Review: Mosky MM Silver Overdrive

TL;DR — this pedal sounds great, there’s a small amount of noise in the circuit, but for the price you can’t argue.

Rating — 8/10

RRP: About £20

Before beginning, it’s worth mentioning that I don’t own a real Timmy, and it’s been some time since I’ve tried one in the flesh. In spite of that, Timmy clones at around about the £200 price point seem to cross my desk with a predictable frequency, and the whole ‘transparent overdrive’ phenomenon seems to follow a number of pretty well-trod circuits and topologies, of which the Timmy is one of the main ones.

If you don’t want an original — and it’s worth saying that for a boutique pedal, they’re still pretty affordable — then the circuit is simple enough that one would expect there to be a lot of cheap clone options.

Possibly because of the affordability of the original, there seem to be very few Timmy clones out there that stick their head above the parapet as being clones. From a quick search online, there’s mainly this and a Caline pedal with a much larger footprint, although there are, as I mentioned, many that do not admit their true heritage as modded, or indeed cloned, Timmys.

Op amp-based distortion circuits with a soft clip always end up with a slightly Tubescreamer like character to my ear, and the Mosky Timmy clone is no different. When wide open it can roar even when not pushing an amp, though like the Tubescreamer it works best when pushing a valve amp, using both the gain and volume controls to achieve saturation.

Like the Timmy, the Mosky has a different, fuller frequency response due to the 2-band cut EQ. In spite of the many differences between the Timmy and the Tubescreamer — and indeed, the Mosky and the Tubescreamer — possibly the most significant is the EQ, which combined with different filtering in the main circuit seems to fuller in the treble, while giving more flexibility in terms of taming bass rumble. If you’re using a latter-day Marshall, that might not be an issue, but for amps with a less tight low-end, a 2-band EQ is hugely more useful than a single-knob tone control.

Connected to a cheap power supply, the pedal seemed noisier than perhaps one might ideally like, but by no means worse than many boutique brands I’ve tried. Switched over to an isolated supply, the noise is largely gone unless the gain is well past unity.

Sounds-wise it worked great with both a single-ended five-watt tube amp and a 100W Marshall head, and delivered if not quite the same drive sounds as the Timmy I recall, then close enough to at least be the equal of many of the boutique clones knocking around that I’ve tried.