The Gurus Doubledecker MkII is a reduced version of the original, a beastly 4-footswitch, dual Marshall-in-a-box that alone would occupy half a pedalboard. This new version trims a bunch of functions overlooked by most players while keeping intact tone, two-channel configuration, and sculpting features.
Sporting a real, high-voltage tube at the core of the preamp circuit, the Doubledecker offers two stackable Plexi-style channels with separate controls and footswitches. Gain and Volume knobs are complemented by smaller controls for Tone and Presence on each channel, while a toggle switch engages the “Jose Mod,” a popular mod made to JMC amps by Van Halen’s and Steve Vai’s tech Jose Arredondo.
However, the two channels are slightly different tonally: Channel “Floor I” features Germanium NOS Diodes, which shine on softer drive tones perfectly simulating the behavior of a tube amp on the edge of breakup, while “Floor II” has LED diodes in Symmetrical configuration producing smooth, complex, and compressed lead tones.
The routing can be inverted (II > I) by using the separate ins and outs on the back panel.
Check out the videos of the Gurus Doubledecker MkII below. We added it to our super comprehensive article about the best Plexi-style pedals.
Gurus Doubledecker MkII, Builder’s Notes
Designed between 2012 and 2014, and released in late 2015, The older and bigger GURUS 1959 Doubledecker along with the Echosex 2°, was of our flagship products that has won awards from some of the most important magazines in the world like Premier Guitar, GuitarPlayer, Vintage Guitar. as well as being used live on stage and in studio by many well known pro artists.
Many double OD/Dist pedals have been released since that time, and many of you have given us a lot of suggestions to make it better, and we believe we have!
Here is the newest DOUBLEDECKER MKII
Size: the new enclosure make it one of the smallest double pedals on the market, considering it’s a Tube powered pedal.. only 3,5” x 5”!!
Connections: the smart double connections set, lets you use it as a standard pedal with one main input and one main output, or split to two separate pedals to be used into two different loops of your looper/switcher.. or even to invert the order of the channels chain for infinite boosting options.Switching: Now you have only 2 footswitches to handle, but the two channels can be stacked together and boost each other. Thanks to the Clipping option switch, plus the 4 controls of each channels, you can obtain a huge palette of colors for your tone, up to 10 different combinations.
Engineering: It has been very hard work to design this innovative pedal, trying to make it sound like a real overdriven amplifier. We used a different approach from all other well known circuits that mimic the “Marshall Tone”. We started from an Hi-Voltage (150-300Volts) Tube preamp section, assisted by our secret weapon Op-Amp to tailor the tone. The rich harmonic content, the dynamic and touch response, the velocity and richness of details is typical of a real tube amp pushed to its max. Plus we worked with some Artists who had the luck to have their amps modded by the famous Jose Arredondo., the popular “Jose Mod” used by big pro like EVH, Steve Vai, Doug Aldrich, Peter Frampton, Metallica, George Lynch and many, many others. We wanted to pay Jose a little tribute by adding two different Clipping sections to fine tune the sound when using the channels as two independent pedals, make everything easy to play and sounding great.
Clipping: The two channels together sounds incredible without any clipping, however we wanted to give you options, we made two different clipping sections for the two channels, in order to expand the combinations for virtually infinite possibility: Germanium NOS Diodes for Floor1 channel, very suitable for all the soft OD stuff and mimic to perfection the behavior of a tube amp on the edge of clipping, LED diodes for the Floor2 in Symmetrical configuration for the smoothest, complex, and compressed amazing lead tone.
Two independent channels equipped with Gain, Volume, Tone, Presence and Clipping Switch
The signal flow can be inverted by entering the pedal into input II and then from Out II back to Input I and going to the Amp from Out I
The two channels can be used together, or as separate pedals even with dedicated I/O connections to be used by remote with a looper/switcher.
Both channels are True Bypass, assisted by Golden Pin Relays, the best true bypass option possible.
