German boutique pedal builder KMA Audio Machines has been making waves in the last couple of years with finely engineered stompboxes as complex and creative as the Horizont Phaser and as simple and streamlined as the Queequeg Sub Generator.
Their new Logan Transcend Drive (which you’ll be able to try at the upcoming LA Stompbox Exhibit) is their first entry in the crowded arena of low gain overdrives (hence its name). To stand out from that crowd, the company has taken a very personal approach to the format, delivering a pedal offering original and very useful sculpting and tone-shaping features.
The unmissable Level, Drive, Highs and Lows knobs are joined by a Parametric Lo-Mid Frequency Section consisting in:
- a M-Freq knob that selects the frequency from 100Hz fully left to 2.4kHz fully right and
- a M-C/B knob that cuts or boost said frequency by 12dbs.
- a separate Mids Footswitch, to turn this mids EQ on/off on the fly, useful for taking dynamics to the next level during a solo or a crowded chorus.
- a PRE/POST toggle switch in the dead center of the pedal, which lets you apply the mid EQ before or after the drive, which can alter significantly the final tone: PRE lets you crunch your mids even more for a more saturated tone, while POST will give you a level boost and make your selected mid frequency more present.
An Exp In lets you control the mid frequencies directly from an expression pedal, with wah-like results.
These features make the Logan an extremely flexible overdrive which can find its home in the pedalboards of players who need gain devices able to adapt to various sonic environments.
Check out the videos below, in particular the Pedal Zone’s section demonstrating five useful ways to use this stompbox.
Logan is made to transcend the well-known boundaries of overdrive. It doesn’t matter if you are looking for a pre-amp, a low/mid-gain drive or a screaming resonant cocked-wah sound, Logan will deliver all the gainy goods. Combined with our active 3-Band EQ, including a fully parametric Mid-EQ with a separate On/Off-Footswitch, Pre or Post Gain position-switch and an expression-in for hands-free filter sweeps, Logan is sure to deliver great tones and outstanding flexibility.
Well, in the case of Logan, we honestly believe the answer is a resounding YES! Otherwise we wouldn’t have spent over a year conceptualizing, designing and perfecting Logan in order to give the world a drive pedal that will add immense tonal dimension and flexibility to anyone’s setup, all while preserving the natural characteristic and feel of your beloved instrument.
Logan’s gain structure is carefully balanced for an open and super touch-responsive drive tone, giving you and your instrument ample room to be expressive. You could describe its sound as smooth and harmonically rich, but that would be selling it short. There’s a true fire raging under the embers here, one that allows you add more hair, grit and sizzling depth as you pile on the gain, making Logan fit for anything from clean boost, amp-like breakup, indie clang to full-on rock machine.
It also sports an impressively high-headroom-design (up to 25 dB), enabling you to use Logan as a very versatile pre-amp too – all of you amp-less/cab-sim players can thank us later.
But what truly pushes Logan over the edge is its 3-band active EQ. The Bass and Treble EQ knobs are able to both boost or cut your signal by around 15 dB. This enables you to beef up thin-sounding single coils, add some chime to chunky humbuckers or get rid of boomy bass frequencies, when changing from a sweet 2×12 to a fat 4×12 cabinet. In addition, the tonal flexibility is even further extended by Logan’s fully parametric Mid-EQ section, where the MID control lets you set your preferred mid frequency between 100 Hz to 2.5 kHz, while the CUT/BOOST control lets you cut or boost the selected frequency by up to 12 dB.
But the frequency fest doesn’t stop there. Logan even sports a dedicated footswitch to activate or deactivate the Mid-EQ and a position-switch which lets you place it either before the main gain-stage (PRE) or after it (POST), opening up a whole world of tonal possibilities. Place the Mid-EQ post-gain to give yourself a level boost for solos or place it pre-gain to saturate your preferred frequency even more, effectively giving you a second gain-stage.
Then there’s the kicker! You can take complete hands-free control of the Mid-EQ Frequency via a regular expression-pedal. This lets you make instant tone changes on the fly, as well as unleash everything from fast and quacky wah-like sounds to slow and enveloping phasery filter sweeps.
You’d think the feature-well would have run dry by now, but no, there’s even more cool sonic secrets under the hood.
The pedal has been set at the factory to sound stellar right out of the box, however some people might want to tweak some more options to taste. Via a hole in the base plate, you get direct access to an internal trim-pot to set the bandwidth (Q) of the Mid-EQ. Turn it counter-clockwise for a broad bandwidth, for smooth frequency sweeps or turn it completely clockwise for really resonant sounds. Removing the base plate will reveal a second trim-pot, which enables you to blend in your clean signal with the overdriven tone, making Logan transcend the world of guitar. Bass? Drums? Synths? Vocals? Bring it on! This pedal will handle it all.
Logan really is an all-in-one overdrive solution and trust us, once you plug in you’ll never want to turn it off again!
Powered by an optional standard 9V DC (max.) PSU (negative center, 2.1mm, approx. 30mA current draw)
Every pedal is designed, assembled, silkscreened, tested and numbered by hand in our small workshop. We use external manufactured PCBs to guarantee our high quality standard and keep the price of our pedals reasonable. The use of an indestructible powdercoated die-cast enclosure ensures a maximum durability.
