Pete Cornish ST-2

The Pete Cornish ST-2 is a hand built EQ and tone shaping pedal from British maker Pete Cornish, a company best known for the custom effects boards it has built for professional players. The ST-2 was originally designed for inclusion in the range of effects boards created for Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, and was later released as a standalone pedal in 2007¹². Delicious Audio described it in 2017 as "a rather simple EQ/tone shaping stompbox"³.

Inside, the ST-2 is a discrete Class A transistor multi-stage amplifier with adjustable Gain and Tone correction circuitry, preceded by an RFI rejecting input and bypass buffer stage¹. Pete Cornish says that used on its own it can correct for deficiencies in tone or signal strength of instruments or amps, and that used in an effects chain it can correct or alter the tonal characteristics of other effects units⁴⁵. Each unit is hand built, wired and tested by Pete and Lynda Cornish¹.

The controls: Gain, Bass, Treble and Volume

The ST-2 has four wide range controls: GAIN, TREBLE, BASS and VOLUME¹. The enclosure is a rugged die-cast box with Chicken-Head pointer knobs and a heavy duty custom made all-metal footswitch with a Hi-Brite LED¹.

The Bass and Treble controls work in both directions: higher numbers set boost at bass and treble frequencies, and lower numbers set cut⁴. That makes the ST-2 usable as a corrective tool as well as a booster, since you can pull back harsh treble or thin bass rather than only adding.

Pete Cornish publishes the Neutral or Unity settings so you can start from a clean slate: Bass and Treble at 12 o'clock (number 6 on the pointer knobs), Gain fully counter-clockwise (number 1), and Volume at 3 o'clock (number 8)⁴⁵. From there, Gain alone adds up to 15dB of clean level at all frequencies, and the two tone controls shape either side of the spectrum by up to 16dB in either direction.

Power: 9.6V, 20mA, center negative

The ST-2 runs from a DC adapter rated at a fully stabilized 9.6V, capable of supplying 20mA, with the center pin negative¹. The connector is a 2.1mm coax type, tip negative¹. Pete Cornish recommends the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus adapter as meeting its criteria, and the BOSS PSA series if only a single unit is to be powered⁴.

The minimum load the ST-2 expects to see is 10 Kohm⁴, and its maximum output is 1.5 Vrms, +6dBm, or 4v peak to peak⁴, comfortably above what most amps and pedals need.

Is it a clone of the Colorsound Overdriver?

Aion FX traced the ST-2 circuit in 2020 and published its findings as the Sigma Vintage Drive project. Their conclusion: "it's clear that the ST-2 is definitely based on the Overdriver"². But they also found that "several values have been changed throughout the circuit and so the overall voicing will be different, it's not a direct clone"².

So the ST-2 is a reworked Colorsound Overdriver rather than a reproduction. The Colorsound Overdriver itself was an updated version of an earlier circuit, a third revision from 1972, and Aion FX offers it as a separate project called the Plasma²⁷. Players who want the original circuit unmodified can still find vintage units; TONEHOME notes of one example that "this particular unit is still unmodded"⁸.

Build, price and where it sits

Aion FX characterizes Pete Cornish pedals as extremely expensive, but with "the build quality and reliability is unmatched"². Delicious Audio reported in October 2017 that the ST-2 "retails for around $700 new on Reverb.com"³. Pete Cornish sells direct, with orders taken by email and by phone, and each unit carries a twelve month warranty from date of purchase against original manufacturing faults, voided if the guarantee labels are damaged or removed and not transferable¹⁴.

For players comparing Pete Cornish tone shapers, the ST-2 sits alongside the company's other pedals, including the Pete Cornish TB-83 treble boost, the Pete Cornish TB-83 Extra, and the Pete Cornish Battery Free GC-1 overdrive/boost. As a boost pedal with active EQ, it also compares with other boost pedals and EQ pedals on the market, though few of them share its Overdriver-derived circuit².

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