J. Rockett’s new El Hombre overdrive is a Billy Gibbons-inspired amp-in-a-box Texas tone machine

Thanks to its Archer, The Dude and signature Mark Lettieri pedals (among many others), J. Rockett Audio Designs is known for delivering some heavyweight overdrive pedals in ’board-friendly stompboxes. But now, the US tonehound has turned its hand to recreating the tone of one Billy F Gibbons with its latest release, the El Hombre. 

Billed as a Texas Blues Overdrive, it’s not a signature pedal in collaboration with the man himself, rather a homage to BFG’s Texas tones from ZZ Top's Tres Hombre and Fandango albums.

As such, J. Rockett describes the El Hombre as a “dynamic overdrive with a fuzzy edge”, which also captures the response and harmonics of an amp, and J. Rockett tells us that it has been designed to react “massively” to your picking hand and volume pot.

Atop the Day of the Dead-style skull graphic, we get Volume, Gain and ‘Bite’ controls, which promise to take your tone from mild to wild, but the Bite tone control is where the magic happens, with aggression when the Bite is at full-bore, and smoother, Dubmle-style tones with it rolled back.

The El Hombre is hand made in the US, and is powered by a standard 9v, 18mA power supply. It’s available now priced at £199/€219. For more information or to find a stockist, head over to the J. Rockett website.