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For those who marvel at the tones of Santana, Larry Carlton, Robben Ford and Sonny Landreth there is nothing better than the sound of a guitar plugged into a Dumble Super Overdrive amp. Thing is, not only are these US amps pretty much impossible to get, if you were to find one you'd need to remortgage your house to buy it. Yes, they are that expensive!

So, over the years a niche market has grown for Dumble-like amps and pedals. We've tried a few of them and been mightly impressed (in particular the Ceriatone Overdrive head, some of the Two Rock amps, the Zendrive pedal and the Providence SOV-2 pedal are outstanding) but it was love at first sight (sound?) when we plugged into the Dumkudo pedal. It's the higher gain version of the Zenkudo made by Toshihiko Tanabe over in Japan. With four knobs and three operational modes (the 'green' mode is the Dumble option), the sound is thick and creamy, tracks your playing tightly and has a refined 'grain' to the distortion. Bottomline, it mightly enlivens a valve amp set clean or to crunch and is very responsive to playing dynamics and volume changes.

Priced at 28,000 yen (about £200) it is not cheap but it is a incredibly fantastic sounding boutique pedal. If you've found the driven tones of blues/rock icons elusive so far, this might just be the pedal to end your search!

More info and to order visit:
http://www.tanabe.tv/top/kudou/index-e.html

Talk through of the Dumkudo pedal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yus9jTY-DAQ

demo of the Zenkudo pedal (great playing from Shane Conaway!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X88ekDraPPA