Keeley Germanium Super Phat Mod – Hand Built Edition

The BD-2 Blues Driver is one of the earliest Keeley modified pedals. It is a wonderfully complex circuit that has many layers of tube amp simulation. It’s a Fender Super in a box essentially. It is dynamic and expressive and captures many tones that guitar players love. Fast forward 16 years and Keeley has added a germanium amplifier stage right after the tone stack to simulate a tube power amp section. If you have wanted the the perfect combo of Fuzz and Overdrive, this is it! We’ve added a Germanium Fuzz to the JFET Tube Simulation! The result is a more aggressively voiced overdrive with a spongy compression and fuzz that only germanium transistors give. The Germanium Super Phat Mod – Hand Built Edition not only has the perfect JFETS for tone, it has the attention to detail only a hand built product can provide.

Many say the Phat Mod is their favorite tone from a pedal. It’s that natural break-up that just feels good and lets you express yourself. The dynamics make it feel alive and part of your fingers. That’s the reason the modified pedal has stayed on people’s boards for nearly 15 years. The Keeley Super Phat Mod is our famous mod now perfected with amazing sounding JFETs that emulate old tube amps in a unique way.

The original pedal was a great design that features tube-like amp stages, tube amp tone stacks, and a variety of tone shaping circuits that bring out the best in any guitar’s pickups. The problem with doing one in the past has been to try and find the perfect FET to capture the magic. If the harmonic content and grain of the distortion and overdrive weren’t exactly right, we moved on and waited to try out other devices. Well, after all these years Craighton Hale stumbled upon a Toshiba device that had the magic. Our resident guitar hero Aaron Pierce, known for being very critical of even the most minute nuances, was grinning from ear to ear when he approved this Ear-Candy final version. We had found the magic device that pushed it over the top. We had to dress it in gold and royal purple. The name badge had to speak of it’s history and heritage. With Super Phat Mod in an old black face style logo and the metal flake clear sparkle on gold we feel it will look incredible in any rig.

The Super Phat Mod pedal now has incredible dynamics. It is full range and very responsive. The phrase “transparent overdrive” was born of this design! From country, to blues and rock the Phat Mod is the choice for those not wanting the over-refined sound of a common screamer. Set the gain high and let your guitar’s volume control or your pick attack do the work. With the Super Phat Mod you now have all of our refinements, the very best of tone-shaping electronics, and modern features like true-bypass.

The Skinny on the Phat History

The Keeley BD-2 was the first mod that had a switch. It was done to give players two modes of bass response, with the slight boost it was called the Phat mode. Perfect for players of Strats and Teles that wanted just a small push without being muddy. That same design is also available via the micro toggle on the Super Phat Mod. Later on we released the Luna Overdrive which won a Gear of the Year award in England and that pedal had further refinements made to it and became the Katana Blue Drive. The Katana Blues Drive still retained the active bass and treble controls but smoothed out the highs and increased the gain range slightly. That was an original design designed to meet many of the tonal characteristics of the Blues Driver. The new Super Phat Mod takes of by duplicating the Keeley Phat Mod part-for-part with the exception of our new “super JFETs”. We think you’ll enjoy this incredible tone we have crafted for you.

So What’s the Difference?

The Keeley Super Phat Mod and the Keeley Germanium Super Phat Mod – Hand Built Edition are basically the same tried and true circuit. Both sound glorious and for Blues Driver fans having some choice is great.

The construction is quite similar. The Keeley Germanium Super Phat Mod – Hand Built Edition has a slightly different tone. To my ears, it has a bit more dynamics, the highs are extended slightly and it gets hairier as you increase the gain. Any higher gains I sense increased harmonic content to the sound. Do you need BOTH pedals? I would say probably no, but if you lover this circuit might be worth your time to take a listen.