Greer Amps Southland Harmonic Overdrive | An underrated OD masterpiece? In-depth Review & Demo

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Today, we’re looking at an underrated and overlooked gem of the overdrive pedal world: it’s the Greer Southland Harmonic Overdrive!

Get the Southland here:

Everyone knows Greer Amps – and most of us these days (me included!) are in love with their Lightspeed Organic Overdrive. The Lightspeed is probably my favorite pedal of all time, because its dynamic and transparent low to medium gain drives just suit any kind of music I play – and I even feel like I play better when it’s on!

But the Lightspeed’s success has arguably meant that certain other Greer masterpieces have gone undeservedly under the radar. I would include the Southland in this category.

Despite being billed as the perfect higher gain brother to the Lightspeed – and an ideal stacking partner to boot – you won’t see the Southland on nearly as many pedalboards as the Lightspeed. In fact, it’s been out over 10 years now, and I’ve only just picked one up.

But the Southland, at least on paper, should’ve been in my rig years ago. It’s a Greer, and I know Greer make wonderful pedals (besides the Lightspeed, I also own and love their awesome modded Marshall-inspired Black Mountain Crunch Drive and their humongous take on the legendary ProCo Rat, the Gorilla Warfare).

And because it’s billed as being such a great companion to the Lightspeed, I know I should’ve tried it earlier. But hey, in this part of the world, it’s not easy to come by, and it’s not cheap either – as of mid 2025, you’ll pay €269/$249 for the privilege.

But hey, now I have the Southland, and it’s time to see what it can do! It’s a remarkably simple pedal – just like the other three Greer drives I own – in that it has just three knobs: Volume, Drive, and Range.

Greer say the Southland is the next logical step for the Lightspeed platform, giving your more gain on tap, a focused midrange, and some extra high-end presence to help cut through a mix. Like the Lightspeed, the Southland should be dynamic, responsive, and touch sensitive.

So, just how good is it? And can it live up to the Lightspeed in any way, shape or form? It’s time to find out! In the video, I put the Southland through its paces in as many musical styles as possible, from country, folk, blues and pop to rock, punk, indie and even some metal, to hear how it versatile it truly is. I also test it out against the Lightspeed (I had to!), and all of this in single coil – courtesy of my Fender Telecaster – and humbucking goodness (via my Epiphone Les Paul).

Let me know your thoughts on the Southland in the comments!

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Introduction to the Southland
01:52 Pedal controls, features and info
03:21 Today’s rig and plan

04:31 Clean reference tone and turning on the Southland (both guitars)

Epiphone Les Paul/Humbucker Tones
05:04 Pushed clean tones (folk, country, pop, indie, blues, funk, etc.)
06:23 Indie and alt rock tones
08:21 Classic rock tones (AC/DC, Hendrix, Airbourne, etc.)
09:51 Hard rock tones
11:31 Punk rock tones
11:44 Modern progressive and heavy rock tones
12:11 Metal and chugging tones
13:18 Stacking the Southland and the Lightspeed
14:03 Southland as a boost into an overdriven amp

Fender Telecaster/Single Coil Tones
14:26 Pushed clean tones
16:10 Indie and alt rock tones
17:34 Classic rock tones
19:03 Hard rock tones
20:28 Punk rock tones
20:53 Modern progressive and heavy rock tones
21:48 Metal and chugging tones
22:46 Stacking the Southland and the Lightspeed
23:17 Southland as a boost into an overdriven amp

23:42 Alt rock loop (w/Fender Telecaster) – tone tweaking and Lightspeed shootout
27:51 Greer Lightspeed vs Southland comparison loop (w/Les Paul)

31:08 My thoughts
31:46 First impressions against the Lightspeed
32:16 Tones and versatility
33:38 What else I like: build quality and simplicity
33:48 Things I don’t like
34:10 What other similar pedals are out there?
35:52 Final thoughts and goodbye

My setup was as follows: I ran the Southland into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.

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At Thomann:
At Sweetwater:
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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#GreerAmps #GreerSouthland #GreerLightspeed #OverdrivePedal #TransparentOverdrive #RichWordsMusic

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