Looking for good distortion/overdrive effect.

M

musicmaker

New member
hi everyone, i am looking for a good effect unit which is specialy designed for those distortion and overdrive sound, because I can't get a nice sound from the Boss MT-2 Metal Zone Pedal, the sound is just too 'artificial', too plastic!! It is even better if the effect unit suitable for DI purpose and have various type of distrotion sound to select. Another question is, when I plug my guitar into a distrotion effect unit and out to my marshall amp, ther is plenty of noise generated from the effect unit, when I switch off the effect , the noise is gone. Any advise for this problem?Thank !
 
There are a lot of different flavors of overdrive and distortion and a lot of the pedals try to give you a hint as to what they're going for with their name:"Metal Zone" "Blues Driver" etc. If you can,the best way to find the one that's right for you is to try 'em out one after another using your own guitar and amp,and if at all possible make short recordings of each in which the only variable is the pedal. If you turn down the gain on your amp and turn up the output level on your pedal,that should help the noise although there will always be someno matter what you do.
 
If your recording, why not use the distortion on your amp. Even the smallest Marshalls sound better overdriven than any pedal does. If your looking for a really heavy sound, look at your guitar. If your using single coil pickups, you'll never get a really heavy distortion that doesn't sound somewhat artificial. If your set on a pedal my favorite's the RAT. And if the noise is a problem, look for a noise gate pedal to insert between the distortion and amp, the Boss and the MXR's both work well.
Jeff
 
Ibanez tubescreamer, TS10 or TS9.

Do a search-there was a really long post, something like best distortion pedal.
 
musicmaker

I had a small korg multi effects unit to try and get good guitar dist. but no luck, now i have the POD 2.0, believe me you can get every kind of distortion you want out of it. Its the best piece of equipment i own! Get One!
 
Thank everyone for the reply, you guys really give me some good idea to solve my problem. Seem that there are lots of 'Tube Screamer' supporter, is this really good? If I could remember, one of my friend bought a really good dist/overdrive pedal, I am not sure the brand, the name is like 'Electro harmonix-Big Muff'??, no sure, but the sound is really thick and powerful, when I try playing a chord by picking, the sound from each string is still able to hear clearly, not like some distortion effect, when playing 'picking', the sound from all the string just mix together and become blur. Actually, where is the noise come from? Is it from the cable I use or from the effect unit itself? Sometime I just try to decrease the sensitivity knob of my pedal, but there is still some significant noise, this make me face the problem seriously when record DI to my VS880EX.
 
I'm a real fan of the tube screamer. A warm overdrive without getting too muddy like many others do. Try even combination with the tube screamer and your amp's distortion to go more heavy...

greetings

Brett
 
TS9 into a tube amp

Set up the tube amp so that the tone is clean but just on the edge of breakup.This is the standard blues setting,when you play a single note as hard as you can the sound is still clean.When you play doublestops (two notes at the same time)the sound breaks up.Now,when you step on the pedal,the additional voltage saturates the output tubes and causes the tube to distort.This is the key.The pedal doesn't produce the distortion,but rather overdrives the tube into distortion.As to distortion tone,it ain't in preamp tubes but output tubes!Try setting up your tube amp so that the master is all the way up (and so the output tubes are always in saturation) and control the volume with the the preamp level and distortion with the pedal.If you are like most guys,you do just the opposite and keep your output tubes clean and your preamp tubes distorted.Try both ways and compare the tone.Preamp saturation is grainy while output tube saturation is smooth and singing.Ever hear a guy say "my amp doesn't sound good unless its turned all the way up"?He accidentally got his output tubes cranked and HEARS the difference.Try it and let us know what you think.
regards
Tom
 
I have to disagree on one point just made, namely this: "The pedal doesn't produce the distortion, but rather overdrives the tube into distortion. As to distortion tone, it ain't in preamp tubes but output tubes!"

If this were true then any preamp would achieve the same effect as a distortion box. My MXR micro-amp can drive tubes into saturation and produce a "mild" distortion due to clipping, but its primary purpose is to faithfully (linearly) replicate and amplify the guitar's signal. My TS-808 tube screamer, on the other hand, has less gain than the micro-amp which makes it less capable of driving tubes into saturation. So why does it sound so good? It sends an approximate square wave into the amp. The square wave is harmonic rich, requiring a huge number of sinusoidal components to represent the signal, an artificial form of clipping. The raw output of the distortion box is already distorted.

To make a tube amp really howl, I feed the tube screamer into the micro-amp which super-saturates the tube stage with an amplified and artificially clipped signal. The resulting distortion level and quality are amazing.

If anyone disagrees with the theory, I welcome the feedback (not a pun).
 
TUBE SCREAMER. 'nuff said.
It doesn't matter if you're going through a micro amp mega amp vintage amp new amp piece of shit amp, the tube screamer does what it's name say it does and it always comes out right to part that matters most- your ear.....
 
I went with a Boss OS-2 overdrive/distortion over the tube screamer. Its well built, about as noisy as the TS, and more versatile than the DS-1. I play a strat through it into a deluxe reverb II amp, on the clean channel. The way I typically have it set, it has a little more cut to my sound than the gain channel on the amp at a reasonable volume. Its also responsive to playing with my guitar volume, so I can get a range of sounds. The all-out distortion is kind of pitiful. It doesn't take well to palm muting or things like that (then again look at my rig) so if you want that at your disposal you might look elsewhere or add another pedal. If you've got a nice marshall you might do better with an eq/boost pedal. Take your guitar and amp with you and try everything in the store. You'll find some combination, no doubt.
 
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