Tubescreamers/Overdrive Pedal - Maxon Od808reissue

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HungPhat

New member
hi all...im considering buying a Maxon OD808
i want to use it on a Marshall TSL100 lead channel which is already distorted

im going for hte killswitch engage/god forbid metal sound.
my TSL has gain on 4 and volume on half for live gigs so what would be some good settings on the maxon?

ive never used a tube screamer before
 
HungPhat said:
hi all...im considering buying a Maxon OD808
i want to use it on a Marshall TSL100 lead channel which is already distorted

im going for hte killswitch engage/god forbid metal sound.
my TSL has gain on 4 and volume on half for live gigs so what would be some good settings on the maxon?

ive never used a tube screamer before
Click to expand...


I think you got the wrong pedal.
 
Wrong pedal

I agree

A tube screamer or any overdrive pedal will add another color layer to your distortion cake (i.e. your marshal's lead channel), but it won't make it sound heavier like a 'Killswitch-genre' tone! The heavier stuff is best achieved with less gain sometimes, believe it or not, with more low-mids and getting the right presence. What kinda guitar are you using? A les paul should match pretty good with your current amp to give you a heavier tone, but keep in mind... if you want that tone? think VHT, Mesa Recto or something similiar in that mind. Also, more of the heavier chug chug stuff is sometimes not even achieved with a tube amp, Wayne Static from Static-X uses those solid state marshals. Dimebag used solid state Randalls for the most part.

But all in all, not to get carried away, (you dont need me to tell you that your marshal is not a great and capable amp), but keep in mind other variables such as guitar choice, pickups, fretboard wood, string choice, lower alternate tunings?, pick gauge, all play into this...

I went on and on again, damn...
But yea, it's tuff to pick a stomp box that will get you really heavy, yet still sound natural and sweet like a fully pushed tube amp. The best tones do come from an amp used to its full potential, even those really heavy ass sounds. Keep in mind that a lot of 'heavier' bands these days like Mudvayne still clean up too so versitility is still necessary. Oh yea, what kind of speakers are in your amp? Is it a 4x12 setup? How's the condition/type of your tubes? 6Ls and 12axs sound kinda different...

Anyways, i can't stop...
As far as pedals go...

*Try a Tech 21 Sans Amp (which would probably work best if you layer it over your already driven and distorted amp, when compared to any other stomp boxes)

*Boss Metal Zone (best in front of your clean channel, wud sound like ass over a fully distorted channel, maybe better if you almost completely kill the gain on your amps lead channel though, but this baby has chug chug character no doubt even on a little practice amp)

*Voodoo Lab Super Fuzz (although this thing is a fuzzy beast, it still has some smooth low end)

*Electro harmonix Big Muff- (still along the lines of the Voodoo labs but Cobains heavier stuff was on this -i know Nirvana guit tone not that close to Killswitch)...

Which leads me to...
You can go to every music store and try all this out... and it would benefit you to try it out on your current setup/ signal chain... but man, that is some serious searching as there are many pedals out there. My humble advice would be to make sure everything except a pedal is up to par with your tone (as in guitar choice, strings, speakers, pickups, etc as mentioned b4). Who knows, like my once lonely toneless road, you might want to ditch the stomp box distortion pedal as your primarly heavy sound generator and go with a great amp's channel. Your marshal isn't a VHT, but with the right conditions it can still drive. But yea, the Boss Metal Zone is probably your best bet if you do go the pedal route and while you are at it... your heavy tone will benefit from a noise gate like the one Boss has to keep it souding tight...

Sorry for the ass long response... PM if you need any thing

Thanks
 
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Like the other guys, and while it's not neccesarily always true, I would say a distortion pedal is what you should be looking for here. The difference between them is pretty much a derivative of their titles...An Overdrive pedal 'over drives' the signal - it pushes the sound which creates a warm distortion. A distortion pedal 'adds' a dirtyness to the signal. Listening to Killswitch, I can hear it's not overdrive working - it's distortion. My favorite Distortion pedal is the Marshall Jackhammer - it does both (OD or Distortion is selectable). My favorite OD is either the Ibanez TS9 (I just sold mine - I need the money and I'm not using it much because...) or my Danelectro Daddy-O, which I liken to the TS9 cept it's got a 3 band eq instead of a tone knob.

Anyway - try that Sansamp, a ProCo Rat (or turbo rat), or the Marshall...but I hate Boss for anything OD or Distortion. Boss get's it right on modulation effects, but for OD's I'll take the Daddy-O or TS9, and for Distortion I'll take the Big Muff, the Marshal, or the ProCo any day. And by the way, I'll take Line 6 for Delay, and Vox for Wah...

Jacob
 
im getting my marshall to chug and sound awesome.
my band live rig is

TSL100 Head
MArshall ModeFour Cab
MXR 10 band eq line6 DL4 delay and boss noisegatein fx loop
PRS CE24 tuned to drop B

i have the sound i want but i want to improve it ...and i use minimal gain (i think gain on 4 is fuck all) and crank the master volume.mids at 3oclock bass at 12oclock and trebal at 9oclock with even more boosting of mids on the eq...

the reason i want this pedal is that i have g.a.s haha...nah...i read that killswitch and godforbid use these maxon OD808 as a clean boost (so the gain on the pedal is gain is on 0) to drive the front input of the amp and also add clarity to pick attacks.
i guess ill just buy it and experiment myself.


im not stupid and wanting to use the pedal for more gain duh!
and the TSL is a kickass amp for what i play ...with the mode4 cab i have what i call the Hybrid Hatebreed combination (FYI the Hatebreed guitarist had the most brutal live tone i had ever heard ...main rig was TSL stack and using an AB switch with a modefour...the modefour was his way of emulating a 2nd guitarist but together the live sound was it for me.)
 
Vullkunnraven said:
A tube screamer or any overdrive pedal will add another color layer to your distortion cake (i.e. your marshal's lead channel), but it won't make it sound heavier like a 'Killswitch-genre' tone! The heavier stuff is best achieved with less gain sometimes, believe it or not, with more low-mids and getting the right presence. What kinda guitar are you using?
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Not True!
An overdrive is not just for classic rock and blues, it works well into a nice sounding amp, overdriving it's tubes, and not drastically changing it's own tone. An overdrive pedal can give you a quite significant gain boost, and take your sound from a crunchy 80's type distortion to a brutal, modern metal, high gain distortion. More harmonics tighter riffs, all around heavier more intense tone. This is not subjective opinion, there are several big name metal acts that do this.
 
All I can add to this is to put emphasis on the low gain distortion settings. I've heard a lot of live metal bands that have such a distorted sound, that the guitar sounds like a wasp's nest. Perhaps it is the artist's intention to have incredible gain.

I too enjoy the Killswitch Engage sound quite a bit. I've had moderate success using my Pod XT with the Line6 Big Bottom (metal shop) amp, through a 15 band eq that cuts everything below 120 and slightly boosts ~ 240 - 400. I'll then run this through an ADA power amp then to my cabinent.

Without my Pod or a 2000 dollar rack, I don't think that I could get close to that sound.
 
SuicideNote said:
I've heard a lot of live metal bands that have such a distorted sound, that the guitar sounds like a wasp's nest. Perhaps it is the artist's intention to have incredible gain.
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I fool around with a lot of OD & distortion pedals just for the education, though I never actually use them for my music. The problem with most of them is that they can't handle tonally-complex input (such as complex chords) without turning it into mud. One interesting metal pedal that maintains a degree of tonal structure at high distortion is the Hughes & Kettner "Warp Factor."
 
Tubescreamers are indeed used pretty widely in the modern metal world. Like Amra and HungPhat said, they're not used to get your primary tone, they are just used to boost the signal to the amp so that the amp's distortion will have a little more edge. It can also tighten up the low end a noticable amount.
Just about any decent overdrive pedal can do this to some extent. I don't have a Tubescreamer, but I've done it with a MXR Wylde overdrive.

You definitely don't want a distortion pedal. Nothing that will dirty up the sound.
 
....

For clean boosts, you should look into something like simple do-it-yourself boosters, like runoffgroove's fetzer valve or the boosters over at generalguitargadgets.com.

I prefer the boss super overdrive over screamers. They are basically the same unit, with different diode clipping.
 
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im must re-iterate that im not going to be using the pedal as the source of my distortion...my amp already produces brutal distortion for down tuned metal...and i only want to use the pedal as a clean boost to drive the front input more.

anyways ive found another alternative...the Digitech BAD MONKEY...
anyone care to share their thoughts on these two pedals (maxon 0D808 and Bad monkey) in relation to using it as a clean boost on an already distorted tube amp

cheers
 
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