First off the bat I have to say that the pedal is very impressive on first run-through - with none of those obvious DSP side-effects or inherent signal-processing give-aways. Yet if and when you do head-to-head comparisons with equivalent analog pedals - there are certain differences that become very quickly evident.

With any drive pedal there is a considerable vocabulary that can be applied to describe those key tonal characteristics and timbres you are hearing, with several other more subtle differentiators involved too:

Hard vs Soft

Dark vs Bright

Cold vs Warm

Compressed vs Open

Brittle vs Smooth

Thin vs Fat / Well-Rounded / Full-Bodied

Dense / Plastic vs Elastic

Flat vs Harmonic / Textured

Rigid vs Chewy

Artificial vs Organic

Tight vs Loose

Coloured vs Transparent

etc.

It has to be said that the OD-200 has a lot of different voices differently applied, while there are some fairly distinct characteristics in the core default tonal profile that seem to be pretty constantly there. This includes a slight hardness to the overall timbre of the drives and distortions on the basis of soft versus hard clipping effect equivalency. I am also aware of a very slight hint of darkness in most of the profiles. This is particularly evident when dialling in Low and Middle frequencies - which for instance when compared to my Basic Audio Tri/Ram when you ramp up the equivalent Fat / Lows knob you get more bass / low-end for sure, but it applies a harder texture with it and more density on the OD-200, while the Bass on the Tri/Ram is somewhat softer and more open, which makes the Tri/Ram sound somewhat warmer too.

The same is largely true of the Middle EQ frequencies - where they don't seem to be as elastic or chewy as many of my preferred Marshall-esque / Plexi pedals. That does not mean you cannot get amazing tones out of the OD-200 - is just means the character of the voicings is often somewhat slightly different in the overall nuances of texture and feel.

With my initial foray into head-to-head comparisons I found I could get pretty close to most of those I tried bar the Dumble-Style drive - which is a really elegant fuzz-edged drive/distortion or fuzzy-drive even as I like to call it. Yet I tried here to apply the FUZZ voicing to a tiny degree combined with the OVERDRIVE Boost, and then vice-versa - but the character and taper of the Big-Muff style FUZZ just isn't sufficiently nuanced for creating those subtle Dumble-Style tones - so that was the only significant failing / omission really. In fact the Big Muff style FUZZ voicing itself was the first one I really bonded with, and I was able to get really excellent Triangle and Ram's Head style flavours really very quickly and easily. In direct head-to-head comparisons with the Basic Audi Tri/Ram there was a marked difference in the Low and Middle frequencies - yet the OD-200 still sounded pretty stellar with its own voicing. I feel this is a really great Muff-style voicing where you can easily dial in Triangle, Ram's Head and even Green Russian style varieties - and when combining with the different boosts - almost anything is possible here - bearing in mind though that the OD-200 does have its own distinct distortion character.

So the FUZZ voicing was the first big success for me, and then I found I could also pretty easily dial in some Stellar OVERDRIVE, BLUES, SCREAM, CNTR OD and DIST voicings. The 'X' drive variants actually took me some time to get used to - even though I have a DS-1X pedal myself - there is a touch of an unusual feel to that which takes some getting used to - as you don't get the typical saturation bloom you get with conventional analog pedals so it does not initially react exactly how you're used to. I feel that it will take me a while to get to grips properly with the X-DRIVE, X-DIST and X-METAL modes - even though the last mentioned was actually the easiest to dial in of those - but generally from X-DIST through to X-METAL I preferred to apply those in conjunction with a BOOST - as we will cover in the next part below.

I might also question the omission of certain drive types versus some of these chosen - for instance I think a RAT voicing would have been another great flavour here possibly in place of the FAT DIST. But overall this is a really cleverly set up and calibrated pedal with some minor flaws for sure - which I will detail in the third chapter below. Overall though I'm actually really impressed with the OD-200 - with the Interest Curve veering from excitement and wonder to bemusement and surprise and then a quiet glow of satisfaction at the end. I did not find all the voicings necessarily wholly useful for me or even entirely to my liking - but there is so much here, and on pretty much every voicing you can dial in something interesting at the very least - albeit you need to be careful with differences in DRIVE/Gain taper and LEVEL/Volume unity when switching between modes.

In short, the modes I enjoy the most are OVERDRIVE, BLUES, SCREAM, CNTR OD, DIST, BROWN, X-METAL and FUZZ surprisingly in particular! With my being able to dial in extremely satisfying variations of each.

Note also that I was considering sharing my own settings for some of these - but they are so rig-specific I've noted that other players boost the Lows while I usually roll them back a little etc. You're fine off starting in the usual Boss default position with every dial at noon / 12 o'c and adjusting to taste from there - note also that there can be a fairly significant / audible difference in volume and gain for each of those 12 o'c positions. Level runs 0-100, Drive 0-120, and each of Low, Middle and High are -50 to +50 Active EQs.

I would think with 12 DRIVE Types, 15 BOOST Types and 180 combinations / permutations of those deployed together - there should really be something here for everyone.