What's your fav over drive stomp box?

  • Thread starter Thread starter 64Firebird
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Im also using an early 90's green TS-10, and I like it for a mild overdrive/boost with my Pro Reverb.

I have an old MXR Dist+, but I had to replace the JRC4558 chip because it cooked. Its never been the same. Someday I'll get a better chip to install. In general I prefer the TS-10 to the Dist+

I built Jack Orman's clean "mini-boost" and like this quite a bit as well. I built it into a box with my Reverb and Vibrato relay switches for the Pro Rev.

I play straight in 80% of the time.
 
I use the Millenium Overdrive by Austone Electronics set at less than nine o clock drive. For more distortion and sustain I kick in the TS-9 Tubescreamer, but rarely actually use that. The Millenium does not color your tone at all and it does not compress like most overdrive pedals. If I want a compressed sound, I use the tubescreamer. The Millenium is very sensitive to your guitar volume control. Roll back for clean, turn up for crunch. If you turn up the drive control you can get all the usable distortion you want, but I just never use that. I'm sure there are those that turn it up and let it wail because it sounds great wherever you set it.
 
A TS-9 modded to TS-808 specs.
An Analog Man Sun Face with the dial with NKT-275's in it....sweet!
 
A clean boost. The only true overdrive. Force-feed the amp...No pre-chewing here.
 
I can't believe no one has mentioned the Z-Vex Fuzz Factory. I don't have one, but someday I will. If you haven't heard of Z-Vex pedals, check them out. All hand made and hand painted. This guy is cool:

http://www.zvex.com/effects.html
 
I use the MT-2. I am able to get a very refined sound when I use an EQ pedal and a chorus. I am happy with it so far.
 
sorry, i know it's cheezy, but i just can't do without my dod grunge pedal. it gives me like, the exact sound i want when i turn all the bass down on my amp, treble halfway up, and crank the midrange...unbeatable unrivaled pure rock distorion.

I also use the dod punkifier, Boss DS1, and Danelectro pastrami...and i will continue to add more, as i love different distorions, but i would be mighty surprised if anything ever outdid my grunge pedal...

i also use cry baby wah, ibanez bi-mode chorus, Dano tremolo, Dano Chorus, Boss DD3 Delay, and a Boss line selector (what can i say...i love FX)

i also have a zoom 505, but i don't use it for guitar
 
A GUY NAMED JON said:
ADA Flanger
Digitech Whammy
Crybaby
Click to expand...

I didn't read the overdrive part in the threads name. I like the amp to do that. I had and ibanez (what ever, I forgot the model) Distortion pedal, and a Boss Metal zone pedal, but they both gave out bumle bee sounding distortion.
 
The people complaining about the bumble bee sound should use an equalizer with the distortion pedal. I get a solid, heavy, well defined sound using my MT-2 and a cheap DOD equalizer pedal. I actually hated my live sound until I was able to get the equalizer hooked up. Obviously there are some tone compromises that I must make to use the equalizer but the way I look at it is that I can increase the tones I want to hear and decrease the shit I don't like.
 
Hi Bixlmalta

Yep bang on EQ is the way to go with distortion pedals, it doesn't matter what pedal you have, anyone can be change drastically with an EQ. So you can improve on your pedal or you can make it sound sick. Bix. have you tried parametric EQ's on the dist.pedals, or do you go for the "old grafic" one?.

Hey Guys, if you love this subject there is another thread on a similar subject as this one, and it is in the same forum as this one, so perhaps we can add some different ideas to it, see what you think........

Eddie de Timmerman :)

Thank you 64Firebird for having started this all off, it sure is some fun....
 
Right now I'm using a DOD graphic equalizer pedal. I am wondering if I shjould replace it with the Boss equalizer one though. I just got a BBE 362 and I am experimenting with that in my effects loop chain.
 
Hi Bixlmalta,

If you do not need the money I would keep my DOD EQ and buy a Boss GE7 and see how differtly they sound, any piece of equipment will sound different, but with this approach you may end up with a lot of gear. It all depends on what you do, for a live-rig you may just want to keep things simple, but for recording-purposes you may like the pick-and- choose approach.

Perhaps you should consider buying a parametric EQ, they are more subtle than the graphic's. They are able to boost just one particular part of the frequency spectrum you may want[or cut the undesired ones if you like].Less flexable than a graphic but very simple to use. Yamaha does one which is called the NE1, and originally it is designed for bass, but as with so many of these products, it will work on anything.

To stay on the "pedal thing", in this thread I have heard many positive things about the Boss Metal Zone, it is an eq-pedal and therefore will take a little longer to get a happening tone. There is another pedal out there which is a copy of the Boss, and it is a lot cheaper and nearly as good.The pedal is done by AXL and it is the DEQ2. It does not have the small sub knobs of the Metal Zone, and is therefore more comfy on the fingers. Here is AXL's website: www.axlusa.com They are a relativly new comp. but I think there stuff is fine.

Just another one if you do not mind: About the TubeSrceamer front: I know about the TS9 and the TS9 Turbo and the reissue TS808, but what are the TS10 and TS5 which some of you have mentioned?

An "overlooked" pedal is the Boss OD3, it is not as clean as a TS808, but has a much wider range than the SD1. With a parametric behind it you could turn the OD3 easily into a TS808. I like the idea of pedals being able to clone each other, shows you that it is all about gain and frequencies......

Eddie de Timmerman
 
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i finally repaired my tubescreamer. it's pretty damn cool. i still prefer my amps distortion, but for leads it's super cool. i've come to the conclusion that as long as the distortion pedal has some eq on it, you can get a useable sound out of it.

i hate the idea of using an eq pedal. it seems to me like you would have to compromise your clean tone in order to make your distortion sound good that way, or you would have to turn on and off both effects at once....not that that's horribly tough.......but i imagine on stage being nervous and/or excited would make it a little tougher.
 
If you like the clean sound without the Eq just stomp on the Eq and turn it off. Quite simple.
 
Or use a line sector,which does have a loop build into itself [The Boss one has two] so one loop clean, and the other one distortion + EQ , and you can even balance the volume of the two, so none of them is very overriding. All very nice indeed, perhaps they make it all too easy for us guitarists with all the gear which is on offer.

Eddie :rolleyes:
_______________________________________
You can never have enough of the same thing
 
i used to have a funky setup.

through a fender 68 fender band master (blackface?) and a oversized 2x12 i ran:

dan electro phaser
BOSS DS1
808 Tube Screamer
Red Snapper (best distortion of them all)
dan electro tremolo
BOSS DD-5 (Delay)

i liked how the guitar was phased before it was distorted. aswell, the two distortions combined gave me a great tone w/ sustain, but it didn't sound modern, it sounded classic. the red snapper was mainly used as a solo volume pedal, but later i started using it as the main distortion cause it turned out to be the best sounding. man i would spend the whole show looking at my feet.

now it's just a rect-o-verb and the DD-5. i'm trying to work the other pedals into the chain but they don't compare to the amps distortion.
 
Hi MesaHead,

Any particular order for your pedals? Do you put them in the fx-loop or just straight into the input? Do you use phase and trem. together? [prob. not!...or ?] Your 808, is it a reissue or an old on? Just wondering how the reissue ones sound compared to the originals. Red Snapper, by what comp. is that distortion?, have not heard of them before, and you really seem to like that one,so must be a good thing.....

Eddie
 
yes, i listed them in order from my guitar to the head

three distortions was great....

the DS-1 had the really crunchy dirty sound

and the 808 gave me the really good smooth clean distortion. It was a newer one and it sounded just as good as the old one, and in some instances there was less electrical noise when i used a power adapter for it.

when i had them both on i had this really boxy sound that had tons of gain but the feedback didn't squeal because the 808 smoothed out the DS-1.

The red snapper was more of a volume boost, but i used it instead of a volume pedal for soloing because it gave the extra gain and having it last in the chain insured that the best sound was coming out last. it was good to have a great sound for lead, especially if everyone in the audience was now focused on me.

i never used them all at once, well, once by mistake and SQWAAAAAAAK! lol.

i ran them straight into the head because the Band Master, like a bassman doesn't have any FX inputs. maybe none of the vintage amps ever had them? it was a '68 i think. it was my friends on loan. now i only use the DD-5 with the rectifier, and i do put that though the FX inputs. cleans the sound up tons to run efx through them.

so yes, i used to have six pedals loosely on the floor, it was a biatch when they would move around. i tried to make a pedal board but i had no way to transport it, i was better of to just keep them in a small suitcase.

amp distortion makes all the difference to me though. spending thousands of dollars on an amp "usually" guarantees that you can acheive better distortion than what you could get from a pedal, unless maybe one of those pedals has a tube in it somehwere.

i used the phase and tremolo only for one song, where i was trying to emulate an organ. i had the tremolo set to about 200bpm and the phaser on, with a clean tone and used a slide on the top three strings. the tremolo was only because the organ had the same effect on the recording, otherwise the phaser - slide combo pretty much covers a B4 sound live. maybe some dist on it the beef it up a bit.
 
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