You could call it a sequel, or a redux, or maybe even a remake, but DOD has just revisited the cult classic DigiTech Bad Monkey overdrive pedal to unleash the Badder Monkey – a offering three drive circuits and the capability to blend them.
In fact, there are all kinds of interesting things you can do with the Badder Monkey. Featuring controls for “Bananas” and “Curiosity,” an EQ “Mood” control plus a dial that is a miniature wooden barrel with 360º of travel, this is an overdrive pedal like no other.
And yet, it at its heart, it still has the O.G. Bad Monkey drive circuit all present and correct. Famously loved by the late blues-rock icon Gary Moore, infamously made über-expensive after JHS Pedals called attention to its greatness, the Bad Monkey had a moment in 2023.
Josh Scott of JHS Pedals made a video of it, the internet blew up, Moore’s old Bad Monkey was listed for $10,000… Now here we are. Everyone has calmed down – expect, perhaps, the engineers at DOD.
They have made all three circuits – Behaved, Bad, Badder – accessible via this 360º barrel knob, allowing you to blend to taste. Then you have a three-way toggle switch that allows you to place the drive circuits in phase, out of phase, or, in Troop Mode, you can disengage the Barrel control and have all three circuits “pile on at once”. Turn the Mood dial towards “Screech” for more treble, “Grunt” for more bass. Easy.
It sounds like a lot of fun. It sounds great. And it will be interesting to see how DOD apply this 360º control tech in future. There is a patent pending on the Barrel control, and this might be a new frontier in shaping overdrive, distortion and fuzz tones.
The Badder Monkey is true bypass. Feed it 9 bananas from a pedalboard power supply to get it going. It comes with DOD’s StagePlate (another patent-pending feature), a reversible feature that makes it easy to secure to your pedalboard via a hook pad, or offers a non-slip pad if it is being used as a standalone on the stage.
“Switching between the two is as easy as removing four screws, flipping the plate, and tightening it back up – a simple solution for every rig and stage setup,” says DOD. No monkeying around with Velcro.
What else can we say? Oh yeah, Bananas is the gain control. Curiosity is the output level. Inside the box is a bunch of stickers, guitar picks, keychain and ape-related ephemera. The asking price is pretty reasonable at £129/$149.
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