The Maxon OD-880 is an overdrive and soft distortion pedal, and it holds a particular place in the company's history: it was Maxon's first overdrive, originally released in 19761. Godlyke Distributing, Maxon's longtime North American distributor, described it simply as "Maxon's first Overdrive - OD880"2.
What it does
The OD-880 is a soft distortion design rather than a hard-clipping fuzz or a modern overdrive. Aion FX places it as a transitional circuit between the MXR Distortion+ and the Boss OD-1: it added input and output buffers and changed the Drive potentiometer to a flat op-amp boost instead of a gain-modifying control1. In practice, that means the Drive knob works as a clean-ish level boost into the circuit rather than reshaping the gain structure the way a Tube Screamer-style drive control does.
The pedal has no tone control, so any treble shaping has to come from the guitar, the amp, or another pedal1.
Reissues and related pedals
The OD-880 has been reissued a few times, notably in the mid-1990s as well as more recently1. Maxon's overdrive line grew well beyond it, and the company later offered designs such as:
- Maxon OD808 Overdrive
- Maxon OD820
- Maxon OOD-9 Organic Overdrive, the latter being Godlyke's own Organic Overdrive design2
For a wider view of the category, see the site's guide to Overdrive Pedals.
Videos
DeuceII
WESTBALL FAMILY
maruhachi08
Sources (2)
- Quark Vintage Overdrive / Maxon OD-880, Aion FX, 2021-03-19
- ORGANIC OVERDRIVE (OOD-9), Godlyke Distributing, Inc.
