Which of these two is closest to a Zendrive?

Dumbler, which I beleive is the same as the Rumble Drive. However, I kinda doubt its a 1:1 clone. I tmust have some little mods here and there.

The Joyo Ultimate OD is an OCD clone. It has nothing to do with a Zendrive neither in circuit nor in tone - I can tell this from experience - I've owned the Joyo and I have two Zendrives right now.

 

Dumbler. Ultimate Drive is an OCD clone, very different sound.

 

I've found the Dumbler isn't that good as compared to a better quality clone.

I use a "Zen Tone" clone from 3PDT. You can probably find it in the $50 to $60 range. It's a lot better than the Dumbler.

 

• +1 on the Zen Tone. What a great drive pedal. It sounds great on my Fender Vibro King, Polytone Mini-Brute III (solid state), and on my Fender Mustang IV modeling amp. I paid $39, brand new, on Amazon. I've had the J.Rockett "Dude", as well, and it was no better than the Zen Tone. Best pedal purchase I've made in a long, long time.

 

I have a Zen Drive clone by CBC pedals, now out of business but they come up used pretty cheap, i paid maybe $60 and it's supposed to be an acurate clone of the ZD V1.

I also have an OCD, the pedals it was based on, and even a pedal based on the OCD.
Not similar, the ZD is much smoother and more compressed.
I like it best into a more snarly pedal that needs some smoothing out.

 

wait for the lovepedal sale & get a Zendrive for $99. I got the pedal from the last one so there's probably another sale coming up soon. yes, it's a crapshoot.

 

the folks at lovepedal seem to put out three or four varieties of everything, usually without any clear explanation of the differences among them. this can be baffling but the prices are so ridiculously cheap that you may not mind not knowing the distinction between a white Tchula and a gold one.

 

I bought this one when it came out, as well as the Tauren Klon style and the Zip Amp BB style one, and the Tauren is by far the best (one of the best Klones that I've tried, along with the Bad Horse and Crème Brulee), with the Taichi being the worst. I don't know if I just got a bad one, but it's unusable because it picks up so many radio signals. Very poorly shielded apparently. The Tomsline Dumbler is better. I also tried the Rowin Dumbler, which isn't the same as the Tomsline one. To me it didn't sound very Dumbly (is that a word?) but more like a Bluesbreaker type, being very bright and low gain, more like the Tomsline Bluesy.

 

DCW Pedals "ZAZ Drive":
http://www.dcwpedals.com/zaz-drive-1.html

Also, here's an older TDPRI discussion with lots of info:
http://www.tdpri.com/threads/cheaper-alternative-to-the-zendrive.318382/

 

Wish I still had my Zendrive, I'd let you borrow it. It's a cool pedal. Agree with others on the Dumbler but the Zendrive has its own unique "thing"... In my opinion

 

The Dude by J Rockett.

 

I use a Dumbler on my small board, and it's almost there by itself, but absolutely killer after a Timmy set for low gain. The combination gets the 'grab' on the note, if you know what I mean.

I like it as much as the Wampler Super Ecstasy (pre-Euphoria) I used to own.

On the other hand, I had a Black Zen for a few weeks that was ok but a bit shrieky. I hate to say I prefer the rip to a variation from the original brand.

 

The Hermida zen drives used to be relatively cheap. I don't know what drove the prices up? Internet hype I guess.

 

To just get an idea, IMO anything that's more or less similar to the ZD should be more than sufficient. It's a very basic circuit with mostly common components and values (that are all well known by most folks who offer replications of it). Does the op amp type in this one make an audible difference? Yes, but whether one sounds particularly better than another is a subjective call, so unless something sounds significantly less than your expectations, I honestly wouldn't worry about it.

...Same thing for the particular clipping diodes in the ZD - it's not so much the actual ones used, as much as it has to do with the particular overall combination (e.g. there are substitutions that should sound basically the same). So you could have a ZD variant with a "ballpark" variation, and it's not going to sound "un-ZD-like," IMO.

 

I have the black magic model from LP and have read that it is higher gain than the original.

I wondered about that - sometimes it does sound a bit more aggressive than I want. Would you guess that the difference would be that great? I'm not one to chase minor variations down, but I have thought "maybe worth a try".

If I turn the gain down to tame it, it loses a little of the "singing" quality. Which I assume is compression?

 

I guess I'm lucky. I got my Zen Drive with no wait back when they first hit. I especially like it with Lap Steel.

Those Joyo Tauren pedals look interesting, but having had one of their digital delays fail on me I'm a bit gun shy.