Browne Amplification Unit 13 Dual Distortion - Atomic Grey

Some of the most important pieces of gear in the Tone Traveler’s kit didn’t arrive through a planned mission — they presented themselves slowly, through late-night experiments and accumulated ideas that kept insisting on being heard. That’s the honest origin story of Browne Amplification’s Unit 13, and it shows in the result. The Unit 13 is a dual overdrive/distortion with roots in the classic American distortion circuits that have shaped decades of recorded tone — circuits that Browne describes as “both loved and misunderstood,” which is exactly the kind of signal that gets our attention. The left side tackles what has always been the most underutilized territory in American distortion: low-gain. By redesigning the circuit specifically for that role — compressing the available gain range so the entire sweep of the DRIVE knob is usable, and adding a 3-way Low End toggle to restore the bottom that classic circuits sacrifice when you dial back the gain — Browne has essentially reverse-engineered the reason players have always dialed these circuits down and then been frustrated. There’s still plenty of drive available; it just lives somewhere useful now.

The right side takes the same fundamental circuit architecture and voices it for what players typically expect from classic American distortion: more aggressive response, higher gain availability, and a 2-way Clipping Diode toggle that lets you select between two distinct flavors of hard-clip character. But the feature that genuinely elevates the Unit 13 beyond a standard dual-pedal build is the A/B footswitch mode, activated via an internal DIP switch: the left footswitch becomes global bypass, the right footswitch selects between sides, and the LED for the selected (but bypassed) side pulses at half brightness so you always know which voice is queued before you engage. You can switch sides while bypassed, meaning you can prepare your move before the audience hears a note — a genuinely thoughtful workflow improvement for live performance. Standard dual-pedal switching mode remains available for players who prefer the traditional operation. Independent LEVEL, DRIVE, and TONE controls on each side, true-bypass soft switching, top-mounted input/output/DC jacks, standard 9V DC power, and a new folded-aluminum enclosure round out a pedal that was clearly worth the late nights it took to arrive.

Features

Left Side (Low Gain):
— Redesigned circuit with expanded low-gain DRIVE control range
— 3-Way Low End toggle

Right Side (High Gain):
— Same core circuit voiced for higher-gain, more aggressive response
— 2-Way Clipping Diode toggle

A/B Footswitch Mode (Internal DIP Switch):
— Left footswitch: Global bypass
— Right footswitch: A/B side selection
— Pulsing LED indicates selected side while bypassed
— Side selection available while pedal is bypassed

Controls: Independent LEVEL, DRIVE, TONE per side
Switching: True-Bypass Soft Switching
Power: Standard 9V DC
Jacks: Top-Mounted Input, Output, DC
Enclosure: Folded Aluminum