New (Old) Guitar Pedal Day: DOD Mystic Blues Overdrive

Back in 1998 I worked for Sam Ash.  I was new to learning to play the guitar, and Sam Ash was a great place to learn about the musical world.  I was still acquiring basic gear so I had to be very choosy as to what I bought.  Not to mention I didn't have a huge amount of disposable income.

One of the hardest things I had to learn was terminology.  When I bought my first amplifier I looked for the distortion setting.  After having the amp blast me out I wondered, "What the cold Hell does "gain" have to do with distortion?  And why does this thing keep squealing?"  I eventually figured it out.

So little by little I started learning what all of us in the musical instrument business call, "Musicianese."  One of the hardest things for me to understand was the guitar pedals.  There were literally hundreds of pedals, and they all did different things.  They did, right?  Well, it turns out that wasn't exactly true.

I didn't know what flanger, chorus, echo, or reverb pedals were.  I didn't realize that each company had their own version of those pedals.  I knew what a distortion and/or overdrive pedal was.  So I started playing with those.

There was a pedal in the Sam Ash pedal cabinet that caught my attention.  At the time I couldn't afford the BOSS pedals, but I was digging the DOD series of pedals.  They had one called the Mystic Blues Overdrive.  During my lunch hour I asked to take it out of the case so I could try it out.

It was very different than anything I had heard before.  But let me clarify.  I was playing some pretty heavy music back then so I was trying out pedals that were serious heavy metal pedals.  I knew what fuzz pedals were so I had tried out a few.  But at that point in my life I had never played a Tubescreamer or an overdrive pedal.

So when I plugged in the Mystic Blues pedal it kind of surprised me.  It didn't have near the gain that the DOD Grunge pedal had.  (Note: The DOD Grunge pedal was the first pedal I ever bought.)  The Mystic Blues pedal added just a bit of a bite to my sound.  It really stood out to me.  However, I was playing much heavier music at the time, and didn't really have a use for it.  Still, I always held it in the back of my mind.

So here I am, 22 years later.  I was on E-Bay, and thought about the Mystic Blues pedal.  I found one that was selling for a fair price, so I pulled the trigger on it.  In the last 22 years I can say my playing has vastly improved, but I would have to say that my ears are my strongest musical talent.  I have a knack for tuning and telling the differences in EQ in pickups, amps, and pedals.

I wanted to see what my improved hearing would think about the Mystic Blues Overdrive.  The first thing I thought when I kicked it on was, "Oh my God this thing is bright!"  I immediately turned down the treble.  I also had to bring up the bass.  In the end my settings looked like this.

You know what?  It was still bright.  But then I got to thinking.  Remember this pedal was released in 1998.  Do you know what Sam Ash carried back then?  I know you are going to list all the Fender, Marshall and Mesa Boogie models, but let's be honest.  95% of musicians couldn't afford them.  They bought the other brands that Sam Ash carried.  That would be Crate.

Have you ever played through a 90's solid state Crate amp?  Not just that, but have you played through ANY 80's to 90's solid state POS guitar amp?  They do one of three things.

1.  They sound like a dentist drill.  Bright, annoying, and buzzy.
2.  Muddy.  They sound like a big dog coughing.
3.  They manage to do both.  Be muddy while sounding buzzy.

So what does this have to do with the Mystic Blues Overdrive?  Well, if you put a Mystic Blues Overdrive in front of a muddy amp, it will clean it up while adding bite to the sound.  So you have to remember this was a useful pedal for the time period.

But these days I'm playing through a Genz Benz El Diablo 100 amplifier.  It has more switches and knobs than I know what to do with sometimes.  I can see this pedal being used as a clean boost for solos.  It definitely works as a transparent drive.  The drive knob has a pretty good range.  It goes from, "No drive at all, to kind of a ZZ Top kind of vibe."

I'd have to judge the pedal like this.  As a kid your house looked so big.  Now as an adult if you visit your childhood home it looks so small.  At the time I hadn't heard anything like this pedal.  Today I own something like four Tubescreamer style pedals with this being the fifth.

Against today's pedals the Mystic Blues is an okay pedal.  It's better than some, but there are a lot better Tubescreamer clones out there today.  The TC Electronics El Mocambo Overdrive is a much better pedal for $58 new.  Not to mention it goes on sale quite a bit.  Oh, and you can find plenty of them used.

I'll say this, I'm glad I bought the Mystic Blues.  I'll keep playing with it.  Again, I've only played it through one amp so it might work better with other amps.

For more information about this pedal, check out this link.  It has some great information.

https://en.audiofanzine.com/overdrive-pedal/dod/FX102-Mystic-Blues/