NA Overdrive Special Guitar Amplifier

The Nembrini plugin version of this legendary amp the first one, which gave me - after having learned how to tame this "beast" and adjust it properly - a convincing impression, why an ODS really is so legendary.

Some sort of Blackface on Steroids, I would say.

After having tested the plugin, I first was a little disappointed, until I found out that this plugin is not the sort of "You press the button(s), we do the rest!" plugin, some controls need to be adjusted properly, but if you do it, you can get a lot of really excellent, also very differently sounding tones.

My PAF-Humbuckers obviously already had been too hot for the default setting, so I had to reduce Input and Output a lot, so that the signal levels did not start to distort. Concerning these controls here less definitely seems to be more, but afterwards the "sonic sun" was starting to rise.

The basic tones are very American / Fender voiced, nice, very transparent, open, fresh, dynamically reacting tones with really a lot of treble, but also enough mids and bass, if you need them.

I personally found a proper treble adjustment essential for really good tones, as the amp can offer more treble reserves than you most probably will ever need. Also the microphone, speaker, cabinet selection affects the tone - in my impression - much more than usual.

The Overdrive itself sounds nicely harmonious, American voiced, but - depending on the individual gain and tone settings you can change this basic character also to a more dirty, rougher sounding one, even more if you deactivate the tone stack. Nevertheless you will not completely reach this typical British brutality and aggressive tone, also because of the existing mid-scoop, but you can come a little closer.

What makes the difference to a lot of other amps are the incredibly intense, vivid harmonics, which here have their own, unique character, different to the harmonics from modern high-gain amps or Marshalls, the overdrive is a typical, but intensely beefed up vintage overdrive with a sweet and at the same time really biting tone, intense treble and a lot of sustain, but without ever sounding too flat or over-compressed, quite the opposite.

The clean sounds are equally good (of course), also very flexible adjustable, the Clean channel alone is capable of producing a nice vintage overdrive, so you also can not only adjust a good clean but also alternatively an excellent crunchy rhythm sound and a more intense overdrive lead sound and do the rest with guitar volume. The possible combinations of Volume (first gain stage) and Lead (second gain stage) allow a lot of different tones.

Certainly not the perfect amp for modern Metal or really heavy stuff, but most probably for almost everything else. For me the typical SRV, Carlton, Ritenour, Ford, Sayce tone, which even alone sounds great, without any additional pedals or reverb.

Interesting speaker/cabinet selection. For me the 15" Faceman / JBL became the best choice, buat also the Vox / Fane combinations sounds very good, only completely different. If using external IR's, I found that alnico Creams or Rubys as well as Creambacks do a good job, but also an ET65 or ET90 harmonize well with this amp / plugin, maybe even better than Celestions, as they add some nice, decent compression and sweeten treble a little.

For me personally most probably the most convincingly sounding and working simulation of this legendary amp.

But - it needs more proper adjustment, especially concerning Treble, Presence, Input and Output, as much as the right cabinet/speaker/microphone combination, to find the really great sounding sweet spots.