One Control Anodised Brown Distortion

The One Control Anodised Brown Distortion is a mini-format distortion pedal, one of the bargain mini pedals MusicRadar notes players have been spoiled by of late¹. It is built around a simple idea: the sound of a cranked stack without losing the way an amp responds. As the maker's description has it, it is designed to provide cranked stack distortion while retaining amp feel, rather than feeling flat and undynamic¹.

What it does

MusicRadar's reviewer Trevor Curwen found the pedal covers a wide gain range with its two knobs:

• Gain: at higher settings it delivers bags of sustain with a harmonic edge under your fingertips¹
• Tone: works over a completely useful range, with no nasty extremes, just differing degrees of top-end content¹

On the gain range itself, Curwen's verdict was that it will go from crunchy raunch to stack at full pelt, all with loads of touch sensitivity¹. That touch response is the practical payoff of the amp-feel design: how hard you dig in changes what you get, which is not always the case with high-gain pedals.

The BJF buffer

All of the One Control BJF mini-pedal series, this pedal included, use a BJF buffer to enhance signal clarity on long signal chains¹. For players running several pedals, that means the pedal can sit on a board without the tone loss a long chain of true-bypass pedals can bring. One Control makes a range of related drives in the same family, including the Dyna Red Distortion, the Rebel Red Distortion and the Purple Plexifier.

What reviewers said

MusicRadar's overall verdict, from Trevor Curwen's review:

That framing is worth noting for players shopping by genre: the pedal is described as doing rock and metal well, but not being limited to them¹. For other distortion options across the market, see the Distortion Pedals page.

Videos

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