Nux Morning Star OD

Ik was opzoek naar een overdrive om mijn clean signaal van een licht overstuurd randje te voorzien. Daarvoor is deze overdrive ideaal. Het pedaal heeft geen extreme eq curve zoals een tubescreamer of klon-achtig pedaal dat wel zou hebben, maar voegt wat subtiele oversturing toe, met een smooth bluesy karakter.
Twee verbeteringen ten opzichte van de originele bluesbreaker is dat de gainknop geen invloed heeft op de helderheid van het signaal en dat de shine mode een soort ingebouwde top boost is, wat ideaal kan zijn om donkerder gevoicde pickups wat tot leven te wekken.
Als leuke bonus zitten er extra velcro stickers bij om hem direct op je pedalboard te kunnen plakken.
En dat allemaal voor zo'n lage prijs!

Bought this because I wanted a bluesbreaker clone. The sound is good in the normal mode. In the shine mode, I think the treble is too harsh and compressed. The idea of switching modes by holding the footswitch is smart though.

Next day I plugged the pedal in and the pedal suffered from sudden volume drops. Checked the cables and power, but the problem was only there when the effect was on. Poor build quality.

It has a high input impedance, thus keeps the high frequencies intact. Also you can chose to use "true bypass" or buffered bypass, the last gives you always high input impedance.
I don't like the way you have to select between the 2 (holding the foor switch during powering up).

The gain control knob is more a low-cut control than a gain control.
You have the most lows when gain is at minimum. Already around 9 o'clock you will notice some bass is removed, this is not an error, but a design choice. More gain = less bass. You can use this as tight control when using a high gain pedal further on the chain.
With my tele, the distortion starts around 1 o'clock, but even with the gain at max, there is not much distortion.
I don't like the distortion that much, it is not bad, but... Well, I admit, I am not that much of a fan of opamp+diode-clipping distortion.

The combination of the TONE knob plus the SHINE funtion gives you enough room for finding the right balance of high content.

It does not like switch mode power supplies.
I use a linear power supply from Electro-Harmonix, that works fine.

Overall I like it for the buffering and the low and high frequency filtering.
I think that I will use it a lot.