The Volta Black Tweed Plus is the deluxe/dual version of what was once known as the Nabla Black Tweed overdrive. This is due to the fact that the Italian company that manufactures this pedal recently renamed itself after Alessandro Volta, inventor of something crucial to pedals: the electric battery.
As abundantly clear, this is a handmade tweed-style overdrive with some pretty neat features: first of all, while in the non-plus version you could pick either a Blackface or Tweed mode, here you get BOTH channels at once with dedicated gain control (Crank), volume knob and footswitches.
Each channel also has a toggle switch that delivers Stock sound, Mid-pushed or HOT-ROD tones.
The 3-way Eq section works in tandem with the Crank (gain) control, with the latter shaping the saturation type if set high enough, simulating the response of a real tube amp, where the tone controls affect the power amp section’s saturation.
Take a listen for yourself in the videos below, we added this pedal to our article about the best Tweed-style drive pedals.
Volta Black Tweed Plus, Builder’s Notes
This product is completely hand built.
From the date of purchase, it requires about 20 working days for assembly, setup and final testing.
We will build it just for you, and we will include a small gift with it!
BlackFace and Tweed.
Independent.
Configurabile.
Hot-Roddable.
Footswitchable.
– Two American Classics.– BlackFace on one channel, Tweed on the other one.
– Independent Gain. Independent Volume. Independent MODS.
– Stock sound? Mid-pushed? Or Smoking HOT-ROD? No problem. You can have everything, how you want it, on the two channels.
Taste the lush sound of a cranked classic American amplifier. Playing is so much enjoyable, the stronger the touch, the more the harmonics bloom.
Push the TWEED button, hear the gain structure change, from the BlackFace full and elegant sound, to the Tweed one, mid-focused and crunch-happy, but still clean if played gently.
CRANKing it up, you can independently saturate the two amplifiers, as far as fully overdrive them, like when you push a tube amp to the maximum volume. And you can independenty set both levels too, setting one channel for the verse and one for the solo. Two gain and two volume knobs: two amplifiers in one pedal.
The full eq with Bass Middle Treble is not just a tone control: it enables you to shape the saturation type, because, like in a true amp, it interacts with the power tubes, saturating the frequencies it pushes, if you turn up CRANK.
The history of amplifiers is rich with mods.
With Black Tweed PLUS you can choose in both channels (again, independently!) if you want to play the stock amplifier version (STOCK), pump up the gain on the mids to punch through a dense mix (MIDS) or unleash all the amplifier’s raw power (RAW), bypassing the EQ and dedicating all the circuit to saturation, turning one, or the other, or both channels, into a full blown smoking Hot-Rod overdrive.
