The Steel Guitar Forum

Like Dan, I've rarely used boxes in the studio. I'll use a '5 Deluxe, crank it, and don't need no steenkeen boxes!

Two exceptions I can think of - one track on a CD I used a $15 Ibanez FZ5 Fuzz because it sounded ratty, out-of-control and sputtery...and it fit the particular track perfectly. And one session I used a borrowed Dyna Red Distortion for almost the whole thing into my Holland Little Jimi turned up to around 6 - I could go from beautiful, warm, round clean tones to a Dumble-ish sustaining OD sound just by massaging the volume knob on my guitar. That's one distortion pedal I wish I had, but they have reached ridiculous prices.I was getting everything I needed with just that amp, pedal and a Vibratone.

Rock guitarists have been studying this for decades, sometimes in a surprisingly serious fashion, with oscilloscopes and all. There's quite a consensus that overdriven sounds belong in the midrange spectrum. Many (most?) tone god guitarists are using two or more amplifiers on stage (Santana: four!), with one dedicated to midrange overdrive and another cleaner amp to pick up highs and lows.

Where your part sits in the mix on a tune or in a band is critical, of course. Joe Satriani was famous for using a little Rockman headphone amp just to narrow the bandwidth of his screaming solos. If you record a full-spectrum raunch guitar track, a good engineer is going to lop off the raspy treble and boomy bass anyway, certainly nothing above 3K or so.

One of the big advantages to a high-end modeler like a Digitech GSP1101, 2101 or Boss VF-1 is that you can specifically place an EQ after the overdrive, and save that sound to a separate preset. You can set up a predictable two-channel routing pretty easily & cheaply in a rack, not so simply on the floor.

Great thread, all.
I've read similar over at the gearpage.net.
I go back and forth about using effects, whether its with my electric guitars or my pedal steel:
sometimes less is more, and it really is "all in your playing" The most expensive effect will not make you sound better... believe me, I've tried

That's true - effect should complement your playing, not overwhelm it (there ARE exceptions). But when I read a post like "I need to get some effects....what should I buy first?" I just shake my head. It indicates a complete lack of understanding.

Jim Sliff wrote:That's true - effect should complement your playing, not overwhelm it (there ARE exceptions). But when I read a post like "I need to get some effects....what should I buy first?" I just shake my head. It indicates a complete lack of understanding.

Jim, you are right. I've been a bass player for the last 35 years and I am clueless about effects pedals. My Peavey had a distortion to make sound more tube like and my Ampeg B5R had an octave effect. For newbie’s to Steel, like me maybe you and some others hear on the forum can start a thread to help us learn about effects. When and how they should be used, what they do, ect. I for one would greatly appreciate it.

Michael

PS I just bought a Korg ToneWorks PX4D Pandora Guitar and Bass Multi-Effects Processor. It was recommended by the manufacturer of my travel guitar (Lapstick). My first effects processor, good for guitar and bass! I can’t till get home tomorrow to check it out.

I have Seymour's Twin Tube Classic, and I like it alot. It really is a tube pre-amp AND an overdrive. I compared it side by side to the Buddah Zen drive, and it beats the Zen in sound and price. The Zen is a little dull compared to it. I agree with Dave. It works best at low levels. It also boosts your signal, especially through a tube amp. But, you can turn down the levels so it doesn't boost, but still with as much or as little overdrive as you want. When I bought it, I plugged it into a cheap little Marshall solid state. With one step of the foot, it magically went from sounding like crap to cream. It sounded just like a tube amp, whether the gain was cranked, or not. And it makes the best solid state amps sound better. It gives them the warmth they lack.

I agree the SD Twin Tube doesn't take much to sound good. On the Rhythm channel I set the volume at around 10:00 o'clock (about 4 on a scale of 1-10), and that seems to cut it in with no change in volume. I set the gain at around 12:00 o'clock (about 5 on a scale of 1-10). That gives me pick sensitive distortion.

I have the ZenDrive 2, which also has a real tube in it. But it seems to work completely different. It gives a beautiful Dumble-like boutique blues amp tone. But I can't get it to be pick sensitive. It is either on or off, like a fuzz box. I've got one still unopened in the mailing box for $360 including shipping if anyone wants one. From Hermida there is a few months wait.

For those interested.. Here's a review I came across on U-Tube for the Seymour Duncan pedal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktvJe-YCg-Y

Jim, the right side of my steel driver 3 works great for me. Jody.

Jody - some like, some don't - just like any other effect. I'm not a huge "fuzz" fan, so it already had one strike; the switching system is nearly useless during a song....so that's why I don't care for it.

Telenordia can make pedalsteel voiced TA100 overdrive on order. I have one at home right now, and it's the first Overdrivepedal that I think sounds nice with my pedal pedal steel.

http://www.telenordia.de/en/products_ta_100.php

I had my homestudio set up, so I made a couple of examples.

Sho Bud Pro 1 (original single coil pickup) - TA100 - volumepedal - Peavey Nashville 400. First lick is with TA100 bypassed.
Download and listen here

Like Dan, anytime I need grind, in the studio, I use my THD. If it needs to be more, I use a Hellfire Modulator driven by a Rockmaster. These were made by Metasonix, who also made/make the Butt Probe and the Scrotum Smasher.

For live, I use a Tone Bone Classic, a Prescription Electronics COB and a Stamps Drive-O-Matic XL.

For overdrive, I've had a lot of luck with the Fulltone Fat-Boost (the newer one with the small bass boost and treble cut knobs). It works especially well if you can run it at 12 volts (slightly more headroom).
For fuzz, I prefer the Fulltone '70 over Bosstones. I think that the '70 is a really overlooked pedal...it's incredibly responsive to the volume control of the guitar (or volume pedal).

I've been using this for the last year or so. Best one I've tried yet.
BB preamp Demo

To a certain extent, I tend to vote with the Sliffer on this:

...one track on a CD I used a $15 Ibanez FZ5 Fuzz because it sounded ratty, out-of-control and sputtery... and it fit the particular track perfectly.

The idea of using extremely hi-fi components, assembled expensively by geniuses, to duplicate the nastiness of cheap, primitive early electric guitar noises is kinda weird, if you think in a certain way.... I mean, fuzz is supposed to sound bad and annoy your parents, right? I have a box of cheap, nasty-sounding things that are fun to play with. My current fave guitarist is an Israeli guy named Oz Noy who has the most wonderful command over the most awfullest set of sounds I've heard out of a guitarist in years, he's like what John Scofield would sound like if John Scofield was a psychotic with a 240 IQ and a disjunctive attitude.

P.S. (His YouTube clips are recorded poorly, but this CD is a must if you think guitar playing has gone stagnant): http://www.modernguitars.com/archives/003772.html

I'm curious to know if the SD Twin Tube can also be used as a clean boost. Say, if I want more volume and gain, but no distortion.

Yes.

James Mayer wrote:I'm curious to know if the SD Twin Tube can also be used as a clean boost. Say, if I want more volume and gain, but no distortion.

If I want a clean sound from my Seymour Duncan Twin Tube, or even a not very distorted sound, I have to attenuate the signal from the steel guitar pickup quite a bit.

James Mayer wrote:I'm curious to know if the SD Twin Tube can also be used as a clean boost. Say, if I want more volume and gain, but no distortion.

If your pickup is not too hot, I guess you could get a little clean boost from an SD Twin Tube. But I don't understand the point of that. Clean boost is what I have a volume pedal and a big clean amp for. The only thing I want from a distortion box is distortion.

I should have prefaced my terse response with the caveat that I always put this type of thing (overdrive) after my volume pedal, so the Twin Tube works great as a clean boost in this configuration.

The reason why I sometimes use a clean boost is to push the front end of a clean tube amp to make it not so clean, much as I used to use an Electro Harmonics LPB1 back in the day.

Hehehe - Dan, I have about 6 LPB-1's! I was attempting to find one in each color...I might have done it. It's a GREAT little gadget - Bob Warford STILL uses the same one he played with Linda Ronstadt in the 70's, plugged into his same Vibrolux Reverb. He found HIS sound and never changed it....ever.

I only had the one back in the 70s.....which I stopped using when I started using a Session 400 (you don't want to drive the front end of that thing).

The other good thing about that gadget (and why people left them on) was that it was kind of a poor man's effects buffer. It reduced tone suck when using a bunch of pedals.

I use the distortion (read that "fuzz") effect for couple of songs a gig; and on a very rare occasion, I'll flick it on for a fill, here and there.

For these situations, I use an old Jordan "Bosstone" (I paid $25 for it, used, years ago at Guitar Resurrection, in Austin). Many folks claim the "Bosstone" works best with a nearly dead battery. This is true if you really crank the fuzz level. On the other hand, I set mine at a level where it just starts to "fuzz". Then, I set the gain to match the "dry" signal. This works for me and it doesn't sound like a bunch o' bees flyin' around. And, the battery lasts forever with the same output result.

If you e-mail a request, I'll reply with an MP4 file of a song that demonstrates my use.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

I said I'd report back when I tried the Duncan Twin Tube Classic with pedal steel into a solid state pedal steel amp. The setup was a Fessenden D-10 with Tonealigner pickups (humbucking) into a Sho Bud volume pedal, into the Duncan, and then straight into the high-input on a Nashville 400, which currently has a 150-watt, 8-ohm Neo JBL 15" speaker in it. It worked pretty durned good, to my tastes. The NV was set up at a gig type volume with Pre-Gain around 4, Post-Gain around 8-9, Bass +3, Mid around -6 to -9, Shift around 800 Hz, High and Presence around +3 to +6, Reverb to taste, 4-6. In other words, this was pretty loud, but not as loud as if it was using a 4-ohm Black Widow.

If I kept the Duncan EQ pretty flat and kept the gain fairly low on the Rhythm channel, I was able to get enough clean boost to raise the volume cleanly, let's say for a clean solo that really needed to cut through, without getting muddy or distorted. I cranked the Duncan's volume control and used Gains around 9-10 o'clock or lower. I could get usable sounds with the Treble between around 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. Below that got muddy, above that got shrill. I was running the amp loud enough that the pedal interacted with the amp's DDT limiter to give a bit of extra sustain without significant distortion, which I liked a lot.

On the other hand, if I wanted a significantly distorted tone, that was also easy. Either channel worked, but I found it more useful - for me - to keep the Rhythm channel clean and use the Lead channel for this. Of course, the strategy here is reverse - I found useful distortion tones with the Gain control between around 10 o'clock and 12 o'clock (more sensitive to volume pedal or pick dynamics) and 12 o'clock and 2-3 o'clock (pretty balls out). I adjusted the Volume more or less inversely to the Gain to keep it in the ballpark - the more distorted settings used Volume in the 9 o'clock to 10 o'clock range, and the more sensitive settings used Volume in the 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock range. There was some flexibility with these settings.

On the distorted settings, the tone controls were critical. I didn't like the Treble above 11 o'clock, and generally preferred it at 10 o'clock or below. The Bass control was a taste thing, although I generally didn't like it below 12 o'clock at all. The lower-gain settings were a bit thinner, so I generally pushed it higher for these, and tended to prefer it down in the middle at higher-gain settings. Heavy bass at higher gain settings did produce a pretty interesting fat sound, but it created some odd artifacts when sliding or bending notes with the pedals and levers.

Overall, I felt that if I stayed within reasonable parameter bounds, it gave a good, musical distortion sound. The only downside to this setup is that both pedal channels share EQ - a single Bass and Treble control. Since I found clean boost and distorted needed different EQ settings, it means I can't just switch channels and get what I need without adjusting the EQ also. But it's not completely unworkable.

Of course, whether or not one likes this is a matter of taste. I am looking for something more like the sound of an overdriven tube amp, not a ratty pedal fuzz or distortion. I've never really liked distortion pedals, but I like this one. I'll have to take this setup out and see what happens. The pedal sounded great on gigs with a Les Paul through a Pod into a clean power amp, or straight into a tube amp like a Dual Showman Reverb. But of course, you might hate this, so caveat emptor and YMMV.

Not set up to record today, but I'll try to record some of these sounds and post them when I get a chance.

David Doggett wrote:

James Mayer wrote:I'm curious to know if the SD Twin Tube can also be used as a clean boost. Say, if I want more volume and gain, but no distortion.

If your pickup is not too hot, I guess you could get a little clean boost from an SD Twin Tube. But I don't understand the point of that. Clean boost is what I have a volume pedal and a big clean amp for. The only thing I want from a distortion box is distortion.

Well, I had a long conversation with a steel hero of mine. He uses a tube preamp (tube distortion pedal) as a clean boost with the gain all the way down and the volume all the way up. He said it fattens the clean tone and adds significant sustain.

If I have a good clean boost that can also be used for a versatile distortion then I think it's worth looking into.