The Pogo Pedals Zen Ray elegantly covers Dumble and Timmy Style Overdrive Tones in the same compact enclosure
I’m a little late to the party on this brand which seemingly came from nowhere in a very short time - and which now has pretty much attained worldwide distribution - including at Andertons. Scotty Smith of ProAnalog Devices is back in the mix again after his 3rd alleged financial meltdown - which saw large amounts of money owed to Cusack Music - which was in part resolved by Cusack / Mojo Hand FX taking over the IP of the Manticore and releasing it as their own Sericon Klone. And while I’ve always admired Scotty as a great circuit designer and engineer - he should surely be kept out of the finances this time around!
So I was aware of this brand - including the more recent Harmony Minis - and when I did the recent 32 Best Mini Fuzz rundown - a reader recommended the Pogo Harmony Modern Fuzz. I popped in on Andertons.co.uk to check that out, noticed that Pogo pedals were on discount at Andertons for their Spring Sale - and ended up getting both mini fuzzes - the Modern and Octavia - along with of course the Zen Ray featured here!
I can’t say exactly why I was a little hesitant on the Zen Ray when it was first released - while I had somewhat wrongly conflated it with an earlier French Pedal which I thought to be similar, while the BO (Boris Orange) TPC vs JRV was actually rather a conflation of Timmy and Jan Ray, not Zen Drive and Jan Ray as is the case with the Pogo variety.
For a while I thought I would go for the TPC vs JRV - while that seems to have been discontinued now - pictured below! :
The Pogo Pedals Zen Ray is actually a really smart and unique confection of the Hermida Zen Drive and Vemuram Jan Ray Pedals - which are of course based on Dumble and Timmy circuits respectively. Both being a little smoother than the originals, while the Zen Ray adds significant range to the pedal's output with 6 really smart controls.
Controls - Volume, Mode : Stock / +2 Germanium Transistors, Gain, Treble, Mid Saturation, and Bass.
Unlike the TPC vs JRV - which has a dedicated switch for flipping between the two sides of the pedal, the Zen Ray simply relies on parameter tweakery to create the different outputs. Where the Germ switch adds a load more grit into the circuit, and the Mid Saturation really elevates the pedal toward the 'Rock' spectrum of Dumble playback types.
You can sort of feel Scotty Smith's hand in this as those dials have that even and elegant taper he's known for - and you really get a pretty impressive amount of range here and a very broad sweep of tones and textures.
The printed graphics are very reminiscent of those pricey Landgraff pedals' swirly paint effects - but executed more cost-effectively and without variation - interestingly that effect was not carried through to the Mini Harmony Edition pedals - which are not as attractive.
The graphic design certainly makes for an appealing and memorable pedal - and while that is seemingly somewhat gimmicky - the output is anything but!
This totally achieves / delivers what it says on the box - in that you're able to get both formidable Dumble / Zen Drive sort of tones here - but also excellent Timmy / Jan Ray tones too. This pedal certainly achieves everything it sets out to do and thus becomes something of an essential for me really - in terms of truly being the best of both worlds.
Equally importantly though this is just a really great and versatile overdrive pedal overall with proper extended range. I'm really rather pleased I got my hands on one!
What about you dear readers - do some of you deploy this overdrive? And how happy are you with yours?
Demos
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
