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Reviewed By Faydit [all]
March 12th, 2026
Version reviewed: 1.0 on Windows
First of all, this plugin really sounds very good! The parallel mixing option is an advantage, the sound is well usable, not only for guitar and the tones are very naturally. But, it is not really a typical SD-1 in my opinion. At my own one sounds differently.
If this is positive or negative, is debatable. What I do not hear here, is this - for my taste - too intense bass-cut, the plugin sounds more naturally, which I appreciate a lot, as my favorite, customized SD-1 also has been modded to reproduce more bass, if wished. The sounds also seems to offer a little less gain, therefore also less compression, while some SD-1 character is still there, but I rather would define the sound as some sort of "best of both worlds" between a Klon Centaur and an SD-1.
I already have a very authentically, rougher and hotter sounding SD-1 plugin, but often this one even does the job better, so both make sense to me, but the other one also offers all the disadvantages of the original pedal.
For use with other instruments this plugin makes more sense to add some overdrive, without overriding the basic sound. So, as SD-1 style sound it works well, if you look for a 100% authentic sound, look somewhere else, but this plugin wins concerning flexibility and well usable sounds.
As an all round overdrive plugin with a certain SD-1 oriented vintage character nevertheless for me top notch.
Response from codwaves from Codwaves on March 12th, 2026
Thank you so much for the thoughtful review! We're really happy you enjoyed Eeldrive. As a small plugin company, feedback like this honestly means a lot to us.
And your description is actually very close to what we were going for. The goal wasn't to create a strict, 100% component-by-component SD-1 clone. Instead, we tried to capture the character and musical behavior of the pedal while making something a bit more flexible and usable in different contexts.
Some parts of the circuit are modeled with analog-style component emulation, while others are approximated in DSP based on listening tests and analysis. So it's a mix of technical modeling and "by ear" tuning to get the feel right. That approach naturally leads to something that sits somewhere between faithful and its own thing.
Really glad to hear it's working well for you, and thanks again for taking the time to write such a detailed review.
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