Keeley Engineering El Rey Dorado

There are two things guitarists can never have enough of: money and distortion pedals. (Okay, actually three things, but this is a family publication!) Robert Keeley is making strong overtures to our hearts and wallets with two new pedals that offer different flavors of distortion: the Aria Compressor + Overdrive and the mysteriously named El Rey Dorado. If you love distortion as much as we do, you’ll want both of these boxes on your pedalboard.

FEATURES The El Rey Dorado (Spanish for “the golden king” or is that “the king mahi-mahi”?) hints at its tonal character with its gold and black color scheme. This pedal is designed to provide pure, unadulterated late-Sixties Plexi tone, specifically of the JTM 45/100 variety. Its control complement is straightforward, consisting of the requisite drive, tone and level knobs and the added bonus of a lo/hi “power” mini toggle switch.

The Aria pedal is quite literally two pedals in one — users can freely adjust the signal chain order of the effects (overdrive before compression and vice versa) or even use TRS cables to insert a different pedal effect in between the two. Like the El Rey, the overdrive section’s controls consist of level, drive and tone knobs along with a low/high mini toggle switch for selecting low or high gain. The compressor section has its own level, blend and sustain controls plus a mini rotary tone knob for dialing in brightness. Each section has its own on/off footswitch, and the pedal features a mini FX Order toggle for placing one effect or the other first in the signal chain.