Aroma ABS-1: What is this a clone of? (gut shots)

All about modern commercial stompbox circuits from Electro Harmonix over MXR, Boss and Ibanez into the nineties.
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ninethirty
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Joined: 07 Mar 2014, 18:27

Post by ninethirty »

So I got a Monoprice "Blues Overdrive" pedal the other day, because it was on sale for $20 shipped. It's a rebranded Aroma ABS-1. Based on the name and color, I expected it to be a Boss Blues Driver clone, especially because there are other Chinese BD-2 clones out there. But I opened it up, and it doesn't look BD-2 related at all.
First of all, the gain, tone and volume pots are C250K, B25K and A50K, respectively, which don't line up to any pedal I could find online. It has one op-amp (JRC2068) and one transistor (looks like maybe a FET on the input?) and two LEDs arranged as clipping diodes, as best I can tell.
I'm assuming this is a clone of something existing, just because brands like Aroma aren't known for their original work, but I haven't found something that meets those criteria. Maybe a simplified BluesBreaker v2? That has one dual op-amp and LED clipping diodes, but that has more transistors and a boost function, which this does not have. And different pot values. And of course most people don't like it, so it seems like an odd pedal to clone.

What do you all think?
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