So, as I'm thinking about copping a new overdrive pedal, I think to myself, "Maybe I ought to check my gear cabinets first to remind myself what I already have." And sure enough, I pull out this pedal, that I haven't used for years, described by its designers, Naylor and Weil, in Reverend's Discontinued Products FAQ, as follows:
DOES THE DRIVETRAIN II SOUND LIKE A TUBE SCREAMER?
The Drivetrain II has smoother overdrive, more transparent midrange, more available clean boost, and treble and bass controls. This allows you to produce traditional Tube Screamer sounds or dial in your own tones with no bass loss or permanent mid hump. The Drivetrain II uses the JRC4558 IC chip as found in the original vintage TS 808 Tube Screamer.
DOES THE DRIVETRAIN II HAVE TRUE BYPASS?
No, we use what we call neutral bypass. This buffered bypass does not alter tone when the pedal is bypassed and does not pop loud like common true bypass switches. And because it is buffered it prevents signal and treble loss when using long cables or multiple pedals placed after the Drivetrain II. We feel this is superior to true bypass switching.
I power it up, plug in, play a bit with the controls, then riff through it for an hour on my Scarlet Fire Wolf and, damn, it sounds fine.
Perhaps I'll add a distortion pedal after all but for overdrive, I'm already a wealthy man.