Hello Gearheads! As we fade into the uncharted territory that is the year 2020…. (yikes) I’m happy to report another incredible gear find to share with you all! Brad Sarno has been crafting studio quality effects for musicians for many years via Sarno Music Solutions. His wide list of clients and artists include Jeff Tweedy, Nels Cline, Lee Renaldo, Greg Leisz, Bob Weir, Andy Summers, Mike Gordon, Ben Harper… the list goes on and you certainly get the point! Sarno is building top notch circuits for a wide variety of musicians. His products range from system buffering solutions to beautiful tube preamps, circuits built for pedal-steel and of course overdrive and boost pedals for us Gearheads! One of those is the Sarno Earth Drive, which I’m showcasing today!
The Earth Drive is both familiar and unfamiliar at the same exact time. The enclosure is a friendly green hue, but not quite the tender hue of many screaming tube circuits. The size of the enclosure is juuuust a tad bit longer than your ordinary overdrive pedal - but rather than making your pedalboard an origami nightmare, it just looks distinctive in it’s own special way. The Earth Drive just fits, man… you know, in a “It really ties the room together” kind of way. Visually, simplistically and sonically.
With just three knobs and one footswitch, the Earth Drive is quite formidable in reaching wide vasts of tone sculpting in any rig. Sarno comments…
“The Earth Drive is the ultimate boost/overdrive pedal, designed to retain your instrument’s natural character while providing an organic, full-bodied, yet transparent sound. Use the Earth Drive as a clean boost to add warmth and smoothing, or turn up the drive knob and get a wide spectrum of overdrive harmonics and singing sustain. The Earth Drive has a huge range of boost control with its volume knob, while the tone knob helps you perfectly dial in the treble response. Whether you play bass, pedal-steel, electric piano, electric guitar, organ, whatever, the Earth Drive is quite possibly the most useful and versatile drive pedal you’ve ever heard. ”
I too found that Earth Drive was easily capable of moving from subtle unity smoothing and EQ tuning (at unity volume mind you, so no audible gain boosting) all the way to full audacious roar just with small incremental movements of those three knobs.
Volume, Tone & Drive. Simple. Dead simple… yet so powerful. These are the tenants of my gear minded happiness folks - simple and great sounding tools. The quickest way for me to take a “cold shower” on my creative flow is to become a technician of my tools. Having to adjust a bunch of controls to get to a sweet spot to work in a track and before you know it - you’re toast. The juice is loose and you’re left wondering why you even started to record that funky double stop skank overdub in the first place! You then transition to picking up your smart phone and start surfing the web for lack of motivation. Sound familiar? Hyperbole aside, the Earth Drive is just chock full of those aforementioned sweet spots. Sarno’s voicing is so dead on that I can’t find any settings that don’t bring me happiness. All goldilocks moments here!
I found the Earth Drive to work really well with all my guitars including Bass Guitar and Lap Steel. I could see using the Earth Drive even on electronic instruments, like Synths and beyond, due to the high headroom that’s available in the circuit. I tended to prefer the volume up pretty high (around 1:00) most of the time, pushing the front end of each amplifier a bit and using the Tone and Drive knobs to achieve the rest of the tonal stew. All of my amplifiers worked great with the Earth Drive, but the happiest camper in all of Tone Land was my ‘76 Marshall JMP. It was a literal extension of the gain range… it just sounded and felt perfect.
The Earth Drive is one of those pedals that I had seen kicking around for quite some time and never had the chance to try. Like most of those venerable pedals that are still around, they’re here for a reason. They sound great! I’ve read some iterations on how the Earth Drive compares to other circuits, especially uber rare and well argued over… ahem… Klon anyone? I can see some of those comparisons of course, especially in the midrange content and how it thickens the overall tone, but at the end of the day pals the Earth Drive is it’s own deal. A dead simple and immediately pleasing boost, overdrive and tonal sculpting device that just plain makes me happy. I can absolutely see why Sarno has the client list he does and definitely recommend checking out the Earth Drive - I sure am happy I did!
Until next time Gearheads, stay safe, healthy and happy with good tone!
Take a look at the links below for more information on Sarno Musica Solutions and the Earth Drive.
http://www.sarnomusicsolutions.com
http://www.sarnomusicsolutions.com/products/ed.html
https://www.instagram.com/Sarno_Music/
https://www.facebook.com/Sarno-Music-Solutions-162539807232802/