Guitar Player / February 2001  Boost and Burn - Bench Tests  Five New Overdrive Flavors by Darrin Fox

     The Germ offers an interesting twist on the raunch theme.  This box provides two functions: A simple clean boost with its own volume control (Growth) and a seriously boosted crunch mode with gain (Multiply) and volume controls.  You can’t mix the two sounds, but you can activate each separately via the on/off and preset footswitches.  Cool!  Inside the Germ’s die-cast case resides a tidy, handwired circuit that contains what looks like a plastic bottle cap sprouting several wires filled with epoxy. 

     The Germ’s clean boost is simply huge, yet the circuit is super quiet.  The crunch side supplies the same ridiculous volume boost, but with the addition of a fat distortion.  We could easily conjure Hiwatt-style rage from a Super Reverb in this mode.  Amazing.  Turning down your guitar volume yields stunning clarity and definition – crunch and punch at your fingertips. 

    The Germ’s distortion character is not so much creamy as it is chunky.  It’s almost too thick for chords, but single-note lines jump out of the speakers with hammer-like authority.  The Germ isn’t for everyone – if you’re looking for a high-gain pedal to do the work for you, this pedal isn’t your cup of bacteria.  But if you want to infect your amp with an outbreak of old-school crunch – or an epidemic of clean boost – the righteously dynamic Germ does the deed.