Behringer TO800 Vintage Tube Overdrive

At first I was a little hesitant, but after all the pedal is pretty much affordable. So I decided to give it a shot. I must say I was impressed by the results.

I used the pedal with a VOX AV15 and an Epiphone ES 339 Pro.

2 really surprising things happened.

1) The amp took the pedal really well ( my personal opinion )
2) The pedal worked really well and the sound was pretty close to the 150$ vintage overdrive pedal. ( not dead on, but pretty close )

So these were the pros of the pedal, let me mention some of the cons that I find important to be aware of before you decide whether to buy it or not.

1) It's not a sturdy pedal. It's plastic completely. So if you are a stage musician who is looking for a dependable pedal, this one would not be my first choice. I would definitely keep this one as a back up pedal though.

2) The design is not the most friendly user design ever ( I am talking about the battery compartment ) Sometimes it could be a little problematic to place the battery. But all and all it works with an adapter too.

To sum up, great pedal for home, but if you are gigging musician you might find it a little under the standards you are looking for.

I've had this little pedal for years now. Its coloring has faded from being exposed to the sun for too long, its rubber cover on the step portion has fallen off...

But the thing still works. For the money I paid for it years ago, I've gotten a ton of value back.

Its pots do feel wonky and it's sometimes hard to get the tone you are looking for out of it. Stepping on the pedal will sometimes turn it on and off as the button below it is not super-reliable. Replacing the battery is always an annoyance due to how the thing is put together — you need to push a spring mechanism in from both ends, then do the same when putting it back together.

I've mainly been using it as a booster for my distortion channels, and it served its purpose just fine for that.

In fact, it still does — it's hooked to my bedroom amp right now.

I got this thing to tighten up the low-end on my 8-string, and also just to play thrash on my 6-string. It sounds really good for both.

The pedal is plastic and it kind of feels like something is going to break soon. Though it has yet to be broken.

The battery goes under the footswitch. Opening the battery compartment is way less scary than the other reviews were saying.

This is the most cost-effective piece of gear I have owned. But that is only because of the price and versatility of the product. You can remove lows from your sound (Very important), you can add gain to your sound (Very important) and you can turn down the overall volume.

As you would expect, it isn't as well made as more expensive pedals. The construction is fairly solid but I doubt it would stand up to much abuse. The knobs on mine are a bit odd too. The level knob is very tight and considerably more difficult to turn than the drive knob, which seems loose by comparison. The tone knob seems to be somewhere in between the two in terms of resistance. This isn't a major issue but it does raise some questions about the construction quality. For home or studio use it shouldn't be a problem but I wouldn't use it for playing live unless I had a backup.

That aside, it sounds great. It's pretty much identical to a tubescreamer. I use it infront of a 6505 as a boost and it performs it's job of tightening up the low end and adding saturation perfectly. Considering it costs a small fraction of what you would pay for the tubescreamer it's modeled on it really is a bargain.

I'm glad I bought this. When I last tried a tubescreamer I was disappointed with the sound, thought "this does nothing", but have since learned how they work, and also learnt that this pedal is basically a tube screamer.

So I use this mostly to drive a dirty amp. I have played with other musicians and it makes my guitar stand out in the mix for solos and such.

It makes my amp shine in clean too.

As a clean boost it will still make your guitar a bit more prominent due to its mid-hump.

It has a stiff input jack socket. Take care of this pedal and it'll treat you well.

My overall rating takes into account the price whereas the others are more objective.

A con is I am sure this is actually lower than unity volume with level set to maximum.