DOD Electronics

DOD Electronics, or simply DOD, is a Harman International company that makes guitar effects pedals, many of which are now discontinued. Additionally, the company has made active crossover gear.

History

Photograph of the new 2013 DOD Pedals

Photo of DOD prototypes shown at NAMM 2011

DOD originally stood for David Oreste Di Francesco, who founded the company in 1973 with business partner and musician John Johnson. David was the original engineer who, with his business partner John, later sold the company to Harman International. The engineer now runs a company called Rolls Corporation.

Over DOD's 40-year history, the company introduced many pedal lines and early multi-effect devices, like the "944 Chain-Reaction" and digital delays like the now sought-after PDS series. The '70s and early '80s 200, 400 and 600 series of stompboxes have become very collectable. '70s gray "DOD Overdrive Preamp/250"s with LM741 op-amps fetch premium prices with collectors, with the yellow early '80s 250s not far behind. Later '90s DOD pedals have also become collectors items like the "Gonkulator", "Buzz Box", "Meat Box", and "Vibro Thang".

Many of the more popular DOD pedals are now available under the DigiTech name. This includes the Envelope Filter. Some of the wilder DOD distortion pedals are said to be designed for the more novice musicians, although they are still used by a number of professionals. For example distortions like the "Grunge" and "Death Metal" are designed to achieve high-gain distortion tones normally only possible at ear-splitting volumes, in a bedroom at low volumes. Some musicians playing them at high volume with a band find these sounds to be uncontrollable unless the distortion amount is turned way down.

Many of the pedals are very highly regarded by experimental and noise music artists for their unique, extreme sounds and lo-fi settings sometimes not attainable on more expensive musical equipment. Some pedals, such as the "Buzz Box" or "Gonkulator Modulator", have become collectors items and change hands on eBay for far more than they cost new. The most popular DOD pedal was probably the "Grunge" — an extremely heavy distortion pedal described by the designer Jason Lamb to be inspired by the sounds of Nirvana and the Melvins. A Grunge pedal was once given to Kurt Cobain as a joke and he was said to have thrown it into the crowd at one concert.^[1]

In early 2010 Harman employee Tom Cram personally began a clandestine skunkworks project to revive DOD. This resulted in the prototypes for what would be the new DOD 250, 201, and an unidentified third red pedal. This skunkworks project was unknown to Harman and only became official after Mr. Cram showed his completed prototypes. Mr. Cram has subsequently become the marketing manager for DigiTech/DOD and continues to work on new DigiTech and DOD pedals.

On September 16, 2013, DOD returned with updated versions of the venerable "Overdrive Preamp/205", and "Phasor/201". Both feature true bypass, blue LEDs, modern power jack, lighter aluminum chassis, two tone flat-black and metal-flake paint jobs. The 2013 250 also features an LM741 op-amp to replicate the sounds of the original 250. In 2014 three more updated DOD pedals were released, the "BIFET Boost 410", and the "Envelope Filter 440", and the "Electro-Optical Compressor 280". The 410 features a new buffer on/off toggle and the 440 features an up/down voicing toggle, and the 280 circuit is untouched except for the addition of true bypass, LED, and modern PSU jack. All feature true bypass, blue LEDs, modern power jack, lighter aluminum chassis, two tone flat-black and metal-flake paint jobs.

In early 2015 a new DOD pedal called the "Boneshaker"^[2] distortion unit was released; this is a collaboration with boutique pedal builder Mark Wentz of Black Arts Toneworks.^[3]

DOD Effects "FX" Pedals in order by name

DOD "SR" Crossovers in order by item #

• SR823 Two-way stereo, three-way mono active crossover
• SR834 Three-way stereo, four-way mono active crossover
• SR835 Two-way stereo, three-way mono active crossover

References

External links

• Official website
• AmericasPedal.net (comprehensive resource for DOD's FX-series of effects pedals)