Wampler Underdog

The Wampler Underdog was an overdrive pedal, and it is long gone from the catalog: Wampler describes it as "the since-discontinued Underdog overdrive"¹. What keeps players asking about it is its place in Brad Paisley's rig and in Wampler's signature line. Paisley's first Wampler pedal was the Underdog, and Wampler credits the way it "produced similar tones to the lauded Nobels ODR-S with more control for fine-tuning his sound" for winning him over².

What it does

The Underdog was Wampler's take on the Nobels ODR-S, a low-gain overdrive prized for transparent, open-sounding breakup. Wampler's version aimed at the same territory while adding more control for fine-tuning the tone². Gearnews put it more bluntly, calling the circuit "a Nobel ODR-S clone"³.

The Brad Paisley connection and what came after

The Underdog matters today mostly because of where it led. Paisley had been using it and asked Wampler to offer it again. In a Sweetwater demo video from February 2019, Paisley said: "there's another pedal he made me called an Underdog that I've been using and I said you really need to offer it no one e[lse has it]"⁴. Mitch Gallagher, presenting the video, described it as "Wampler's long-since-discontinued Underdog Overdrive"⁴.

That request produced the Wampler Paisley Drive Deluxe, which Gearnews framed as "Underdog meets Paisley Drive": the discontinued Underdog circuit brought back alongside the Paisley Drive in one pedal³. Wampler's own product page for the Paisley Drive Deluxe tells the same story, saying the first Wampler pedal Brad fell in love with was the since-discontinued Underdog overdrive².

For a player tracing Wampler's overdrive line, the Underdog sits at the start of the Paisley signature series, alongside later pedals like the Euphoria and the Clarksdale.

Videos

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