Pedal Review: T-Rex HOBO DRIVE

Delicious Audio recently reviewed the T-Rex HOBO Drive pedal…read a bit below, and visit Delicious Audio for the complete review!

T-Rex HOBO DRIVE ($279)

I’ll start with the bottom line: the T-Rex HOBO DRIVE is one of the best sounding, most flexible distortion pedals I’ve ever come across. That said, calling this pedal a distortion pedal is a little misleading; it’s less a distortion pedal, and more of a preamp.

Manufactured in Denmark and assembled in Taiwan, the HOBO DRIVE (yes, their website capitalizes both words entirely), is a solidly built, dual-function “overdrive amplifier simulator”. The enclosure is cleanly finished, the controls have a very smooth, professional feel, and the layout is spacious and intuitive.

The HOBO DRIVE features two sections: a three-knob (gain/ tone/ master volume) style preamp, and a clean boost capable of delivering substantial gain. Two foot switches engage or bypass the preamp/distortion and boost circuits (labeled “on/off” and “boost” respectively). While the pedal is buffered, not true-bypass, I did not notice any tone-sucking effects of pickup loading, either on humbuckers or single coil pickups. Enough space exists between the dual foot switches to not worry too much about footwork accuracy.

The two audio circuit blocks in the HOBO DRIVE are independent of one another, so regardless of the state of the preamp section, the boost section is always available. This wasn’t immediately clear to me given the left switch is named “on/off”, however, that only refers to the preamp section.

Click thru to Delicious Audio for the rest of this review, by Ron Guensche.

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