The MXR Sugar Drive is the company’s take on the Klon Centaur mania!
One of the few mini-klones available on the market (at least for now), the Sugar Drive ‘s simplicity is deceptive. The drive knob in this circuit blends the clean guitar signal with the overdriven one as you turn it up, while the circuit’s headroom in increased through what is referred to as a “Charge Pump.” A switch lets you choose between bypass or MXR’s buffered bypass.
We added the Sugar to our comprehensive article about the best Klon clones.
Here’s the video of the Sugar Drive we took directly inside our NAMM 2018 booth.
MXR Sugar Drive M294, Builder’s Notes
The MXR Sugar Drive provides a diverse range of clear and transparent overdrive tones, from sauced up boosting to blown-tube distortion. It’s based on a rare overdrive pedal that has acquired a mythical reputation among fanatical tone-seekers thanks to its unique circuit design.
The key elements of that circuit design are the Drive control and something called a voltage doubler. First, the Drive control on this pedal doesn’t just increase the intensity of the overdrive pedal. It starts with your clean signal and then blends it with the overdrive effect as you turn it up, replicating the smooth transition of an amplifier going from clean to dirty. The voltage doubler increases overall headroom, which opens everything up nicely.
Of course, we had to put the MXR touch on this circuit. If you’re all about true bypass, then you’re in luck—this pedal uses it by default. The original used buffered bypass, though, and we know there’s a lot of players out there who don’t want to fix something that isn’t broken. They’re in luck, too—just flick the Buffer switch on the side of the pedal to enable buffered bypassing.
With a simple three-knob setup and an MXR mini housing, this is the go-to overdrive to have on your pedalboard. It’s versatile and it saves space, and unlike the original pedals it’s based on, it won’t cost you thousands of dollars.
