The Marshall GV-2 Guv’nor Plus Effects Pedal is a sweet distortion/overdrive pedal. The Guv’nor has control knobs for gain, deep, bass, mid, treble, and volume. The cool thing about this pedal is the volume is a very effective clean boost that can easily boost your preamp into sweet overdrive.

With the tone controls you can easily cut or boost any of the four frequency ranges much like a small EQ pedal. With a turn of a knob or two I can get any type of overdrive or distorion I want. I can boost the mids, or scoop them out for a very heavy tone. I was also thinking about the Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal but since this can give me really good blues tones with the overdrive and also take me into raging distortion I decided on this pedal instead.

This pedal sounds great on all of my low wattage tube amps and sounds incredilbe when paired up with the Marshall Reflector Reverb pedal driving two amps. I’ve been playing this into two small class A tube amps and the tone is incredible.

Since none of my low wattage tube amps have built in reverb I decided to check out a reverb pedal. I purchased a Marshall Reflector Stereo Reverb pedal after reading a lot of reviews on reverb pedals. From the moment I opened the box I was impressed with the quality of the pedal. Its housed in a really nice metal case and built like a tank. Once I plugged it in I was amazed of the sound qaulity of the reverb.

Since the unit is stereo I plugged the main channel into my Fender Vibro Champ and the secondary reverb channel into my Kalamazoo Model Two. Both amps are about 5-6 watts of class A tube sweetness and they sound great when played together. I plugged my butterscotch blonde tele into my Marshall Guv’nor pedal set as a clean boost and from there to the reverb pedal.

I set the two amps about 5" apart. Without any pedals on I adjusted the volume levels on the amps so they were as close to equal as possible. With these amps the tone circuits are very simple, they don’t boost anything, they only take away so I turn them on 10 so they don’t remove any tone from the amp. I control all my tone from pickup selection (neck/bridge) and from the tone controls on the Marshall Guv’nor pedal. It has 4 bands of pretty decent EQ, enough for my needs and its far better than the tone controls on the amps.

The Reflector Reverb pedal has 4 different reverbs you can choose from. Hall, Plate, and two Spring settings. You can also control the duration of the reverb, the depth and the level. Hearing this reverb in stereo through these two amps was simply amazing. I don’t use a lot of effects, I like just a hint of reverb to add some sparkle to my tone.

After trying all the different reverb settings I like the plate reverb the best. I have the level set rather low and it sounds great, it really adds body to my tone coming through the two amps in stereo. The over all sound is fuller and richer with an incredibly sparkly tone.

When I add a pedal or two into my setup I always go through a ritual to tweak my tone to its fullest. The first thing I do is I get my amp to sound its best with no effects. I set my amp to playing volume and tweak it until I get the best possible tone from my amp with no effects at normal playing volume. This way I know even if my effects fail me my tone from the amp itself will be the best it possibly can be.  With good tube amps you can coax some incredibly sweet tone out of them with no effects so its best to tweak them first.

Once my amps are singing with the sweetest possible tone I then add in my reverb. I’m using the Marshall Reflector Reverb pedal. I adjust it to just a hint of reverb to thicken and sweeten my tone. Plus its a really cool effect in stereo, it really adds depth and dimension to the tone. I set the reverb to the settings I like for my clean "amp only" tone. I make sure that my tone sounds good with the reverb on or off so that I have two distinct tones that both sound good.

From there I add in my overdrive/distortion. I am using the Marshall Guv’nor Overdrive/Distortion. It’s the first pedal after my guitar and it feeds into the stereo reverb that feeds the amps. I use this pedal in a few ways so there are times I need to adjust the settings. Normally I use it as a clean boost to overdrive my tube amps and add more bottom end and other tone tweaking. But there are times I also like to crank the gain up or scoop out the mids. I’m considering getting a couple pedals so I can set them up for different overdrives or distortions. This way I can setup one for my blues tone, another for my rock tone and another for my metal tone.

I was considering getting a graphic EQ pedal, but with the great tone controls on the Marshall Guv’nor I don’t need one. I am really impressed with the Marshall Effects Pedals. They are built like tanks and sound incredible. Plus they have great features and really add some options for your tone.