el guapo pedal Jackson Audio El Guapo Mateus Asato Signature Overdrive Pedal

el guapo pedal Jackson Audio El Guapo Mateus Asato Signature Overdrive PedalThe Mateus Asato Signature El Guapo Overdrive Distortion was developed over a 10+ prototype revision process. During this two year process every detail was painstakingly refined to ensure that both the distortion and overdrive channels would work together to recreate the soulful overdriven tones, as well as the liquid high gain tones that legendary guitarist Mateus Asato is known for! Designed as a complete 'Marshall in a box' pedal, the distortion

The Mateus Asato Signature El Guapo Overdrive/Distortion was developed over a 10+ prototype revision process. During this two year process every detail was painstakingly refined to ensure that both the distortion and overdrive channels would work together to recreate the soulful overdriven tones, as well as the liquid high gain tones that legendary guitarist Mateus Asato is known for!

Designed as a complete 'Marshall-in-a-box' pedal, the distortion channel of the El Guapo features a high-gain distortion circuit that perfectly recreates the detail and harmonic complexity of the legendary JCM800 amplifier, while the overdrive channel delivers the smooth overdrive and touch sensitivity of a vintage Marshall Plexi.

Keep reading to learn more about the El Guapo and why it is easily the most powerful and comprehensive 'Marshall-in-a-box' ever created!

DISTORTION OVERVIEW

The distortion channel of the EL GUAPO is a high-gain, hard-clipping circuit that is based on the Marshall JCM800. Because of this, the resulting tone is very open, crisp and addictingly fun to play! Everything from 80's hard rock to more modern high gain tones can easily be found in the EL GUAPO!

DISTORTION PRESETS

The EL GUAPO allows for 4 different presets of clipping diodes which themselves drastically alter the tone and feel of the way the distortion clips.

To select a clipping preset, press and hold the DIST footswitch for more than 1 second and the clipping program mode will become active. When in this mode, the DIST led will flash to indicate that you are in programming mode. A quick tap on the DIST footswitch will cycle the clipping presets and you’ll be able to hear these presets change as you cycle through them, assuming that the drive circuit was active when the clipping program mode was entered. Once you arrive at a distortion preset that you want to use, press and hold the DIST footswitch for more than 1 second and clipping program mode will exit.

• Preset 1 - AMBER: Guv'nor Style. Two LED’s are used to symmetrically clip the top and bottom portions of your guitars waveform evenly. The LED’s allow MUCH higher headroom so your tone will stay more open and less compressed much like a vintage Marshall.
• Preset 2 - GREEN: Rat Style. Two symmetrical silicon diodes give the classic drive and compression that the Rat is known for.
• Preset 3 – BLUE: ASYMMETRIC HIGH GAIN. Three asymmetric diodes (two silicon and one LED) will clip the top and bottom portions of your guitars waveform differently resulting in a more complex and interesting tone. This sounds great when laying down aggressive rhythm parts!
• Preset 4 - MAGENTA: SYMMETRICAL HIGH GAIN. Four symmetric silicon diodes will clip the top and bottom portions of your guitars waveform evenly which gives a more focused and direct tone.

Changing clipping diodes are a great way to radically change how a distortion pedal sounds and feels but oftentimes the change that you perceive has more to do with a change in volume than an actual change in tone….until now!

When we were designing the EL GUAPO we knew we wanted to give the distortion section a lot of tonal flexibility and most importantly make that flexibility useful on stage. So when changing clipping presets we included circuitry that level matches the output of the pedal as various clipping diodes are selected. So now you can select between all four clipping options, your volume level will remain constant. More importantly, the difference that you hear between the clipping presets will be because of the difference in how those clipping diodes sound and not because your volume is jumping all over the place as it does with other designs.

3-BAND ACTIVE EQ

To top it off, the distortion circuit of the EL GUAPO has a 3 band parametric EQ. The EQ circuit features a studio grade EQ that gives tremendous tonal flexibility to the EL GUAPO. Based on the legendary Baxandall EQ that is featured in countless studio EQ’s, the EL GUAPO EQ takes this circuit and tailors it for guitarists!

Another feature of the EQ that is unique to the EL GUAPO is there are 6 internal trimmers that allow the player to adjust the Q (how narrow or wide the selected frequency is) and frequency select of each EQ band. This is an advanced feature of the EL GUAPO and care should be taken as extreme settings can make the EQ sound unmusical.

DRIVE OVERVIEW

The drive circuit in the EL GUAPO is a soft clipping circuit that was designed to capture the smooth overdrive and touch responsiveness of a vintage Marshall Plexi.

This circuit, which is in its own true bypass loop, can be used independently of the DIST circuit and is very useful for boosting the front end of the distortion circuit for even higher gain.

Just like the distortion circuit, the overdrive circuit on the EL GUAPO features 4 clipping presets so you can adjust the tone and feel of the overdrive.