The Wampler Euphoria is a versatile and high-quality overdrive pedal that is ideal for guitar players who play any style up to heavier 80s lead tones. It’s a vintage vibe pedal for the most part. As a result, it may not be a tight enough drive for metal, but I haven’t used those tones enough to know what I’d like the response to feel. 

This pedal has an easy-to-use interface, the usual controls of gain, volume and tone. It also has a bass control but it doesn’t react anything like a “normal” bass knob. The best way I could think to describe it is, when you turn it up, it increases the “flubbiness” you get when cranking an old Fender. It’s a really great feature to have and I demonstrate that in the video. 

Also it has a footswitch with no click which I get a big kick out of in newer pedals.

It also has a switch that as far as I can feel, is a selector for gain structures within the pedal. The names for me don’t really correspond with what the feel of those structures are, but I love them all the same, I’ve gravitated to different ones in different periods. Also naturally, I’ve changed this switch to adjust for other pedals that I have inline with it.

Smooth I feel is mostly a play on words but also kind of makes sense. Wampler were saying this was more for the searing lead with smooth edges on the drive, much like Carlos Santana’s guitar sound. I’ve ended up using this a lot but not having it too hot.

Open feels to me like the most unaffected and higher output setting, you have to adjust the volume to compensate, it seems like there is “less in the way”. 

Crunch was the setting I felt I’ve always been on the most, I’d say it sounds very honest, it feels like a simpler sound and like it gives me less space to hide. I like a pedal where it isn’t covering up anything that I’m playing and this does just that.

The build quality of the Euphoria is excellent as is to be expected from a Wampler pedal, they are a premium brand I’d say as they are pushing the £200 bracket for a single channel overdrive pedal. I’ve had it for maybe 5 years, in and out of storage, on and off of pedalboards and it carries on. I hate to say it but when I have a pedal lose, I’m not overly precious about it. 

Overall, the Wampler Euphoria is incredibly versatile. Brian Wampler is something of a mad scientist and is obsessed with creating inspiring and rewarding pieces of gear to use. I bought it because I wanted a specific structure to the mids that it provides, but as I’ve used it more, its function has changed for me. It isn’t in my main rig right now, but that’s only because its hard to use anything but my Blackstone mosfet for those big lead sounds. 

Written by Andy Charles