As guitarists, it always seems we are on the quest for the perfect, nirvana of tone, and when it comes to overdrive and distortion, it is this holy grail that we always seem to be chasing. Yes, I am very guilty of this, the point where you think you have found the perfect pedal, but then G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome) gets you and you just have to try something else. I particular blame the internet for this! Anyway, as you can see from my previous reviews I am pretty much happy and content with my set-up, although I do tweak from time to time. To cut a long story short, I was selling some other bits and pieces and I was offered this pedal as a trade. Now, I should have stuck to my guns and just taken the cash, but hey it was an overdrive pedal, and I had heard good things about it, so I brought this 2nd hand on a whim and as a trade for another pedal. I thought that if the worst comes to the worst, it is straight back on Ebay, nothing ventured nothing gained (no pun intended) and all that. Sometime fate does good things!!So most importantly what does it SOUND like?I owned the OCD a few years back, probably my first purchase of a pedal 'unheard', using the now familiar technique of reading a thousand reviews, forum posts and youtube videos. I didn't get off to a good start, I can really appreciate the OCD, it is a good overdrive pedal, but wasn't for me, it lacked the tone that I was looking for, probably which is more soft clipping. I plugged in the Plimsoul, not really knowing what to expect..... about an hour later I still couldn't stop playing with it (the pedal that is!), wow and wow, you know you have a good one when (as I may have said before) time passes, you can't stop playing, and this pedal was one of those for me, the difficulty is choosing which sound to go with as there are just SO many options possible.It seems the design of the pedal is a synergy between a soft-clipped OD and a hard-clipped distortion pedal, as everyone say like a tube-screamer/od-1 bred with a DS-1 or Rat type pedal!! So what is not to like!! It is amazing that you can go from the softly compressed bluesy type sounds to a very saturated high-gain distortion (and the more you turn up stage 2, the more the little red LED flashes depending on how you playing....I like that touch!). The Plimsoul also cleans up nice from the guitar and is very responsive and suitably sounding depending if you are using a single coil or humbucker. I would say the Plimsoul is a bit more mid focused that something like the OCD for example, it is noticeably not as transparent as say the OCD or Wampler Euphoria or Timmy, but actually I am coming to the conclusion of 'sod' transparency, I want dirty!The thing I love most about this pedal is the way it sustains a note and gentle nudges you into feedback and it is a lovely musical feedback. It is very warm sounding too (much warmer sounding than the Boss SD-1 that I have been using for years....which is is replacing), I guess I have mine set in what would be OD with a slightly distortion, it is the perfect tone!How easy is it to use?Very easy, I mean it is an overdrive pedal. There is tons and tons of level on tap (barely got above 10 o'clock, so this could be used as a nice boost pedal as well...but a bit of a waste to do that as it sounds so good!). Hi-cut is basically the tone control, and sustain is what we would normally think of as drive. Stage 2 is where the real distortion starts to kick in, although you could say the knob is a little bit small for some fingers and you can't quite see where it is set from a distance. (just a little niggle!)There is 9V input and it runs from a battery, but you can run it up to 18V, not tried that yearAre there any nice touches?Nicest touch the stage 2 LED which response to you playing...cool as!Will it fall apart?No it is solidly built for sure!!Pros1)It sounds fantastic, like really fantastic2)The number of tonal options possible mixing the Stage 1 and Stage 2's together3)The sustain and level availableCons1)It is expensive (if you don't get lucky like I did)2)You probably will want another one!Video review coming.PeaceNeil