Which Distortion/OD?

Tor Arve Baroy · Post by **Tor Arve Baroy** » 25 May 2009 1:06 am

I would recommend the Boss fdr 1 or fbm 1.
Those pedals, (esp. fdr 1) gives you a great crackup in the top.
I use it for rainy day women, and when I really pull the strings, it screams just perfect on the top

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 25 May 2009 6:47 am

John Lockney wrote:Back to the reference tone you mentioned you were after, its the second recent mention of a bit of grit in the steel in "you aint going nowhere".

Where you think this came from, an amp turned-up too loud ? That sound is pretty hard to beat.

I think that Lloyd used a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp with a JBL D120 installed in it for that recording. The definitive, real "tube break-up" sound.

Brad

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 25 May 2009 10:57 am

Radial ToneBone, Prescription Electronics COB, Stamps DriveOmatic, here, I've got an XL, but he also used to make a "friendlier" one and the last one is a Glitch Computer, which you probably don't want.

Bill Moran · Post by **Bill Moran** » 25 May 2009 5:52 pm

JON : Try a Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer. It works for me from mild to wild. Great with a Tele also.

Joel DeGarmo · Post by **Joel DeGarmo** » 25 May 2009 7:20 pm

Somebody said it and I have to agree that the Xotic's are the best boost pedals.

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 25 May 2009 8:49 pm

Jon - I've been through maybe a hundred (or more) distortion and OD devices, and advised a lot of players in how to reach their "target" tone.

The biggest mistake most make is instantly reaching for an "overdrive" pedal, since the'yre trying to get that little bit of "break up" when a tube amp is overdriven.

The problem is that most OD's (*real* OD's are engineered to DRIVE a tube amp already cranked into saturation. This is where a player will spend a ton of money on a Klon Centaur, plug it into a Twin turned up to "3", try to dial in some distortion and tell everyone it's a piece of junk because it sounds like crap.

Except it sounds like crap because the player did NOT read the instructions!

Most (and ALL TS-clones I know of) sound pretty bad for low-volume distortion. I have found three I've been satisfied with, and two are likely not in your price range:

1. The Lovetone Brown Source. Hard to find and in the mid 3-figure price range IF you find one. It'll take a low-volume Fender and make it sound like a cranked-up Plexi (and does it VERY well). It sounds lame by itself - but in a band setting it blossoms into rich, creamy and crunchy (not a usual combination and hard for amp builders to nail) sound.

2. BJF Dyna Red. Very simple. It does one thing well - adds a bit of grit to a low to mid volume guitar signal. Oddly, this one I think sounds kind of weak into a cranked amp (the Klon blows it away); but for lower-volume situations it's close to the Lovetone.

3. The good ol' MXR Distortion+ This is what I use (along with other things) with my steel when I want exactly what you describe - that little "edge". It's bonehead simple to use and does ONE thing. And does it well.

Hope that helps -

Jim

Stephen Abruzzo · Post by **Stephen Abruzzo** » 25 May 2009 9:29 pm

Jon....sorry to hear that you didn't like the BYOC because you couldn't make it???........the BYOC pedals are the most versatile pedals that I've heard........if you want overdrive, try their new OD2 pedal. It gives you all kinds of OD plus a separate boost switch with either a linear or MOSFET boost.....if you want distortion, get their MOUSE as previously recommended. It gives you all types of distortion.......I had someone build me mine. It was worth every cent.

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 26 May 2009 2:02 am

Totally joking about BYOC---stated as a put-down of BYOC, it was intended as a put-down of myself for lacking the skills & motivation to build the kit.

Thanks for all the responses. I've put velcro on the Way Huge so I guess that axes any thoughts of returning it. The good news was that G.C. was selling a demo model the next day, holiday special, so I returned the first one and ended up saving more $$.
I'll probably lose the Sparkle Drive. Similar turf but the Way Huge is less fizzy. But it gives less truly clean boost too so I'm thinking of a pure clean boost in place of the Sparkle. That becomes kind of addictive, doesn't it, using a clean boost in the chain? You switch it off and say 'whoa what happened, turn that back on.'

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 30 May 2009 2:01 pm

The good news is that I was able to remove the velcro residue. The Way Huge is an nice pedal but, with deference to Kyle's comment, I can get closer than I thought with the Sparkle Drive with the tone turned down---the Way Huge is darker but actually it is too dark and needs a treble boost in front of it. Not nearly a distinctive enough contribution to justify the $$ so Guitar Center can welcome this one back into its inventory.
I'm back in the hunt.

Chris LeDrew · Post by **Chris LeDrew** » 30 May 2009 2:21 pm

I recently acquired a Goodrich 7A, and the gain knob is really handy for getting that bit of growl when you need it. It doesn't affect the volume of the steel a whole lot, and it doesn't mess with the tone. It just gives you that bit of bite. And it's really convenient to adjust - right on your steel leg. The higher the gain, the more responsive your strings are to pick attack; in other words, you can back off on the attack and stay clean, or dig in and hear that little bit of breakup. When the gain is turned all the way down, you have simple, clean tone. When it's turned all the way up, your steel is hot and able to break up on a hard pick attack. Lloyd's playing technique seems to utilize that dynamic. He knows when to dig in and drive the amp.

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 30 May 2009 3:23 pm

You need to look at what a lot of fine guitarists are digging big time these days... The lowly Digitech Bad Monkey.. Its the cheapest OD on the market, and is among the very best of the best.. There are a LOT of guys that dumped the high end boutique units for this excellent and CHEAP little box.. Its a classic OD... great tonal coverage with seperate bass and treble controls, as well as gain and level.. No single "tone" knob like so many others. This box is FAT when you want it to be.. Its not fuzzy or fizzy at all... There is nothing as good at 3 times the price IMHO.. New ones are made in China.. Get a used one on ebay, they were made in USA, and it will set you back a FULL $25... Buy one, dump the boutique stuff, and take some weight off of the pedal board. Its all you will ever need.. Tubey goodness... check out the reviews..
http://reviews.harmony-central.com/revi ... onkey/10/1

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 30 May 2009 4:17 pm

Yeah---hadn't thought of that one. I definitely don't rule it out based on this but have you seen the hell that has broken loose about this pedal? Google it. There is the allegation that it was "Behringere'd"---reverse-engineered and stolen, based on the Timmy pedal. Ugly stuff.
But I'll look into it as an option. Can't beat the price.

Ben Turner · Post by **Ben Turner** » 30 May 2009 11:34 pm

Jan Jonsson wrote:Hi Jon,
http://www.myspace.com/flatfivesociety

A little off subject here, but man that's some great pickin' Jan!

Brent LaBeau · Post by **Brent LaBeau** » 1 Jun 2009 7:03 am

If you're lucky enough to find one (I think I bought the very last one available!!) Brad Sarno's "Dirt Box" is the absolute bomb-digity! Steel, Tele, Les Paul, bass, violin, it sounds amazing on everthing I've put through it.
Or, the Chandler "Blue Tube" with a 12AU7 upgrade rocks pretty hard as well. Different but still amazing.

Rev. LaBeau

Alan Kirk · Post by **Alan Kirk** » 1 Jun 2009 7:50 am

I had a SD Twin Tube Classic for a while. Got rid of it. The distortion was too "smooth" for me. It sounded electronic, too perfect, not natural, to my ear.

I'm wondering whether the newer SD Twin-Tube Blue will be more to my liking. I do like the idea of being able to switch between two levels of distortion.

Until then, an old Jordan Boss Tone mounted in a stomp box is what I'll keep using. Works for guitar or steel, for my purposes. Plus, it drives other players nuts to look at my stomp boxes and see that no-name ugly thing down there. Great conversation starter.

John Groover McDuffie · Post by **John Groover McDuffie** » 1 Jun 2009 8:15 am

Jon; according to what I found on "the Google" it looks like it might be the Danolectro Transparent Overdrive, not the Bad Monkey, that was de-engineered from the Timmy pedal. I went 3 pages deep.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 1 Jun 2009 8:35 am

I'm sure Jon and Bob Carlucci know this, but for the benefit of any steel newbies, recommendations from guitar players are almost worthless in terms of what boxes work for pedal steel. For many reasons, from the pickups to picking styles to string gauges to amp and speaker differences, what sounds great for guitar may or may not sound good for steel. Many boxes that sound great for guitar, are over the top and sound muddy with steel, partly because we generally want to be able to play some two and three string harmony at least some of the time. Very few boxes can handle that. You need a shallow curve and a lot of subtlety in the gain region where the distortion begins to come in, so you can find just the right spot for steel. Many guitar pedals go through that spot roughly and quickly, with a steep curve that makes it difficult or impossible to find just the right amount of gain. Some don't even have that spot, but are just on or off, and only allow you to color the distortion that's always there.

Also, most boxes work and sound very different before the volume pedal than after it. You have to try the box both places. I want my distortion to be pick sensitive, which means the box has to be before the volume pedal, and many don't sound good there. Some people prefer their distortion to be worked by the volume pedal, which means the box has to sound good after the VP.

I have just found that raves and reviews from guitar players tell me nothing. Some of the expensive boutique boxes that get raves just don't work for steel (ZenDrive didn't work for me). Maybe there is a cheapie box out there somewhere that happens to sound good for steel, but I've tried dozens and haven't found one yet. If you just want cheesy fuzz, maybe one of those will do. Or if you just want to use a lap steel to duplicate heavily distorted rock-blues slide guitar sounds, almost any of the guitar boxes might do, since you are trying to duplicate that sound. But if you want something that you can really work with to get a good distortion tone with pedal steel, you have to try as many boxes as possible.

After being dissapointed with dozens of both cheap and expensive boxes and multi-effects units, when I tried the Seymour Duncan Twin Tube on Dan Tyacks advice, I knew I had found the one for me. At that point, things like cost and size became irrelevant. There may be others out there, but if you haven't tried one of these you could be wasting a lot of time and money for a lot of dissapointment. It doesn't sound like cheesy fuzz or high gain metal or buzz-saw punk. It sounds like a great vintage tube amp being pushed. And on the rhythm channel it has a shallow, subtle gain curve that allows you to find that spot on the verge of breakup where you can "play" the distortion with your picks (or your volume pedal). And that's priceless. If anyone finds another box that does that, I'd like to hear about it. There may be other stuff out there that is useful for a variety of tones, depending on what you want. But the SDTT is the one essential box for me, and I'm in no big hurry to spend a lot of time and money looking for other tone colors. Right now I basically just need two sounds, clean tube (from a silver-face Fender), and tube on the cusp of breakup (from the SDTT).

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 1 Jun 2009 9:02 am

As I said before, I like the Twin Tube Classic, which has a pair of 6021 subminiature tubes. I haven't tried it yet, but the Twin Tube Blue has a pair of 6111 subminiature tubes, which Duncan touts as similar to 12AU7 tubes, so the gain is likely quite a bit lower. Sounds like an interesting proposition to me - probably more clean range on the rhythm channel and not so gainy on the lead channel.

I may just have to try one of these. BTW - I'm with Dr. Doggett on guitar vs. pedal steel OD/DIST pedals. I guess it depends on what you want, but if I want overdrive at all, I want the sound of my old Fender tube amps pushed, possibly with a little clean gain on the input section, nothing more - and I want it out of a clean tube amp or a solid-state pedal steel amp. The SDTT Classic is the first pedal I've had that comes close to that, but I like the idea of spreading out the range of gain more, at the expense of eliminating completely the high-saturation sounds. That would be a good tradeoff to me - I almost never need the real high-gain sounds. I came up as a blues guitar player, and that stuff doesn't work for me. The general MO for blues guitar is - plug guitar straight into appropriate-size old Fender tube amp, turn it UP.

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 1 Jun 2009 11:32 am

John G McD---damn--my bad. Don't know how that got turned around in my head. That being said, I'd like to try them--the Timmy or the Dano. The Dano seems to be unavailable. in a quick search.
Yeah--I'm aware of the differences between guitar & steel and the application of dirt boxes & ODs.
I've returned the Way Huge. Have my eye on something that I'm considering---HERE---basically a clean boost with the option for just a little dirt. Looks to be similar to the Xotics but quite a bit cheaper. I think I'm about to order one and try it. I won't mind one bit if I become a revolving product borrower from MF---I'll put their policies to the test.

Ben Jones · Post by **Ben Jones** » 1 Jun 2009 1:54 pm

Jon, for what its wiorth...I had MF take back and refund me for a guitar well after the 30 day return policy had expired. They didnt give me any problems at all and refunded my money in full and that ws AFTER the thrity day return period. so yeah...test em out. hopefully they will be as good to you as they were to me. i told them i would remember and speak highly of their return policy..and so here I am.

OD's, not only differnt from steel to guitar...but from steel to steel! This is one reason why I set out to just get an example of every fuzz, od and distortion classic i could..you know the rat, 250, tubescreamers, superfuzz, fuzzface big muff, blues driver...yadda yadda..ive been picking em up used as I see em come up on craigs list at around $40 a pop.

my fuzzface clone was awesome on steel but behaved strangely...it needed a buffered pedal in front of it! the opposite of what one would expect a fuzz might like to see before it. then i found the duncan and it didnt matter anymore.

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 1 Jun 2009 2:26 pm

Yeah--I had no problems with the return at Guitar Center. They do seem to honor the policy.
Here's something I've been playing with, last two days:
http://www.ehx.com/products/lpb-2ube
I've had it here for several years, relatively unused but semi-broken from an unfortunate accident. Just repaired it yesterday (pretty proud of myself for managing to get in there and replace a mangled pot!)

I have it rigged cascading A into B with A being an AT7. It ranges from fat and clean to raging and sick with everything in between. I must say---it sounds pretty freakin good running clean but with a bit of tube gain. It really rounds the tone of a solid state amp.
And it is physically huge and it has a dedicated power supply. Gaa.
I am weighing my options (and seriously considering this).

And then there's fuzz. I do want something sick and rude. Not smooth. Jagged. Something that will tear flesh.
And there is that whole subject of where this fuzz will work in a signal chain, the buffered thing and all that stuff you are talking about, Ben. Loads of stuff to work out.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 1 Jun 2009 2:32 pm

Yeah, I tried every box Guitar Center had, plus I tried a lot of boxes the guitar players in my bands had. Gtr. Ctr. lets you take a bunch home, and bring back all of them except the one you want to keep. I went through them about 6 at a time. They had to special order the SDTT. When it came in I took it home with a bunch of other top selling guitar boxes. The next day I took them all back and kept the SDTT. I'd like to try the SD blues box.

I understand how guitar players who already have good distortion in their tube amp like to also have other flavors from boxes. But somehow they don't have the same flavor with steel. And I can't get them to be pick sensitive. And as soon as you hit more than one string, or even let one string sustain as you hit another, it turns into mud. Maybe it's because steel has so much more sustain, plus we add to that with the volume pedal. And a lot of guitar boxes add more sustain, in fact that's what guitarists like them for. It just ends up being too much sustain and mud for steel.

Every time this topic comes up, a bunch of people jump in with their favorite guitar box. Pretty soon you have a bunch of classics and new top sellers listed. Could they all be so good? Or do steelers just have undiscerning tastes in distortion tone? I ain't gonna answer that.

But I'm not gonna buy any of them, new or used, without a strong return policy. I already tried a lot of them anyway.

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 1 Jun 2009 2:53 pm

For sure, that high impedance humbucking pickup is hitting the fx hard. I exclusively have any & all fx POST volume pedal and use the v pedal to find the sweet spot on a gain pedal. I also mostly think more guitar-like when I'm doing the overdrive thing. Not a whole lot of slow AB pulls.
But actually the original quest of this long thread was for something that I could play more steel-like stuff with. This EH pedal I just referenced above so totally does the job of clean but slightly hairy (or no hair at all!) and can gain-cascade its two channels in tube mayhem....I've got to believe that I need find a way to use this thing. And it could well be that this thing I just ordered from GC, in front of the tubes, will serve as a bit of a treble boost which it could use. BTW, if anyone looked at the Devi pedal from GC, this company used to be called Effector 13.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 1 Jun 2009 4:31 pm

And then there's fuzz. I do want something sick and rude. Not smooth. Jagged. Something that will tear flesh.

You want sick and rude? Try an old Vox Tone Bender into an old EH Big Muff Pi into an old Fender amp. That was sick and rude, and was part of my guitar rig in the late 60s and early 70s. The Big Muff helped tame the high end of the Tone Bender, and there was no way to measure the rudeness of that sound, even with a tame Fender guitar like a Mustang - it was off the charts.

There's a schematic for the Tonebender here - if you can get the germanium transistors, these are a snap to build, or to get someone else to build - http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/vox.php - he even gives a source for the germanium transistors - http://www.smallbearelec.com/Categories ... ransistors

These can be easily tweaked, and the article discusses some of these plus the connection to the Arbiter Fuzz Face. I'd probably increase the .0047 uF output coupling capacitor a bit to increase the bottom end some, but most of the circuit parameters can be tweaked a bit to get what you want. This is a perfect circuit to breadboard first to tweak, and then fab or have someone else do it for you.

In my opinion, the simplest circuits tend to work the best.

Ben Jones · Post by **Ben Jones** » 2 Jun 2009 5:49 am

I love Fuzz.

I have tonebender , fuzzface and superfuzz clones.
I have a fulltone octave fuzz
I have boss FZ2
I have big muffs

the gnarliest is the superfuzz clone (BYOC)
the boss FZ2 set to the second setting is infamous in the doom metal scene for super raspy bass heavy monolithic destruction, and it is indeed quite vicious.
tonebender is cool too, but reversed polarity circuit means no daisy chaining and I havent found many pedals it gets along with well. on its own tho...gnarly moonage daydream tone.

The Steel Guitar Forum

Which Distortion/OD?

Somebody said Xotic,