Daniel M.
From booming bottom-end lows, chunky mids to screaming highs, Donner's Morpher Distortion is a winner. The gain control is quite aggressive, ranging from shimmering 80s arena rock to the heaviest of today's metal punch, and when paired with the three-position toggle switch, is capable of producing a wide variety of in-betweens. Definitely made for a heavier sound, the pedal's versatility, simple design, and the solid construction Donner is known for, make the Morpher a solid hit for almost any player.
Curtis
Keep in mind that tone is a very subjective thing for everyone. With that out of the way...
I found the pedal while browsing around here on the Donner website and thought the price was great. I decided to watch some video demos/reviews on youtube of this pedal and thought it sounded great in the demos/reviews I watched, so I decided to buy it since the price was nice and low. However, once I got it and started using it, I found that I personally didn't like the tones I was getting out of it.
I have no idea if I got a dud unit, but this pedal really sucks the life out of whatever guitar I'm playing through it and, at least to my ears, really doesn't add much of an interesting tone of its own.
I plug in my strat with the classic three single coil configuration, and all of the characteristic stratty tones are gone. No quack, no jangle, no spank, none of that comes through. The pedal makes my strat sound like it's equipped with dull sounding humbuckers, no matter which setting I flip the switch to, where I set the tone control, or how low I set the gain dial. Even with the gain at 0, it doesn't let my guitar's tone shine through at all, it just covers it up with its own sound that, to my ears, isn't very good.
Pros:
Great price
Well built
Cons:
Awful tone
Ellzia G.
A fantastic pedal to start out with.
daniel s.
I would love to share a photo or tell you more about my pedal but unfortunately I have still not received it yet? I received the 1st pedal but not the 2nd pedal they were both on the same order?
Mark T.
It does what it should nice addition to my collection
Timothy E.
I love the crunch that this pedal delivers Great for hard rock & metal!!!! The only issue is when I use the Jet convolution Flanger W/the Distortion pedal. When I do that the the Distortion pedal goes into screech mode????
David G.
Came packaged great , and prompt delivery, sounds great , excellent product
Anthony B.
Didn’t even even received this item I accidentally put the wrong address emailed donner immediately and they couldn’t help me that much not impressed
Howard B.
I added a Donner Morpher and a Dynamic Wah to my pedalboard setup, which had very limited space! the pedals are the perfect size, good, solid construction, and the sound is exactly what I was hoping it would be!
Ray B.
Sounds huge in such itty bitty unit. Already has the sound I need.
Robert S.
I really like this pedal. It has a sound of its own.
Edwin S.
Definitely one of my favorite pedals I’ve owned, not only is it aesthetically pleasing, but the sound it helps produce is competitive towards “high end” pedals. Definitely will be buying more !
JH
I adore this pedal! I've been playing guitar for 20 years and just recently got into 80s style shredding for fun. I needed a distortion pedal to sculpt the right tone & dynamics, and this little guy delivered. My overdrive pedals weren't enough, & I wasn't quite getting the goods from dirty amp settings. Paired with a compressor this makes pinch harmonics soar! I'm like a kid who can't stop popping the squealies! You can get a decent range of distortion sounds that are great for 80s style pop rock solos & grit. I play mainly humbuckers & P90s. This pedal can get noisy on my tube amps, and that's common with distortion. I'm using a Decimator II G String with it to gate/wipe the noise. As soon as I got it I set up a quick mini board with it, and I've been having a blast with it. It allows me to easily get sounds & dynamics I was working hard to get before.
I'm very happy with my purchase of this pedal. It serves my needs very well.
Davide C.
Delivery took too long but the product is solid and added to my time.
Omri P.
I bought this pedal and it sounded good so I recommended it to a student of mine and he sound great with the pedal and he likes the pedal as well.
Ronaldo T.
Morpher is certainly one of the distortion pedals that went into history here in Brazil practically everyone has in their setups ... He speaks for himself !!! Top
C***c
Pedal arrived without fees. Came very fast. sonzeira
Shopper
Great stuff. Very small in size, but large in sound. I liked it. The seller is excellent, sent quickly, came less than two weeks.
G***u
Great product. I received it after 15 days. I am very happy. The packaging was very good. I suggest it and suggest the seller too.
Adrian Tysoe
Summary from full review on my Blog
I have an overdrive for classic through hard rock. it’s not great at modern high gain rock/metal, especially rhythm. I found this clone of the $200 Suhr Riot distortion pedal.
I didn’t really expect it to sound this good. Its a really nice organic distortion that can go thin to full bodied, combined with my compressor and overdrive, you can get a broad range of really nice sounds. It can be smooth and creamy, but when dialed up with minimal reverb can get some really nice grit in the distortion too.
The distortion pedal has quite a lot of boost. The level knob is level at 9 o’clock so you can reduce the volume slightly or boost a lot. I can’t tell much difference between the three modes. The tight setting scoops the mids very slightly.
It is also a true bypass pedal, when turned off there is no power passing through the electronics to potentially color the signal.
My little Marshall DSL5c can have a full range of classic tones. High gain leads sound very good. Mild crunch to raunchy, tight rhythm. I can get any tone I want with minimal fiddling on my minimalist pedalboard.
A really nice distortion pedal that sounds very musical. Never hard or fizzy. It’s fantastic for the price. I checked out comparison videos between it and the Suhr Riot it emulates and it is very close. When you consider that the Morpher distortion is a fraction of the price of a used Suhr pedal, it’s fantastic. I really like it.
http://www.whatmonkeysays.com/donner-morpher-distortion-guitar-pedal/
Crlos Alvz
This is the second Morpher I've had
The first one I bought was red, the current has a slight color change but for the price this pedal is excellent. Undoubtedly.
Ronaldo Tostes
Donner Morpher Show!!!
Pedal Show! Distortion super defined, sound good to hear, beautiful soil!
Very fast delivery! And very cheap, I recommend it to everyone!
Pedal Show! Distorção super definida, som gostoso de ouvir, solo lindo!
Entrega muito rápida! E muito barato, recomendo a todos!
Nixon Marcel
Otimo
Chegou dentro do prazo, pedal top.
Amos
Proper Mopher
This pedal is very well built, pot are working fine from min ti max.
It stands on same level as much more expensive pedals.
The sound you obtain is natural, not artificially compressed or too harsh. Furthermore it's noto noisy at all.
I'm not going to give it away.
Amos
Proper Mopher
This pedal is very well built, pot are working fine from min ti max.
It stands on same level as much more expensive pedals.
The sound you obtain us natural, noto artificially compressed or top harsh.
I'm noto going ti vive it away.
Brandon Turner
Great distortion for great price!
I ordered this pedal to replace a faulty pedal and honestly didn't expect it to be as great as it is since it was so much cheaper than other pedal brands. I am glad to report that I was pleasantly surprised! The build quality and tone from this pedal is amazing at this pricepoint. This pedal was supposed to be a backup but it has became my primary distortion pedal. I will buy more Donner products now!
Ian
Natural sounding distortion
This pedal sounds better than some of my more expensive distortion pedals. It has a very nice natural sound to it and the three modes give you a lot of variety. It's one of my favorite dirt pedals and I have many.
Aleksandar
Donner Morpher
Great pedal for '80s rock and metal. Very smooth and pedal with sustain for days.
Renato
Excellent
very good distortion, very smooth and powerfull
AL Miller
Amazing Micro box of Tone!
I received my Morpher earlier this week and have been working with it quite a bit. I knew the pedal was small but it is minuscule! Don't let the size fool you, there are many amazing tones available.
It does the massive distortion thing well...that's it's primary function. If you love early Black Sabbath or Montrose this pedal makes it happen. But I'm not looking for that on every song. What I found is that by dialing the gain back between nine and ten o'clock, you get some amazing crunch that is touch and guitar volume control sensitive. Lots of tight bottom with the switch set on tight and great vintage Marshall "sag" on normal. Running at this level produces a variety of classic and newer tones!
The other plus is how well it plays with my Power Screamer. I now use it a dual stage booster. While it kicks out some of the gain, the singing compressed leads the two pedals produce (Morpher into Screamer) is amazing. Think Leslie West or early Cream tones. and it still cleans up into a nice OD when the volume is turned down.
However, I would not call it a true tube tone. It also not do the crashy clang of a Hiwatt or a cranked Pre CBS Deluxe Reverb. But in the many decades I've tried to emulate a cranked vintage Marshall, the Morpher is the absolute closest thing I've found for the cost. . You could pay more, but at that point you might as well buy a JCM 800. BTW I'm running this through an Ampeg V-50H head with a 2-12 using a Les Paul and Strat copy with Duncan Humbuckers.
Boogie
Amazing!!!
This pedals kicks MAJOR ass! I loved it so much, I bought another as a backup. It does amazing Plexi and Jcm800 sounds. It is very very amp like. You would never know it was a pedal just by listening
Just Amazing Pedal
super sound, Great sustain distortion
Amazing Pedal, what I am looking to re-create those 80 rock and heavy metal sound. love the combination, you can not get anything better for the price. I mix with my amp over drive and use the pedal as a boost and the sound is just up the roof.
Daniel Ham`
Fantastic Distortion if experienced in tone shaping
I own 7 Distortion pedals to date including the Boss DS-1, TC-Electronics Dark Matter Distortion, and my personal favorite distortion pedal: The Blackstar LT DIST. After I got the Donner Morpher, I shot out all my distortion stomp boxes against each other, playing a wide variety of styles and carefully tweaking all of their controls. In the end, The Donner Morpher was BETTER than every other pedal except the Blackstar LT DIST which got the absolute best tones overall. I was honestly astonished considering that most of my other pedals cost much more but sounded measurably worse. When I dialed in my tone, I set the voicing toggle to TIGHT, kept the LEVEL very low at about 6 o'clock, cranked the GAIN a little past noon and very carefully adjusted the TONE control to where it was nice and crunchy but not muddy. It sounded just great for some classic rock tones and if boosted, got nice and Metal. I was honestly, very surprised and It has a lot of good features to boot. It's miniature sized, has true bypass circuitry, is very affordable, takes a standard 9v input and the foam foot comes off pretty easily so I could attach Velcro. I'd say this one is probably the Diamond in the rough as far as distortion pedals go. Highly recommend to any hobbyist or live performer on a budget.
mathew smith
best value pedal on the internet
this is an amazing pedal, it sounds like beautiful amp gain and can be controlled by the guitar volume perfectly. for the money this is the best value pedal out there i can not recommend it highly enough, i have owned one for a year with daily use and no problems, perfect
Inspired by the legendary high gain stack amps, while combining wide dynamic range, high definition and flexible onboard controls, the Morpher delivers you a huge modern high gain distortion sound suitable for both shredding and riffing.
