Overdrive SOV-2

The engineering story here is the power supply. A 9V input gets boosted internally to ±15V through a DC-DC converter that took Yuki Hayashi years to develop, with careful filtering to keep converter noise out of the audio path. That tripled voltage rail gives the overdrive dynamics and headroom that 9V circuits physically cannot achieve: soft clipping that responds to picking nuance the way a cranked tube amp does, not the way a transistor circuit approximates it.

Matt Schofield used the SOV-2 exclusively for over seven years as his primary overdrive, eventually getting his own signature version (the MS SOV). Three controls: Drive, Tone, Level. The 90mA current draw means battery operation works but an adapter is recommended. True bypass. Discontinued, but available through Custom Shop runs.