Effect · Overdrive
Blue Heeler
Low-gain blues overdrive with two cascaded clipping stages.
Made to sit at the end of the chain, after reverb and delay. Its bias sits slightly off centre, adding the even harmonics that make it sound like an amp rather than a pedal.
- Version
- 0.1.0
- Processing
- 4x oversampled
- Channels
- True stereo
- Formats
- VST3 · AU · Standalone
Controls
5 parameters| Control | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level | -24 to +12 dB | 0 dB | Output level. The output follows Gain, so it stays near unity as you turn Gain up. |
| Tone | 0 to 100% | 50% | A treble shelf above about 1 kHz: cuts below noon, boosts above it, flat at noon. |
| Gain | 0 to 100% | 30% | One dual-gang pot driving both stages, so they rise together. |
| Mode | Standard, Custom | Standard | The S / C switch. Standard trims the lows before they reach the clippers. Custom lets more bass in, rolls off a little lower and clips a little rounder, for a fuller, smoother tone with longer sustain. |
| Bypass | On / Off | Off | The footswitch. |
How it works
Stage one clips softly through diodes in its feedback loop. It's logarithmic with no hard ceiling, so picking dynamics survive.
Stage two runs into the rails of its discrete op-amp, which rounds off the peaks and gives the amp-like compression once the gain is up.
Signal path
- Input buffer
- Gain stage 1Soft diode clipping.
- Gain stage 2Op-amp into its rails.
- Active treble control
- Output buffer