DOD Looking Glass Overdrive Class-A FET Owner Manual

The Looking Glass Overdrive is collaboration between DOD and the boutique pedal company SHOE Pedals. Christopher Venter of SHOE Pedals is known for his unique circuits, colorful perspective on classic effects, and minimalist design aesthetic. The collaboration between DOD and SHOE retains all of Christopher’s strengths and adds in some mainstream tonal appeal with an affordable price point. I was first introduced to Christopher when he participated in an online forum collaboration for an octave fuzz in 2012. I was very impressed with the build-quality, voicing, and feature set of that fuzz (and several more after) and I knew that Christopher had a good ear and strong attention to detail. This attention to detail has culminated in the meticulously designed Looking Glass Overdrive, to create a sweet and musical drive with a character that works well for any task – Lead, rhythm, low-gain, highgain or even as a tone-shaping boost.

A note from the designer:

“Years ago, when I was living in Brooklyn, I went on a quest to find the overdrive that worked for me. Most of these were slight variations on a few classic op-amp designs that just didn’t do it for me. I tried a ridiculous number of pedals and found that I wasn’t fully happy with any of them. So, having originally resolved only to make weird experimental fuzz pedals, I decided to break that rule and create a really nice overdrive that I actually wanted to play. After starting with a theory and refining it through extensive play-testing, I concocted the Savior Machine and named it after one of my favorite David Bowie songs.

When DOD approached me to collaborate on a new pedal, I was given free reign to make whatever I wanted (within reason). So, I first went back to my roots and designed a wild high gain fuzz. This sounded great, but I thought to myself that it would really be only useful for some people. I wanted to make something for ALL people. So, I decided to revisit my basic overdrive concept and re-design it with a completely different approach. The result is the Looking Glass. A super-responsive class-A FET design that, I hope will give a whole lot of players the satisfaction of feeling like their overdrive rewards their own unique playing style. It’s great for blues, sure, but it’s also great for hard rock, indie, experimental music, psychedelic music, shoegaze, alternative, punk, bass, etc. etc. etc. The Looking Glass is like a funhouse mirror that lets you twist and tweak your sound in every which way while still sounding like the ideal you.”

-C.J.M. Venter

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1. LEVEL - Sets the output level of the effect. It is recommended that you turn this down when switching to high gain mode to avoid any large jumps in volume.

2. GAIN - Controls how easily the pedal is pushed into overdrive. Because the Looking

Glass rewards dynamic playing, most settings can produce a clean sound when picking lightly. The maximum level of overdrive increases as this knob is turned up.

3. BASS CUT/TREBLE - The BASS CUT knob adjusts the amount of low end content in the incoming signal (before the overdrive). It is recommended that you start by setting this control at noon and adjusting upwards or downwards to thicken or clear up the overdrive to taste. Hint: Set at maximum, this control produces a very raw sound.

The TREBLE knob adjusts the brightness of the pedal’s overdriven sound. Hint:

You may want to move this control to roughly line up with the Bass Cut control for a balanced sound The concentric control design makes this easy to do on the fly. Or, for less neutral sounds, set the two indicators differently from one another to create the drive sound that works best for you.

4. INPUT FILTER - This is a variable filter that adjusts the tone of the input signal. To help match with brighter guitars and reduce the prominence of spikey pick attacks, turn this control more to the left. For a brighter sound with more prominent attack, turn this control all the way up. This control also will adjust the midrange content of the signal so that midrange becomes more prominent as the knob is turned more to the left.

5. HIGH/LOW - The Looking Glass offers two different overdrive modes.

The Low mode is used for clean tone shaping, light compression, and lower gain overdrive.

The High mode pickups up roughly where the Low mode leaves off by boosting the pedal and allows you to dial in Low to High gain overdrive sounds that remain highly touch sensitive all the way through the range.

Note: It is recommended that you turn the Level down when switching modes to avoid loud jumps in volume and re-biasing noise as the pedal adjusts itself to the new gain setting.

6. INPUT - Connect your instrument here.

7. FOOTSWITCH - Turns the effect on and off.

8. LED - Turns on when the effect is enabled.

9. OUTPUT - Connect to the next pedal’s input or to the input of your amplifier.

INTERNAL DIP SWITCHES - The Input Filter control is passive and interacts nicely with your guitar’s electronics when not using a buffer in front of the Looking Glass.

When using buffered pedals before the Looking Glass you may want to adjust the the left DIP (1) switch which slightly increases the input impedance of the pedal.

USING LOOKING GLASS:

Most guitarists/bassists will favor placing the Looking Glass at the beginning of their chain of effects, so start with that placement.

A typical effects signal chain will consist of Overdrive effects first then Modulation effects (Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo, etc...) next and then finally Time based effects (Delay and Reverb).

Placing the Looking Glass toward the front of your chain or effects will preserve the vibe no matter the pedal combination that follows. That being said you are always free to experiment with different effect placements.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Input

Output

Current Draw

Bypass

Power

Warranty

1/4” TS Unbalanced - 260 kΩ (DIP 1 set to on)

235 kΩ (DIP 1 set to off)

1/4” TS Unbalanced - 1 kΩ

4 mA

True Bypass

9VDC alkaline battery (not included)

HARMAN PS0913DC power adapter (optional)

1 Year

DOD

10653 River Front Parkway

South Jordan, UT 84095

USA

801-566-8800

Rev A - 2/16