The Archer Ikon is sort of a 2 in one guitar pedal. It can be used as just a clean boost by turning the gain all the way down. As you introduce gain it will attenuate the clean signal but there is a magical blend in between that you will find. The iKon uses a different set of germanium diodes compared to the silver Archer in order to emulate the tones of the original famous gold pedal. Please experiment!!