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Premier Guitar just issued a “Premier Gear” award for this intriguing looking (and sounding) drive + boost from Swedish builder SoundBrut, called DrVa. Currently, this is the only pedal produced by this manufacturer.

Although its drive section is quite transparent, the Drva shines in delivering tones that are full of character, thanks to a hard clipping circuit fueled by a NE5534 opamp (the “Dr”) and a MOSFET clean boost seasoned with a modern interpretation of the Varitone tone circuit (the “Va”).

The latter is what spices up your guitar tone, allowing for 18 different ways to combine the Varitone and MOSFET section of its circuit, through a six-position knob (that gets progressively beefier results) and a three-way “Q” toggle switch.

Dr is a hard-clipping drive circuit fueled by a NE5534 op-amp. It is controlled by one volume and one gain pot. Va is a MOSFET boost seasoned with our modern interpretation of the Varitone circuit; an offbeat tone circuit originally designed for 60s Gibson guitars.

This tone circuit is painstakingly overhauled by us. All capacitors and EQ notches are selected to match a wide variety of sounds. It is controlled via a 6-way selector, switching between 6 different capacitors, providing 6 different EQ filters. For further tweaking, there is also a 3 way “Q” switch that changes the filter bandwidth. Ultimately it provides 18 different combinations that can be used as 18 presets for your tone control. Varying on the setting, you get up to 20dB boost to your signal. – More info here.