Interstellar Audio Machines: OCTONAUT HYPERDRIVE Overdrive

The Octonaut Hyperdrive is unabashedly based on the mighty Klon Centaur, an overdrive now out of production and priced beyond the means of most. The Interstellar Audio Machines version features inner switchable buffered or true bypass and all of the tonal magic found in the original. The included manual suggests using the Octonaut Hyperdrive with an amp that's already going into break-up, but I quite like the gain stage and subsequent overdrive characteristics of this pedal with a clean amp as well. Hopefully I've appropriately demonstrated both scenarios here. Regardless, this is a pedal that should find a permanent home on most pedalboards or collections as it's a very useful classic.

Today's tools:

Amp: Axe-FX III Turbo running Cygnus X-3 FW. 25.02. Marshall SLP1959 and '65 Deluxe Reverb (Normal Channel) models.
Cables: BOSS
Strings: Ernie Ball 10-46
Camera: GoPro HERO10 + Sony ZV-1M2 x 2
Soundcard: PreSonus Quantum 26x32
Computer: 2017 Apple iMac Pro, 2.5 GHz 14-Core Intel Xeon W, 64 GB 2666 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro Vega 64X 16 GB

[michaelsasnow]

Thanks for a great review: thorough, good “footnotes, ” and great playing, as always. I play through a Quilter Mach III, so, no tubes to kick, so showing it as a stand-alone OD was helpful (I just have the gain on the amp up enough to add a little “body”). I use a Lovepedal OD11 as my “usually on, transparent, end of chain” pedal, and pick from these ODs to stack into it: Lovepedal Kalamazoo, Allums modded TS808, OCD. I’m on a “buy one, sell one” restriction! With your vast pedal experience, do think the Octonaut would be a good replacement for one of these 3? I would think maybe the Kalamazoo, possibly the 808. OCD is kind of its own thing. I know this is an “individual ears” thing, but just curious for some highly experienced feedback.

[ESP]

Nobody demo's drive pedals with a full-clean amp anymore... :-(