the science of good overdrive for PSG?

[James Collett]

"Amp in a box" drive pedals work pretty well when your clean tone is fairly clean on its own (i.e. solid state or a tube amp not working very hard)--something like the JHS Charlie Brown or Wampler Alexi-Drive. That way you're getting some "personality" out of the pedal, and the EQ controls pedals like that usually have are helpful, too. I sometimes use the now-discontinued JHS Twin Twelve, which is based on a Silvertone amp and gets me some thickness that just isn't usually there in a classic country clean steel sound. That said, I usually push my amp pretty hard with my clean tone to get just a little bit of hair when I dig in, so something less colored like a Sarno Earth Drive works great in that case to lean into that breakup.

[Jerry Overstreet]

Tryint to find a good DS/Overdrive sound for pedal steel has always been a problem for me. Generally, the sound is too thin or too nasty or both. I have a couple guitar based Boss and Roland rack units that should deliver. I also have the OK but really dirty jack mount Boss Tone and just sold a Ross distortion pedal. They sound fine with guitar, but not with the pedal steel. Could be I've just not done enough or the proper programming.

Bill Hatcher, thanks for the mention of that VooDoo Labs unit. That looks good on paper and on the videos with guitar. I like the idea of being able to add back in some original sound. I see there is an upgrade to the MOD model, which has more options, but the original might be just fine for steel.

I have recently acquired some TubeWorks amps that have a second channel for overdrive, but I've not had the opportunity to try it out with steel. If it doesn't give me what I want, I'm probably going to look for a used Sparkle Drive.

[Dave Mudgett]

Of late, I've been using a 5D3 tweed Deluxe for guitar, and using that with my clean pedal steel amp works pretty good to get some overdrive with pedal steel. I bring up the Deluxe to the level where it sounds good and is in the ballpark volume-wise, but bring in the steel amp just enough to fill up the sound so I don't have to push the Deluxe so hard that it fizzes out too much. In this setup, I have one or another overdrive on the board for guitar and slide guitar - sometimes a Mad Professor Simble, sometimes a Wampler Hot Wired v2, sometimes a Klon KTR. I've even used a Bogner LaGrange if I wanna go more Marshall-in-a-box. But the pedals really are mostly for the guitars - most pedal steel pickups are so hotly wound that they overdrive a small tube amp like a tweed Deluxe pretty easily.

I am pretty spoiled on somewhat smaller tube amps for overdrive. So I struggle to get what I want with any typical solid-state OD pedal straight into, let's say, a NV 112, Session 400, or something like that. Or even my Quilter Tone Block 201 or a powerful tube amp like a Twin Reverb. They can work, but I'm not usually totally satisfied with the sound.

The one exception is the Seymour Duncan Twin Tube pedals, which of course are not solid-state pedals. I have both the Classic (Marshally) and Blue (Fendery) versions. They are a bit of a PITA because they are large and take a special power supply. But if I'm stuck with just a super clean amp, I really like these. These pedals each use different sub-miniature tubes that have to be soldered in, and they are not run in starved-plate mode - they run close to 300VDC on the plates. The overdrive/distortion level and tone are well adjustable to the guitar, so it works well for both guitar and steel.

I remember having to do some gigs where there was just a NV 112 onstage several years back, and there were some tunes where I was also playing a Les Paul and needed a pretty juicy Les Paul into Marshall type of sound. That Twin Tube Classic really turned some heads. Out of production for a long time now, but they are pretty plentiful on the used market these days. The Blues are out there too, although they don't seem to be as plentiful. I can use either in most cases.

Oh, btw - I sometimes use a Peavey Studio Pro 40/50 instead of the tweed Deluxe. Don't laugh - just a hair of the Saturation control with the pre-gain up a bit, plus a bit of a good overdrive like the Simble/Hot-Wired/Klon or something like that works pretty well. I think a secret on those amps is to turn the Bass well to all-the-way up, and put the Treble and Mid down a lot - those controls are very sensitive in the 0-3 range. 0 is too little, but more than 3 is too much. A good speaker helps too, obviously. And these amps are dirt cheap and built like a brick outhouse.

[Josh Yenne]

I use the earth drive for just a touch of hair. It is perfect for that plus changing the level of overdrive does not change the output level so it is very easy to dial in on the fly.

I also use an analogman King of Tone for more gnarly sounds. It is amazing. I got on the waiting list a while back and went ahead and bought when my name came up.

The main thing to do is experiment. Buy whatever used on reverb and then resell if you don't like it. Overdrives are like trading cards.

Interesting I have a king of tone and I’ve never thought to use it with the steel now I’m gonna give it a try