Distortion Pedal Mods.

L

Lee123

New member
Hey all
I have an MT-2 played through a JCM2000. The MT-2 sounds a little.....crap...although I liked the initial sound of it, so I thought of getting it modded by Robert Keeley. I listened to his samples (of before and after mod) and they basically sound like a volume increase more than anything. So I then looked at Analogman for an MT-2 mod. His samples sound great. Here's a quote from Analogman:

"We strive to keep the tone purest, without adding bells
and whistles that ultimately hurt your tone. We are aiming
for classic rock tones, the tones of tube amps cranked up."

This is all good, but I consider my sound (or the sound I want) to be more modern rock (Breaking Benjamin, Two Doors Down, Creed etc etc).

In your honest (or humble) opinions, should I be going with Analogman or Keeley, or maybe even a different mod/pedal.
I thought I knew what I wanted, now I am just confused......aagghh...
Please help.
Thanks
Lee.
 
All these pedal modders are bogus. Its one thing to get a TS9 modded to the TS808 specs, but to get a MT2 modded to something you have never heard or played before (those MP3's don't count...how many times have your heard someone here at this BBS try to copy a sound to no avail while using most of the same equipment?) is just stupid and like closing you eyes and hoping for the best.

Don't waste the money on a mod.

Coming from experience in building pedals, most of these guys that mod only change 1, 2, 3, maybe even 5 or 6 components. There is a difference, I will grant you that, and it might be for the better too. But it won't be night and day unless you can put it side by side with the original. *PLUS*, and this is a big thing...just changing a couple components very rarely is enough to make a 'so so' pedal 'great'. The whole design must be changed. You can goose out more mids or more lows or more highs or more gain or less gain and more output, but it won't change the structure in the vast way you might be hoping.
 
Whether or not these mods do any good (and this is of course, like all "tone" issues, entirely subjective), they are indisputably very, very expensive for what they actually are.
 
ocnor said:
You may want to check out the Digitech pedals. They sound at least as good as a modded pedal and they are quite a bit cheaper.
Click to expand...
They're actually a bit high for what they are, too. Stomp prices are in free-fall due to the latest generation of design and robotic manufacturing. The DigiTech line is using the micro-miniature surface-mount components on computer manufactured PCBs with all components on-board. I was examining the circuitry on some of them when they first came out and I was quite impressed with what a huge step forward the new manufacturing tech really is.

There's really no reason for a stomp to be more than about $20 these days as the components are better, smaller and cheaper and there's no hand labor involved except for the drop-in assembly. Note the new Behringer and Danelectro stomps that I suspect are also using this new tech.
 
if something sounds like crap, maybe you should take it out of the chain. you have a jcm2000, have you thought about a retube? www.eurotubes.com has a kit for your amp, pick something like that up and take it to your nearest tech for an install/bias. i just hate seeing these types of distortion pedals in front of an amp with such great potential.
 
the mt2 im sure is made mostly for solidstate amps. In my experience, marshall tube amps are real paticular with what pedal will sound good with it.

I think you may be reaching with matching that pedal up with it. maybe the OD1 pedal, or maybe try turning the gain way down on the MT2. MT2 is a great pedal for certain setups, but probably not with a marshall tube amp, for whatever reason.

I know for a fact you can get a kick ass sound with the mt2 with a peavey or randall solid state amp.

I would thing your amp alone would get the sounds of those bands your talking about quite easily especially if you have the TSL. I think 3doors down uses peavey triple xxx, at least live, not sure about the others.
 
Interesting.....thanks for all your responses.
I might look into a retube an see if I can get the Marshall to make the sound I want.

Anyone found a stomp box that seems to work well with a Marshall Valve amp?
 
Certain mods can be worth it. I had analogman do the high cut mod on my Boss DD3, and I really love it, but that was adding functionality that wasn't there before. However, in general I have to agree that I don't think I'd ever pay to have an OD pedal modded. The difference is going to be very slight, and you are going into it completely blind. It's almost as bad as after-market pickups!

Analogman's and Keeley's original pedals are great, but pricey.

A
 
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