The Steel Guitar Forum

Trying to figure out a good distortion sound and a bad distortion sound. Would a good distortion sound be like a buzz saw hitting a rusty nail?

Good vs bad distortion is a very subjective thing.
We all know there's plenty of members here who believe any distortion is bad.

I've tried many, and for the last few years have been very satisfied with the MXR Distortion III

It's simple controls (Volume, Tone, Distortion) let me easily tweak the sound to taste.

Here's two clips, one live with it feeding a NV 112.
The PSG is a Carter with an XR16 pup.

The other clip is it being used in the studio, with a Bakelite Ricky Lap Steel.

It's a red box that can been seen in both clips.

http://youtu.be/XATgXt95jqI

http://youtu.be/7HiPlIbvjlc

These are the sound I like in distortion.

Bad distortion is the SS poweramp distortion...nasty, scratchy, speaker blowing distortion.

Most distortion boxes are within a range of pre-amp type distortion, and that's where it can get buzzy with a lot of gain.

The sweetest singing distortion comes from hard-driven powertubes and speaker compression, and is the hardest to simulate with a box.

The question of what's good distortion versus bad distortion is a personal thing. Some people like extreme fuzz type or metal type distortion. These are usually pretty harsh, with the sound of the guitar and amp pretty much taken over by the pedal (it doesn't really matter what you plug into the box, it will all sound the same). Boxes like the Ratt will handle this type of distortion well through a transistor amp (or any kind of amp, really). A lot of the metal guys prefer transistor amps.

For distortion, I prefer the sound of a tube amp being overdriven. It's really hard to get this sound with a solid state amp. IMHO you can get an acceptable overdriven sound, but not great. The two pedals that I have used that work well with solid state amps are the Seymore Twin Tube, and the Sarno Earth Drive. I haven't A/B'd these, but I will say that the Sarno sounds much better than my Fulltone Fulldrive 2. I'd recommend the Earth Drive.

In terms of examples, I don't want to offend any steel players , so here's some guitar examples:

Here's what I would call a terrible distortion tone (although many would disagree with me) starting at 0:10 and then again at 1:10- Metal

Here's the anti-metal example: Two Tone Masters

Keith, here's an example of 'The Way to Survive' played through an overdriven amp at a steel show: A Different Way to Survive

That was a Zen Drive through a Princeton. The Zen Drive wouldn;t sound great into a transistor amp, it's designed to work against a fender style preamp.

Interesting Dan. By the way Larry Carlton uses my Hilton pedal. When Larry was playing with Steely Dan in Germany, the stage crew somehow blew up a bunch of equipment including two Hilton pedals. Wish I could play some Rockabilly and uptempo blues with distortion, but I can't get away with it where I play. Seems to me there are more types of distortion than mentioned here: Electronically you can have distortion in some type of device feeding an amp, as in a Tube Screamer. You can also overdrive a clean signal into the pre-amp of either a solid state amp, or tube amp, as both types of amp have a pre-amp and can be over driven. A defective speaker can also distort.

Keith: IMHO the best distortion comes from pushing the power amp section of a tube power amp.

In terms of the other types of distortion, overdriving a clean signal into a solid state preamp is a bad idea, as is using a blown speaker. IMHO

I use a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube classic. Robert Randolph uses a Cusack Screamer.

Check out his gear here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ornVV2luW20

Eddy

yes, but RR uses tube amps.

I'm wondering what pickups he uses.

I use a catalinbread SFT thats left over from my bass playing days. Its designed to be really touch sensitive. I gotta say I like it. You can do a lot with its sensitivity. If its pre volume pedal it can be really touch sensitive where you play light and its clean dig in and its dirty. Then post volume pedal it'll resoponds to where your VP is; low volume it cleans up nicely and then with more volume it gets dirtier and dirtier untill at max you have a more screaming lead tone. But I really don't know what I'm talking about "tone" wise so YMMV. If your interested there are a bunch of demo's on youtube and stuff it might be worth checking out. This shows the dynamics pretty well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtrmxACnMhA

HOWEVER, I think there is something to be said for looking into BASS distorition pedals. They usually have more bottom end presence than guitar types, they are made to hanndle hotter signals from bass pre-amps, and they are voiced to be used with bass amps/cabinets that tend to be solid state and clean, and even involve tweeters(!).

My current favorite:

http://www.lovepedal.com/pedals/les_lius.html

I would guess the sound most of us are looking for is
David Lindley's ?

I just put a Wallace Truetone in my Mullen, the overdrive sounds a lot better now than with the Alumitone. I think I like the TT overall better than the Loomy, but it does come with some hum.

I'm playing in a nu-country band now that plays material requiring an overdriven rock sound out of the steel. As "good" distortion is highly subjective, I hesitate to post this link for fear of being flamed by the classic country purists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... c5I-Gq6MaU
However, this is what I consider an appropriate distorted PSG sound through a solid state amp, solo starts about 1:33 in. Signal path is a GFI II pickup, Sarno FreeLoader, Electro-Harmonix Memory Toy, Digitech Hardwire SC-2 Valve Distortion, Goodrich VP, Digitech RV-7 Reverb into a Fender Steelking. Line out of Steelking was used for recording.

You need one of these--PEarce G2R the best SS distortion ever (also has Alessis reverbs and delays on board)...and coincidentally mine is for sale right now:

Tom Wolverton wrote:I've been real happy with both the Earth Drive and the SD Twin Tube Classic running into a PV or Gk Mb200.

My favorite lap steel sound is a Ricky Bakelite thru a late 50's tweed deluxe, but for regular working gigs, the Earth Drive and the MB200 is good enough.
The lap is an old Kay with a Lollar Chicago pickup in it. A sample can be heard at about 1:45 min in this video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH0OXnEk-Es

I could turn up the ED more and get it dirtier, but this was the tone I was looking for that night. Speaker is a single Peavey BW 12". Is this the level of dirt you wanted?

Hey Tom,
I like the sound you got with the Earth Drive and the MB200.

Thanks. I'm still using the ED full time. I tried the Golden Cello but didn't like it as much. I use the ED with any amp I use: MB200, MB500, Fender Showman or Ken Fox Steel amp. Works well with all.

I really like the Visual Sound Route 808, has a bass boost switch with really fattens tone. It sounds great with every string on my extended E9.

for over 20 years (since i ran into it) i've just used the ibanez 'fat cat' (FC10) stomp box. it's just what i like and has a warm sound with any peavey 400 amp.

i don't even know if it's analog or digital...anyone know about these?

My favorite distortion unit uses a tube.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifie ... ndt_rdir=1

Earth Drive is my favorite for distortion on steel.
Be sure to try any distortion pedal before and after the volume pedal.
Before the Vol. it is easier to control and after the Vol you lose some of the effect as you back off the volume if that it what you want.

Boss ds-1 modded to reduce gain, Also hit it with a lower than maximum steel level. Remember less is more in the tasty gain department.The tone control on the DS 1 is your friend.
I can send you a simple mod to the DS1if you send me a personal mail.
I pad my steel down to 50% amplitude before hitting the rest of the chain.
It has the added advantage of being really cheap. You can find a ds1 for $20 and it might delight you. If not you can toss it in the trash, Small loss

My tech (for Webb amps) recently put together and demonstrated to me the distortion unit that he built for the Webb "Galaxy" model amp that Olie Eshleman mentioned in his post on the previous page of this topic. What he did was to hook it up so that the 5-knob EQ bank on the Webb "Steel Guitar" amp could "model" the distortion available on the Galaxy model amp. Besides the "flavorful" distortions available on the Galaxy alone, the EQ provided innumerable variations in distortion that I'd never heard before.

I'm curious, and does anyone know, if a distortion unit exists that allows for EQing the output sound? ...Tom

I just bought an Xotic RC Boost... it has Volume, Drive, Bass, and Treble. So does the Fat Boost by FullTone... it doesn't do as good or as clean a treble boost as the Xotic. Most folks just EQ the amp or run an EQ after the distortion.