How many overdrives are enough? At least one more than what you have currently. My attitude and the attitude of many guitarists and pedal geeks.

This time, I want to talk about a pedal that I got a few months back that is a staple on my dry/wet/wet rig and pedal board, the Protein from Browne Amplification.

Protein Dual Overdrive

There are a number of dual overdrives in the marketplace and I have bought and still have a number of them. The Keeley D&M drive and the Cornerstone Gladio come immediately to mind and they are both amazing and yes you should probably get them both. I never promised to help you reduce your spend on gear.

I heard, as I often do, my first demo of this pedal on That Pedal Show, my weekly fix on all things pedals. Or at least one of several weekly fixes. What intrigued me is that they are two completely different circuit structures that were designed to emulate two popular overdrives not often used together and neither of which was a Tube Screamer. You may take that to understand that I do not care for Tube Screamers which is true unless the guitar is a Strat and the amp is a black face Fender.

The Protein does offer two very distinct sound palettes, often referred to as the green side and the blue side. When you step on the switch the LED shows which “drive” you are using and you can indeed stack them if you wish, gain stacking being such a pleasurable thing. One thing to clarify up front, unlike the D&M drive, you cannot change the stack order.

The Green Side

Often when folks hear “green” and “overdrive” they tend to think Tube Screamer, in one of its many iterations. Happily for me at least in this product that is not the case. Here the green side (the right) sounds very much like a Nobles ODR-1. My words, not Browne’s. They say the classic secret Nashville overdrive, which as pedal nerds will know is the Nobles. It’s a lovely overdrive that doesn’t boost the mids too much, or rip away the highs and lows, nor does it create unnatural boosts. It sounds to me like an overdriven amp that is normally very clean. The controls are simple. Level sets the overall level at the output, Drive sets how much push you want in the drive section and Tone, surprise!, let’s you control the tone. I find the tonal range nice and wide with a lot of variety in the sweep. The dry side of my rig is a reissue ‘59 Bassman, which owners know can overdrive nicely but at a rather high volume. Using the green side of the Protein gives beautiful overdrive out of that amplifier without annoying the neighbours. The wide range of drive gives the player enormous flexibility. Like any overdrive, there is a bit of noise that happens, more evident with single coils than humbuckers, but the floor is low enough that the noise is masked completely when you are playing. Lovely!

The Blue Side

On this side, (the left) you get what Browne refers to as the John Mayer Continuum tone. I cannot say yes or no, not being aware of John Mayer music at all. I would call this a Marshall Bluesbreaker overdrive. Again very scalable, but a bit crunchier than the green side. Very usable with any kind of pickup, but when used with humbuckers does not create that flabby mush tone that so many overdrives leap to when you hit them with a humbucking pickup. While I personally tend to prefer lower output humbuckers like the classic PAF design, Lollar Imperials or Bare Knuckle Mules, even hot humbuckers as in my EVH Wolfgang or Ernie Ball Musician Axis Sport+ still sound very good. This side also shines with P90s as in my ‘56 reissue Les Paul gold top. On this side, instead of Drive, you have a Gain control and while Gain and Drive are often used synonymously in advertising, at least to my ears, they are doing something different. I may not be able to define what it is, but I know that I like it. As on the green side, the tone control has a nice wide sweep and does not truncate the highs nor do I have to turn it all the way clockwise to get the highs back. This makes the Protein rather ideal.

In My Rig

The dry amp is the Bassman, the two wet amps are Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IVs both FSR releases with creambacks. In addition to getting the original signal they also get the delay and modulation effects as well as using either their onboard reverb, or a Strymon Blue Sky reverb pedal. I often have found that once you take that overdriven tone and modulate it, whether through a chorus (rare for me), a rotary (reasonably common) or a tape delay (emulated - I sadly own no real tape delay - yet) used nearly always at some level, the overall tone can get a bit swampy and sludgy, never in my opinion at least a good thing.

My personal experience is that the overdrive tones from the Protein are tight enough that this doesn’t happen. Except…

The Third Overdrive

By engaging both switches, you engage the green side and then feed it directly into the blue side before output. This is gain stacking at it’s finest and when appropriate sounds glorious, however for me, this tone is better without significant modulation. That doesn’t mean that you will hate it, it’s just not for me. A little tape echo with limited wow and flutter still sounds a charm, but chorus, rotary or thick reverbs do not work for me in this case.

When I don’t engage them, I feel encouraged to turn up the amps a bit more. Then a bit more again. I love it, but at some point, I realize I may be damaging my hearing (again) or encouraging someone to dial the local police.

Conclusion

The Browne Amplification Protein is on my MUST HAVE list. For me, it is just an ideal dual overdrive. I bought mine in white, the better to see in dim light, but you can get it in black or an olive green. Get may be the biggest issue. It is a very much in demand pedal. As I write this, Browne says that delivery direct from them is 2-4 weeks. I got mine from Electric Mojo Guitars here in Canada, and I think I was on a wait list for three weeks before it arrived. It’s not the four year wait for a King of Tone, and in my opinion, well worth the wait for an awesome dual overdrive. Order today.

Thanks very much for reading and until next time, peace.