krangs_androidbody

I've been on a quest to find the perfect saturated crunch for a minute now.

I haven't had an extensive amount of overdrive/distortion, but I've had a few. The past couple of pedals have had tubes in them and both had two channels. So I'd use one for rhythm and then the other for lead. Those were nice but "clicked" whenever you engaged the pedal. I can't stand that anymore.

I've found awesome fuzz in the little big muff by electro harmonix. Now I'm looking for something to pair it with. An effect that doesn't over do it, but doesn't sound cheap.

I'm thinking about maybe an old (or reissue) tube screamer or maybe a sans-amp... I need something for rhythmic overdrive not leads.

What's your favorite pedal?

myxomatosis

Truthfully the only distortion pedal I ever bought and/or spent a significant amount of time on was the DS-1.

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Mercury

For pedals I much prefer BOSS products. That's what I use for my bass, an old pedal. BX-(1?)#### something or other I don't want to look.

But for a 6-string I would reccomend the DS-1

krangs_androidbody

I think boss pedals are very well built, but also very lacking of charisma.

Oddly enough, I think I'm going to use the old Boss Blues Driver I have in combo with the fuzz.

farmergiles

Boss are good for 80's effects comedy.

Pedals pretty much suck, better to just work with a decent amp IMO.

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Mercury

^yeah totally.. or just plug it into the good old 5150 head on a marshall amp and watch the audiance stare at it with envy.

krangs_androidbody

nah, pedals don't suck. I do like the sound of a cranked amp (I've got a small tube amp for that), but overall (especially in live settings) I prefer the clean sound of a fender tube amp. I've got an old head and 2x12 cab... it's an excellent amp. Problem is, clean is clean no matter what volume.

in a dream world of roadies and tour buses I'd have one amp for clean and another for overdrive and an a/b switch between the two. But even then it couldn't create certain fuzz, grit, and harmonics that some pedals can.

HTAM

Tube amps. Very nice to plug in and control the drive by backing your volume off when the Master is cranked.

Don't rule out the tone your sending though. P/ups are important for tone, too.

I have a ZOOM 5000 Driver Distortion. For 15 years. I had to repair the bypass once, that's it. Tough construction. I can plug it into a 15 Watt practice amp and make it sound like a Marshall. I can also program it so I can switch between two different customized tone settings. Nice for a contrast between soft and sizzle. They made it for about a minute, and then rack tube distortions like the ADA MP-1 took off.

The ADA MP1 is still a great piece of equipment, that a grip of well known players either use, or did at one time. More info here...
adadepot.com
You might wanna really look at this one. It's MIDI, so you have 128 possible user settings. It's a tone factory with a 4 stage gain (YEA!) running through 2 12AX7 tubes, but it's a rack unit.

The Sans Amp GT2 from Tech 21 is a staple distortion kept on hand in recording studios. I have sat down and played through this many times and I want one.

An Ibanez Tube Screamer. I know it's popular, but I have never played through one.

A DOD Grunge can emulate Dimebag Darrel's distortion.
He played solid state Randalls through all of his time with Pantera and had great tone.

The Mesa Boogie V Twin is a 2 channel 3 mode pedal that also uses 12AX7 tubes. Big balls in a small box. I'd like to have one of those too.

What's your budget?

Who sounds like you want to sound?

Do you want a pedal or is a rack unit acceptable?

krangs_androidbody

Well, I'm probably going to play around with using the Blues Driver/Big Muff combo for a while, since it's close enough to what I want. I'm actually more interested in building a pedal board at the moment (what a difference a day makes), then I'll play out with the set-up and see if I want to replace the Blues Driver or not.

That Mesa pedal is probably too nuts for me. I want a simple pedal to go along with my other simple pedals.

Sans Amp and Tube Screamer are both on my list. I'm also interested in the Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive, it's got the same circuitry as the Tube Screamer but has a control to blend clean sound with the overdriven one.

What's your budget?
Around $150, preferably less but I could spend more

Who sounds like you want to sound?
No one specifically. I'm looking for a pedal that will work good on a nice clean amp, doesn't need to get too gritty... want to use it more for rhythm parts, so I'd like it to have some bite but also clarity so I can play more "complex" chords... without it muddying up. I play original music that's inspired by lots but mostly blues, rock, and psychedelic music... so nothing too heavy.

Do you want a pedal or is a rack unit acceptable?
Can't swing a rack unit. The ADA MP1 looks cool, but I'm not ready to get into that world.