LunaStone Smooth Drive 1 review

Smooth as silk

  • £169
  • €192
By Trevor Curwen
( Guitarist )
published

MusicRadar Verdict

Versatility in a boost pedal - a clean or a tonally focused boost of your own choosing.

Pros

  • +

    Excellent pedal for smooth blues and jazz tones. Excels at edge-of-break-up sounds.

Cons

  • -

    Look elsewhere for raunchier tones.

MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.

LunaStone’s vision for the Smooth Drive 1 encompasses the silkier side of the blues and a little jazz - name-checking BB King, Larry Carlton and 335s in their marketing. 

And certainly the tonal character is more subdued. Or, in other words, it’s smoother than the Blues 1 - not so strident and a little fuller in the midrange, although it can still get a bit snarky at high tone and gain knob levels. 

The pedal is designed as a response to players who wanted a gentler version of the TOD 1 and, as such, it has less gain and compression than that pedal, allowing more leeway in knob juxtaposition for just breaking up and low level drive tones. 

There is also a nice line in enhanced clean boost, all delivered with real responsiveness. Overall, it’s a great all-round pedal to place in front of a decent amp and compares very favourably to an Analogman KOT. 

Trevor Curwen

Trevor Curwen has played guitar for several decades – he's also mimed it on the UK's Top of the Pops. Much of his working life, though, has been spent behind the mixing desk, during which time he has built up a solid collection of the guitars, amps and pedals needed to cover just about any studio session. He writes pedal reviews for Guitarist and has contributed to Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Future Music among others.