Harden Engineering is thought for its customized guitars (VG, December ’24), however in addition they make pedals, together with their newest – the Gator – an overdrive with an easy mandate to supply a commendable diploma of pure breakup to your tone.

Sitting between Harden’s different achieve bins (the Rodeo and Inexperienced Tiger), it traverses that high quality line between booster and overdrive. Within the phrases of the builder, “The Gator overdrive is a Klon-like, handwired overdrive that gained’t coloration your sound and distorts in a pure, tube-like method.”

The Gator is designed primarily for tube amps, however actually works on modeling guitar and bass amplifiers. In the event you’re a techie, this pedal makes use of an FET buffer right into a TLO72 op-amp, Switchcraft jacks, Alpha pot, and true bypass. For these of us who should not, the great thing about the Gator is that it has an on/off swap and single unlabeled knob to manage achieve. Like a Klon or different clear booster, the Harden takes your pure guitar tone and easily offers it a pleasant, candy kick within the preamp.

The participant who desires a Gator already loves their amp and solely desires a bit extra hair, with out coloring it with tone-altering dust. To that finish, the Gator’s knob enables you to dial within the excellent quantity of edge, accentuating the tube tone to a precise diploma. It does one job completely – making a fantastic amp sound even higher. – Pete Prown

This text initially appeared in VG’s August 2025 problem. All copyrights are by the creator and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.