Tone City Durple

The Tone City Durple is a mini overdrive pedal, collaboratively designed by Tone City and Andertons TV presenter Peter Honoré. Tone City describes it as a versatile mini overdrive that "offers rich and responsive low-to-medium gain sounds based on Tone City's best-selling Mandragora overdrive"¹. In other words, it takes the company's Mandragora circuit as its starting point and reshapes the EQ section for players who want direct control over their mid-range.

Peter Honoré, who uses the pedal, describes it in his own words on Tone City's artist page¹:

A low-to-medium gain overdrive based on the Mandragora

The Durple sits in Tone City's range as a compact drive voiced for the low-to-medium gain territory many players use as an always-on pedal or a light crunch on top of a clean amp. Its circuit is drawn from the Tone City Mandragora, which Tone City calls its best-selling overdrive¹.

The key change from the Mandragora is in the tone shaping. Where the Mandragora carries a Pre (presence) knob, the Durple replaces it with a Mid control. Tone City explains the intent¹:

That mid cut or boost is what separates the Durple from its parent circuit in practice: scooped settings sit the guitar back in a mix, while a boost pushes it forward for solos or cutting lead lines¹.

The controls and the two engines

Tone City's specification for the Durple describes two engines, A and B, each with its own boost level when turned on alone. The normal input level is listed as -10dB, and Engine A turned on alone gives a boost level of 11dB².

The control set centers on the Mid control described above, alongside the gain and level functions you would expect from an overdrive of this type. Peter Honoré's description of the pedal as a "super versatile smooth drive" points to the Mid knob as the feature that gives it its range³.

Power and connections

The Durple's connections are listed by Tone City with an input impedance of 500K and an output impedance of 10K¹.

Connection-wise, the pedal lists an input impedance of 500K and an output impedance of 10K¹. Its size, 9.4 x 4.5 x 4.8 cm and 0.26 kg, is in line with Tone City's mini-pedal format, which saves board space compared with a full-size enclosure¹.

The Durple in the Tone City family

The Durple is one node in a small family of related Tone City drives. The most direct relative is the Tone City Double Durple, a dual overdrive also associated with Peter Honore. The Double Durple houses two circuits that "can be used independently or together," each with its own gain, volume, and tone controls plus extra tweakable features⁴. Its Durple side is based on the original Durple pedal, while its Double side is a modded version of the Tone City Blues Man's sibling, the Blues Man itself⁴. The Blues Man shares the Durple's power arrangement, running from a DC 9V adapter with true bypass⁵.

For players comparing within the range, the Durple's position is clear: it is the mini, mid-controllable member of the family, with the Mandragora's gain character and a smaller footprint¹.

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