The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi Guys

I'm not very happy with my current distortion sound and I'm after something to get a nice sound but at a reasonable budget. I only need it for two songs in the set but it is important for those songs.

What I am after is something like the sound of Neil Flanz's distortion on the Gram Parsons live album or like some of Sneaky Pete's stuff.

At the moment, I have tried several pedals which I have used for my guitar in the past but none sounded much good for pedal steel. They either sound too harsh, too honky or make the whole thing sound mushy and indistinguishable. The best sound I got with my current set up was actually with the overdrive channel of my blues deluxe but it still isn't what I'm after.

Over to you guys - any ideas? Should I be using distortion or fuzz?

Forgot to mention, I've tried Ibanez TS808, ProCo Rat and Marshall Bluesbreaker as well as the OD channel on my amp.

dont know if this helps much but there was a recent thread. Looks like Sneaky had a special unit made for himself. I made my own fuzz from Build Your Own Clone and it sounds great to my ears, twas easy and fun to build.

heres the thread.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=949150

heres my fuzz

Try the Keeley Electronics modified versions of either the TS9 or the Blues Driver. Robert's mods make them a whole lot more useable, especially on the subtle settings. If you are more interested in the fuzz type units he also mods a Rat that is purely beautiful. Very square wavey though, and not particularly subtle- best for single note parts, not chords.

Simon,
Neil Flanz has a thread going here:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=109276

Neil is a great guy! I bet if you ask him, he would tell you exactaly what he used to get that distortion on the Live album!!

It's not inexpensive, but on Dan Tyac's suggestion I tried the Seymour Duncan Twin Tube distortion box. It was love at first stomp. I've tried Boss, Ibanez and many others, and nothing comes close. It is really a small tube preamp with a couple of tubes in it. And it is well designed to give a wide range of distortion/overdrive that sounds like an expensive vintage or boutique tube amp, not like the fake transistor or digital modeling of all the others. It has two channels for two different settings, and true bypass. I run it between my pedal steel and the volume pedal, so that it is touch sensitive. It sounds great with either tube or solid-state amps.

The classic Sneaky Pete sound is neither overdrive nor distortion, but fuzz! Digitech makes a very low-priced fuzz box that you could use to check out whether that's the effect you're looking for.

It's a little while since I listened to The GP+Fallen Angels album so I checked it out on iTunes. I'm wondering if the distortion sounds on Encore Medley and Cry One More Time are overdriven lap steel(?) Maybe I'm just saying that 'cos it's non-pedal style on those tracks. If it's fuzz I'm betting Jordan Boss Tone and great technique - Neil being a master of course. As Keith pointed out, fuzz is more of a single note beast: if you sound more than one string at a time you get some nasty metallic rasping noises - hence the 'bee in a can' rep. I'm definitely starting to realise it's more about good blocking and stripped down licks than brand of fuzz.

DOD "Flash Back Fuzz...gets that Sneaky Pete sound 4o bucks.

Radial Tone Bone, Classic.

You mention a selection of overdrive-type units when the sound you're looking for is fuzz - a distinct difference.

My favorite for Sneaky tones is the ZVex Fuzz Factory, but it can be a bit intimidating for many users. One of the best alternatives is the discontinued Ibanez "Sound Tank" FZ-5 Fuzz. They show up on eBay periodically for $25 or so.

But an overdrive will never get the same sound you're hearing.

Yup, that's right....you want that cheezy diod clipping fuzz. Get a fuzz pedal with a lot of gain so you can turn up the gain and turn down the fuzz, and then overdrive the front end of your amp. So, in effect you can overdrive your amp with a fuzz pedal, but you won't get a true fuzz tone out of an OD pedal. I use to overdrive my amp with a Rat pedal, and I did it with a Fulltone '69 fuzzface. I could get that Sneaky Pete fuzztone from the Rat (evethough people call the Rat an OD pedal, it seemed to me like an OD/fuzz hybrid), but I couldn't really do it with the '69 fuzzface (the fuzzface has too much interesting harmonic stuff going on and the tone is not as focused). You proably want a cheap and basic FUZZ pedal.

Neil used an original BossTone on that album. Note that this is a very different sound than an overdriven tube amp.

I've had great results with a pedal called the "Big D" by Homebrew Electronics. Great pedal for guitar too. I use it with a single coil pickup wound to 17.5

I want to point out that I am not advocating the use of a Bosstone for rock and roll playing. I just happen to know that Neil used that efx unit on that album (because he told me years ago).

IMHO there are better options (I was never a fan of fuzz tones, even back in the day).

Chasing the fuzz/overdrive sound can be a real bear, partly because many of us find that the gear someone else uses doesn't give us the sound we hear in our head. A clipping fuzz is a completely different sound from a tube-simulation overdrive, and both sound completely different driving a solid state versus tube amp rig.
For instance, the fuzz sound of early country-rock, with it's fizzy, spitty tone and attack, just won't provide the smooth fatness of a David Lindley lap sound, which was really a small overdriven tube amp. The fuzz also generally makes full chords impossible. I think some people think they want the former, when they "hear" the latter.

I did a lap gig yesterday using a Keely modded Blues driver into a Fender Blues Jr. amp set for slight overdrive on it's own- which gave me a fairly good sustain for clean tunes, then with just moderate drive setting on the Keely, a very close "Lindley" tone. That also allows for full chords dripping with grind, great for blues and rock.
On my pedal steel rig, I'm using the Duncan Twin Tube before the volume pedal into my Walker SS Stereo Steel rig. Just as David says, it's the best overdrive I've found for Pedal Steel. It will also get to Lindley land, although I wish it had a bit smaller footprint. $175-200 on ebay.

I recently got a used Ibanez TS9+ turbo tube screamer and it sounds great for distorted slide leads on my lap steel. It has the advantage (over the regular TS9) of the extra Mode switch that not only can add more gain but it changes the character of the distortion. I like the second position which maintains the low end punch but its not over the top crunchy. I found the regular tube screamer to sap the low end whenever it was engaged.

I went to all 5 nights of Gram and Emmy with Neil at Oliver's in Boston 1973--pretty unforgettable...

Neil was using 2 ElectroHarmonix LPB1 overdrives chained together with a switch built that activated both at the same time--the LPB1 was a small unit that plugged into the guitar. It stuck out about 4 inches on the side of his guitar:). The switches were mechanical slide switches and someone made a piece of metal that moved them both at the same time...