Summer School Electronics Updates The Gladys With More Bark And More Bite

New controls, improved tone, but same fun transparent overdrive and dog-inspired graphic!

If you like what you hear/read, go grab your own Gladys V2 before they’re gone!

You may remember Gladys as the transparent, Bluesbreaker-based pedal from Summer School Electronics released back in 2022. As one of the earlier pedals from brand, it was a great starting point that followed up the beloved Gus Drive and helped usher in the brand’s pet-themed aesthetic more and more.

I loved the Gladys pedal. It was just a bluesbreaker, simple as that, but it had that very useful compression switch that helped it stick around compared to the half dozen or so BB-style pedals I’ve reviewed, flipped, sold, or traded in past years. The only thing is, it needed a bit more oomph (in terms of volume and tone). Well, Mark from Summer School has done just that with the new V2 model. It’s roots are the same as V1, but with some key changes including a volume boost and now a 2-band EQ instead of a single tone knob. You get individual high and low contour knobs, greatly expanding tone shaping.

Here’s my demo of the pedal, I’m running my RWM Guitars Tele DC into Universal Audio Ruby & Dream amp sims in stereo.

The results are a chimey, flexible, and fun overdrive pedal that will certainly get more use from me going forward. The Gladys V2 still brings all that transparent, soft clipping overdrive with the added versatility of that modern, higher gain compressed sound too. But it just has more of both, more bark, more bite, and I’m finding the 2-band EQ highly satisfying to compensate for different guitar pickups.

Summer School follows up nicely on the Pep Rally with this release, which improves an existing circuit just as the previous launch improved on their silicon fuzz, the Stone Thrower. I appreciate Mark revisiting some of these old pedals and really ironing out the details, especially now that the brand is significantly more popular and well known than before. And he deserves every bit of that spotlight, as so many of his pedals power my recording and gigging boards based on their quality, novelty, or versatility.

I won’t wax poetically much longer, as many of my thoughts on this circuit and pedal can be found in the original review of the V1! But definitely jump on Summer School’s website or use my reverb link to grab one, if transparent overdrive with actual user friendly functions is something you wish! It’s another great pedal from Mark, one I’ll be screwing around with for sure!