Japanise builder Vemuram is not the most well-known brand in the world of pedals but has a super-solid reputation among tone connoisseurs for their hand-wired overdrives built with top-notch components and rigorous engineering.
The Vemuram Jen Ray drive is probably their most popular pedal, designed to recreate the punchy and clear tone of the Blackface Fender amps from the ’60s and its signature uncompressed sound and natural sustain. It’s often used as a clean boost or lo-gain overdrive.
Controls are unlabeled but deal with Volume, Gain, Bass and Treble, while trimmer accessible through a screw in the back panel lets you control the saturation. According to online forums, turning this setting down makes the pedal more transparent, while dialing it up tames the high end for a fatter and more compressed tone.
The original transparent overdrive!
The Vemuram Jan Ray was designed to recreate the classic tone of an overdriven 1960s Fender Blackface amp.
One of the original ‘transparent drives’, the Jan Ray doesn’t transform your tone or change the relationship between your guitar and amp.
It doesn’t compress or colour the sound as much as a TS style drive would.
The Jan Ray pushes the front-end of your amp hard enough to add some sweet sustain and breakup.
You can think of it more as the spark that ignites a good guitar and amp combination!
The Jan Ray can take your tone from mild to fat and saturated (think of an overdriven 1960s Fender Super Reverb set to the ‘Magic 6’ setting).Vemuram Jan Ray Overdrive Pedal features:
• One of the original ‘transparent overdrives’.
• Recreates the classic ‘Fender Magic 6’ tone when pushed.
• Controls: Volume, Gain, Bass, Treble.
• Trimmer to fine-tune the pedal’s saturation.
• Power: 9V DC.
• Current Draw: 5mA.
• Dimensions: 2.75″ X 4.40″ X 1.97″.
