known for their metal panel"⁵. For a player, that means the pedal is voiced for midrange-forward crunch with growl, the territory of late-70s British stacks, rather than scooped modern distortion or smooth blues overdrive.

Greer also says the pedal works for bass players as well as guitarists, "bringing new dimensions of vintage tone to guitarists (and bass players, too!)"¹, a claim Delicious Audio repeats⁵. Bass players can find it in the bass pedals category as well.

Design and circuit

The heart of the pedal is its clipping stage. Greer states that "the two clipping diodes responsible for the drive in this circuit are purposefully imbalanced, selected to impart the proper texture and crunch"¹. Pedal of the Day and Delicious Audio both repeat the same description of the deliberately mismatched diode pair⁴⁵. In a diode-clipping drive, using two diodes that do not match means the top and bottom halves of the waveform are clipped differently, which is one way a designer shapes texture rather than just amount of drive.

The circuit's reach extends beyond the finished pedal:

• RockBoard's PedalPedia lists the pedal as an analog circuit and hosts a demo by R.J. Ronquillo³.
• GuitarPCB offers a Black Mountain-based bonus PCB, describing it as "based on the Greer Amps Black Mountain"⁶.
• Greer Amps pedals are designed by Nick Greer and hand-built in Athens, Georgia, as MusicRadar's Trevor Curwen noted in his review of another Greer pedal: "Greer Amps pedals are designed by Nick Greer and hand-built in Athens, Georgia (hometown of REM)"⁷.

Power, connections and specifications

The Black Mountain runs on a standard negative center 2.1mm power supply and accepts anything from 9 to 18 volts DC¹. Greer specifies "9-18 volt neg. center pin ONLY," so the polarity matters: a positive center supply is out¹. Current draw is 10mA at 9V¹, light enough for most isolated power supplies. The enclosure measures 4.39" x 2.34" x 1.06", a compact standard-size box¹.

Buying one

The list price is $199 as listed on Greer's product page in October 2026¹. Pedals are built to order and ship within 1 to 2 weeks of order and payment¹, a practice Delicious Audio also reported in December 2023⁵. The pedal carries a 5 year warranty to the original owner¹.

Videos

Click to load

Click to load

Click to load

Questions