LunaStone Big Fella TrueOverDrive

The LunaStone Big Fella TrueOverDrive is a two-channel overdrive pedal from the Danish maker LunaStone, built around the company's TrueOverDrive circuit. LunaStone's product page describes it as "a massive overdrive that is super fat, yet with a firm low end", blending smoothly with the amp when cranked¹. The German magazine Bonedo went further, calling it "a high-quality high-gain overdrive"². It is a high-gain take on the overdrive format, aimed at modern rock, and it became the foundation for much of LunaStone's drive range.

Cascading gain stages, not diode clipping

Most overdrive pedals, from the Tube Screamer onward, shape their distortion by clipping a diode. The Big Fella takes a different route. In a LunaStone review post, Kyle Ragan wrote that "this pedal does not rely on clipping a diode, but on cascading gain stages"⁴. LunaStone's Michael Casswell described the same idea across the range: "The concept and design that breaks away from merely clipping diodes, but rely on cascaded gain stages"⁶. In a Tone Report piece on the Wise Guy, LunaStone put it plainly: "the basic design of our TrueOverDrive circuit is not based on your standard clipping-diode approach"⁷.

For a player, the practical difference is in how the pedal cleans up. In the ProGuitarShop demo, Andy from ProGuitarShop said the TrueOverDrive technology "gives you plenty of harmonic overtones and gain while allowing you to clean up your tone" without sounding fizzy on the decay³.

The two channels

The Big Fella carries two overdrive modes. In the ProGuitarShop demo, Andy described "the meaty punch and grit of the Drive and Boost channels", calling them "the two super fat OD modes", and said the pedal was "Created with modern rock in mind"³. LunaStone has also demonstrated the pedal "with both OD1 and OD 2 settings so you can hear the difference it makes when you take it up a notch"⁵, showing the two channels at different gain levels.

Where it sits in the LunaStone range

The Big Fella is not a one-off: it is the core of LunaStone's TrueOverDrive family. Guitarist's Trevor Curwen wrote that "the Big Fella TrueOverDrive circuit is the core that our Three Stage Rocket and TrueOverDrive 1 and 2 build upon"⁸. Steen Grøntved of LunaStone has called it the company's most popular drive, with a built-in booster, saying "TOD 1 builds on the backbone of our most popular drive, Big Fella"⁹. Pedals that grew from it include the Three Stage Rocket, the TrueOverDrive 2 and the TrueOverDrive TOD 1⁸¹⁰. LunaStone has also described the Big Fella as "delivering transparent overdrive" in an artist feature¹¹.

What reviewers said

• Pedal-of-the-day.com: Kyle Ragan reviewed the pedal for the site before his conclusion⁴, and Pedal of the Day also ran it as a video review on Kyle's channel¹².
• Bonedo: the German magazine reviewed it as a high-gain overdrive².
• Guitarist: Trevor Curwen wrote up the pedal for the magazine⁸.
• ProGuitarShop: Andy's demo video covered both channels and the cleanup behavior³.

LunaStone has also posted a demo by Alan Iarussi playing the Big Fella with both OD1 and OD2 settings⁵.

Videos

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Questions