Supro Drive

The Supro Drive is an analog overdrive pedal from Supro that aims to put the sound of the company's vintage tube amplifiers on a pedalboard. Supro describes it as a "Vintage Amp Emulator," and says that by recreating every aspect of the circuitry of a 1960s Supro tube amp, including an actual output transformer, the pedal achieves the magnetic saturation that gives Supro amps their deep, warm, gritty rock and roll tones¹. It sits in the distortion category on Supro's own site, though players looking for amp-in-a-box overdrive pedals are its natural audience.

What sets it apart from most overdrives is that transformer. Rather than only clipping the signal with diodes or op-amps, the pedal runs through a custom output transformer whose behavior can be changed from a switch on the top of the enclosure, which is how Supro gets at the saturation character of the old amps it is modeled on¹².

A 1960s Supro amp sound with a real output transformer

Supro's product page says the pedal captures "the unmistakable sound of our vintage tube amplifiers in an effects pedal," and that engineer Thomas Elliot created an all-new circuit which mimics every aspect of warm Supro tube amp overdrive¹. The key piece of that circuit is the actual output transformer, a component most overdrive pedals do not have. In a tube amp, the output transformer is where much of the saturation and compression character comes from as it is pushed, and putting a real one in the pedal is Supro's way of getting that character at pedal level.

The transformer also has two selectable windings, which is where the pedal's personality switch lives. Supro's page describes a toggle between the different windings of the custom transformer, offering high-headroom Bold sounds or high-gain Rich tones¹. guitar.com's reviewer, Richard Purvis, put it in plainer terms: the switch selects between "high-headroom bold and more compressed rich sounds"².

Supro's site also lists a set of tone presets for the pedal: Amp in a Box, Blues Jam, Gritty Boost, Rock Rhythm, and Saturated Lead¹.

The controls

The control set is small: three knobs and one toggle.

Purvis found the three knobs "pretty self-explanatory" in his guitar.com review². Beyond the panel controls, the pedal also features an assignable expression pedal control for adjusting gain, with preset minimum and maximum settings¹, which lets a player sweep the drive with an expression pedal rather than leaning down to turn the knob.

Power: 9 to 18V, 100mA

The Supro Drive runs on 9 to 18V DC and draws 100mA¹. The wide voltage range means it can take higher-voltage supplies as well as common pedalboard supplies, which some players use for more headroom. It ships with a nine-volt battery included, as Purvis noted in his review².

What reviewers said

guitar.com's Richard Purvis reviewed the pedal in June 2016, when it listed at £169 in the UK, and was positive about its sounds, particularly at low gain settings²:

He found the pedal pretty Supro-like in its rich, throaty character, and concluded that just about everything it does sounds great².

A later guitar.com review, of the Strymon Fairfax, referenced the Supro Drive's price as $219/£189³, matching the $219 list price on Supro's own page¹.

Related pedals

Players comparing amp-in-a-box overdrives can also look at the Supro 1305 Drive, and Supro's line includes the Supro Tremolo for players building a full Supro-style board.

Questions