Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Doadman on February 01, 2009, 02:02:46 PM
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Pedals is something I know very little about so I'd really appreciate some help. I use an Ibanez RGT42 loaded with a set of 'Cold Sweat' pups and play it through a Marshall DSL401. Overall I like the Marshall but I'd like to be able to tighten up the distortion and take it further so I can reach the levels of modern Metal as well, such as A7X, BFMV, Disturbed etc. I reasoned that there were two options open to me:
1) Use a distortion pedal on the clean channel of the amp
2) Use an overdrive pedal to push the amp's own drive channels further
It seems to me that using a distortion pedal on the clean channel would have it's limitations as the only volume control for that channel is the master so switching between that and the drive channels would become complex. As I also use this amp in the home I usually have the master volume maxed out and then control everything from the gain channels individual volume control. I tried it the other way around too but it didn't sound so good. Thinking that using an overdrive pedal would therefore be easier and better, I narrowed down my choice to:
Boss OS-2
Digitech Bad Monkey
Hardwire Overdrive
Maxon OD-9
So far I've only been able to try the Boss OS-2 but it didn't react as I expected. It did certainly tighten up the distortion and it sounded better BUT it didn't take it to the distortion levels I was expecting and the controls on the pedal had surprisingly little effect on the sound. Conversely, when I tried it on the clean channel, the distortion was even better and all of a sudden the controls on the pedal came alive and I could affect the sound much better. Unfortunately I still couldn't reach the high gain levels I was after. This raises a few questions for me:
1) If an overdrive pedal is designed to push an amp's drive channels further, why did it work better on the clean channel?
2) Was it just that the Boss OS-2 just isn't very good and the other pedals I mentioned are better?
3) Would any of the pedals I've mentioned do what I'm looking for?
4) Would I be better using a full distortion pedal on the clean channel instead?
5) Am I making some fundamental mistakes here and if so, what do you suggest?
I have no doubt that a lot of this may well be down to the fact that I know very little about pedals and how they work so I'd be grateful if you guys can help. At the moment I use a GNX3000 with headphones for practice but I'd like to get back to using an amp when the wife is out and it's not too late at night. Right now the amp is only used in the home as the last band I was involved in folded. I've been tempted just to sell it and get a solid state modeler like a Vypyr but I really like the richer valve tone and I also figure that if I don't have an amp that I can use to gig then I'll never get off my backside and join a band. At 44 years old I may never be in a band as I'm just not that good but it's still the dream. Anyway, any help and advice you could offer would be gratefully received.
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I think the Hardwire is too much money for what it is; Overdrive pedals should not be so expensive.
I can live with the idea of a boutique pedal but Hardwire are mass produced and so have no excuse whatsoever.
I personally use a Boss SD-1 into a valve preamp with the volume on 10 and the drive very low. This gets some compression into the sound that valves don't get on their own.
The gain boost mightn't be enough for your purposes, though.
At about £30 it isn't a major investment.
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I looked into hardwire pedals when i was getting a delay pedal. They are actually better made then they look.
They are in between that of a Boss and a boutique pedal. i.e they use higher quality components but in a standard casing which means they sound gd without the boutique cost. I think Guitarist did a review on the whole range 2-3months ago. From memory they all did extremely well and got choice awards.
The order you've listed them is increasing in cost and "boutique"ness. The monkey has loads of gain btw.
If you can get one id try and find an OCD Fulltone second hand which will go with your marshall and they sound amazing. They are £110 new so not much more the the maxon. The third model was really good and they just released the fourth version so some of the third may now be on ebay.
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Thanks for the ideas. To be honest, I hadn't originally thought of Hardwire but everyone seems to think the Bad Monkey is so good I assumed the Hardwire version would just be an improved Bad Monkey. I stumbled on the Maxon through reviews I read on HC. I've heard the OCD mentioned a few times before but dismissed it as simply too expensive for what I would be using it for but Ebay may be a good idea. I take it that, as nobody has suggested it yet, using a distortion pedal through the clean channel is not the best way to go and I can achieve what I want with an overdrive. On that basis the OS-2 presumably just isn't that good. It's so difficult to try these pedals where I live I'm afraid I have to rely on feedback from forums.
So, the Bad Monkey may well be worth exploring further, as is the Hardwire and Maxon. If I look at used options the Fulltone may be possible and would a Tubescreamer also be worth a look? Would all of these pedals be used to push the drive channels on my amp and would they all do what I want?
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I don't have any OD on my amp, but I get pretty high gain sounds chaining 2 ODs together - a Tone Rider American OD (TS clone) into an MI Audio Crunch Box.
Does the job nicely!
Mar.
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I do the same as MrBump but using the aforementioned valve preamp rather than a transistor distortion with the overdrive in front.
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I use a Bad Monkey for the same purpose in part - pushing the gain on my valve amp up a couple of notches. It does it very well, especially for its price, and the separate bass + treble controls it has make it very versatile (can tweak in everything from bass-heavy-crushing to screaming-ice-pick tones). As a bonus it gives you a sweet mild crunch tone when pushing the clean channel, and even sounds pretty good when taking the cab emulation straight from the pedal into a stereo.
I don't really get on with distortion pedals, preferring a valve amps high gain sound - but also have limited experience with said so take that with a pinch of salt.
If you can pick up a Bad Monkey off eBay for £20 or so, its definitely well worth it.
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The Bad Monkey sounds really good and loads of people seem to think very highly of it. I'm watching one on Ebay right now actually. I've also been really impressed with the sound clips at the Digitech website for their Hardwire series. The CM-2 Tube Overdrive may well do the job perfectly and the clips have also got me thinking about the SC-2 Valve Distortion pedal as their information suggests that this can be used either on the clean channel or as a gain boost into the overdrive channel. It's too early for Hardwire pedals to be on Ebay unfortunately but I don't think they're unreasonably priced for what they are.
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If you want a nice tube drive that will give some kick check out a Maxon OD-808. It's the model made by the guy who did the original Ibanez Tubescreamer 808 :P Hope that helps a little!
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It does it very well, especially for its price
Actually, on consideration, it simply does it very well. No excuses needed just because its cheap :-)
A steal at the price IMO.
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What you generally get with spending more on a tube screamer clone (or similar) is better quality components. This may not improve the tone, but it will lower the noise floor.
Compared to my MI Audio Blue Boy Deluxe (a boutique pedal itself) my BYOC tubescreamer simply has a much lower noise floor.
The BYOC (build your own clone) series are excellent in terms of value and quality of components. They use very top quality components. If you can build it yourself they are VERY good value for money. If you can't, then buying them ready made is still pretty good value in my book.
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Ain't horsehead selling his maxon on here..and also isn't there a badmonkey for sale at mo
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I've been monitoring a range of pedals on Ebay to see the kind of prices they achieve. A Maxon OD808 went yesterday for £76.52 and next up is a Bad Monkey. It's only at £10 at the moment but there's still a day to go so I imagine there will be a flurry of activity on it. I'm in no immediate rush and I'm away for a week in mid Feb. so I should be able to try a few of these out myself. I've written to Digitech asking what they suggest for what I'm after, though my focus was the Hardwire series then but I imagine each Hardwire pedal has a standard Digitech equivalant that would be on Ebay.
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use any tubescreamer type. I personally use a maxon od808. Should get you right up to modern metal.
You know the band nile? they use dsl100's. ;)
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=U4k2kFQn5WA
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Well, I got a reply from Digitech regarding their Hardwire series and I was rather surprised by their suggestion. I made it clear that I wanted to push the amp's existing overdrives into modern high gain and tighten up the distortion generally. I started this process thinking that an overdrive pedal was required (Hardwire CM-2 Tube Overdrive) but listening to their clips on the website I wondered if the Hardwire SC-2 Valve Distortion might be better. Digitech went even further and suggested I use the TL-2 Metal Distortion pedal!! I had assumed that this was a pedal that would be used on the amp's clean channel to provide all the distortion by itself yet they seem to be suggesting that I should use it to push the amp's overdrive channels :hmm:
Have I misunderstood how these pedals are used? It sounds like it yet almost all of the suggestions I've received are for overdrives instead of distortions. This is all very confusing to someone as inexperienced with pedals as I am! If it's a full distortion pedal that is needed then perhaps I'd be better off looking at something like a Metal Muff or Metal Mayhem.
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I only really know about tube screamer type pedals but my understanding of how they give a tighter sound is they boost the mids going into the amp and so they get more distorted than the bass frequencies, I really don't understand why they recommended a distortion pedal unless it can be used as a boost with a mid hump
have you tried the TS9 model on your GNX3000? I've only used modeller based tube screamers but I tend to set them as gain 0, tone between 12 and 3 o'clock, volume on full
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If you want something that will overdrive your pre-amp without losing any of your guitar's identity with optional, switchable diode clipping for a little distortion, email tom@legraguitars.co.uk He's working on some stuff that could be just what you need.
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use any tubescreamer type. I personally use a maxon od808. Should get you right up to modern metal.
You know the band nile? they use dsl100's. ;)
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=U4k2kFQn5WA
Yeah but they use the Marshalls as poweramps and use seperate preamps. I believe they use Peavey Rockmasters as preamps. Which are a discontinued preamp that really kick ass. They can be had pretty cheap as well.
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1) If an overdrive pedal is designed to push an amp's drive channels further, why did it work better on the clean channel?
That's probably because on the gain channel your tone is already compressed. Meaning that you have less headroom and hence the perceived effect is smaller, both in volume boost and in frequency spectrum change.
Now try this comparison: first try your 'normal' tone, then back off the gain (on the amp) a couple of notches, and bring in the pedal. Set the pedals volume (assuming an overdrive pedal) so that you again reach the same level of distortion as with your normal tone.
If you're using a typical tube screamer clone, you'll have a little-to-a-lot tighter tone. Depends on the amp. TS-type pedals usually lose some of the bass once you turn them on, and that has a tightening effect too. I'm not an expert on amp electronics so I don't know how much a tightening effect the volume boost has. Might be because you tend to use less gain on the amp and hence the tone is tighter there. I just use what my ears like :)
-Zaned
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In order to help understand why the distortion/overdrive pedal makes little difference to your dirty channel and makes a world of difference to your clean channel you need to consider where in the signal path the distortion is occuring. It will be very difficult to achieve the sound of a dual/triple/whatever valve rectifier by distorting and/or increasing the input signal and running it through the dirty channel of your DSL.
Generally your existing high-gain channel will be shaping the tone a LOT, probably close to brick-wall processing. Especially at high gain settings you will tend to notice any signal modulation before the amp less and less. The ultra high gain amplifiers that you're looking to replicate have many gain stages to build-up the levels and tones of distortion. By putting a booster/overdrive box infront of the preamp stage will boost the signal into the first stage in your dirty channel and provide more distortion, but if it saturates this first stage there is nothing more that the amp can do with the altered signal. It will just take this much dirtier clipped signal and do the same processing to it in the remaining stages, resulting in a very similar sound to before. (note: this a very crude approximation, it's not the place for amplifier theory)
What needs to be realised is manufacturers of pedals have been making all these high gain distortion boxes for exactly this reason. They are to roughly emulate the style of high gain amp stages, to be played into a clean or moderately dirty channel. The trouble again is they very heavily shape the sound, but it's the only way to do it. If you don't shape the sound the result is just a mess of unwanted harmonics and unpleasant distorted frequencies. That is why there is such a multitude of different pedals out there, even by the same manufacturer (ie Boss).
Alternatively you can do what some people here are suggesting and buy 2 different boosters/preamps where one will drive the other into distortion, pretty much what is done in a distortion box anyway but essentially it adds a couple of very controllable gain stages infront of amplifier, giving you a little more scope.
As to the question of which pedal? I can't give a recommendation. Majority of guitarist will buy and sell pedals very regularly in search for the holy tone or on other peoples recommendations. Remember it'll never sound like it does on the record anyway, you need an entire production suite to do that :)
i hope that helps a bit in the understanding of it all. There is no magic answer :)
regards,
Tom Johnson
Legra Guitars
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I never knew all that, but makes perfect sense now you describe it so well! Useful info!
... and welcome to the forum :)
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Now that was VERY helpful and I do feel that I understand it a bit better now. Furthermore, it makes sense based on my experience. When I tried the Boss OS-2 on the DSL it was into the amp's most distorted channel and the gain was set to about 6 or 7 (if I push it much further it tends to go a bit too fizzy). The gain on the pedal was also a fair way up so what I ended up with was a level of distortion that was tighter but essentially similar to where I started. If I am reading this correctly, I need to use the volume controls on the amp to drive the tubes and back the gain right down, using the pedal to feed gain into the system instead.
I think that this must mean that to get really heavy distortion I probably don't want an overdrive pedal at all, but a distortion pedal instead. This must be why Digitech suggested the Hardwire Metal Distortion pedal and when I contacted Seymour Duncan yesterday, they came straight back with a suggestion of the Twin Tube Mayhem. I have no idea what is a good distortion pedal so I suppose these two are a good place to start and obviously I'd welcome anyone elses thoughts. In an ideal world it would be great to have one pedal that does it all for distortion but I suspect that this isn't possible. No doubt I will ultimately end up with both an overdrive and distortion pedal to achieve the fullest range of tones.
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Something I've been contemplating trying is putting one of the blackstar distortion pedals in front of my JCM900. Anyone got any views as to whether this is a good idea or not? My alternative option is trying to find a 5150 going cheap.
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No doubt I will ultimately end up with both an overdrive and distortion pedal to achieve the fullest range of tones.
yeah, probably. there's a lot of guff going round a lot of the forums (you know where i mean) that you should ONLY use an overdrive with a tube amp as it preserves more of the natural tone of your guitar and amp (which is retarded for a couple of reasons, not least that if you really want it to be transparent a clean boost would be a better call), but if an overdrive into your amp doesn't give you what you want in terms of tone and gain, then it's a bit daft to buy one.
:)
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I'm thinking that for high gain sounds I'll maybe save up and get a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Mayhem as that seems to be a bit like a Metal Muff on steroids and then maybe buy an overdrive pedal to tighten up the distortion on the sounds I use with lower levels of distortion. This might be for more Blues/Rock type tones. I was thinking of a Bad Monkey for this as there seem to be a few of them quite cheap on Ebay but I wondered if there might be a better option for that Blues style sound. Any suggestions welcome.
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The BYOC (build your own clone) series are excellent in terms of value and quality of components. They use very top quality components. If you can build it yourself they are VERY good value for money. If you can't, then buying them ready made is still pretty good value in my book.
BYOC effects are fantastic value and sound much better than mass-produced stuff. You can then modify them and look at other clone makers like General Guitar Gadgets.
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Well, I've started the process now. I found a Digitech Bad Monkey brand new for £32 and figured I couldn't go wrong at that. I'll use it to tighten up the amp's distortion and give it a bit of a boost and in time I'll get a full distortion pedal for the really high gain sounds.
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use any tubescreamer type. I personally use a maxon od808. Should get you right up to modern metal.
You know the band nile? they use dsl100's. ;)
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=U4k2kFQn5WA
Yeah but they use the Marshalls as poweramps and use seperate preamps. I believe they use Peavey Rockmasters as preamps. Which are a discontinued preamp that really kick ass. They can be had pretty cheap as well.
and most of all they've got the worst live sound i ever heard from a professionel band... :?
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Nile sounded bad live? I have seen them live. They sound amazing live.
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Nile sounded bad live? I have seen them live. They sound amazing live.
they sounded very powerful, don't get me wrong, but i couldn't understand almost a single note, just a piercing wall of heavily scooped sounds. and that's not what i call a good live sound.
but it must have been a single unfortunate episode, maybe... it was at a festival so they could have spent too little time in soundchecks
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IMO the BYOB is not all that much of a cost savings, compared to finding a good used unit. I just built a BYOB Fuzz and it was not cheap (inexpensive), its effect is not the greatest I've heard but not bad either.
I've tried a few different overdrives and ended up with a Telenordia TA 100. It's not over the top, but rather a clean boost signal that allows the tubes ( valves ) do the work.
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Nile sounded bad live? I have seen them live. They sound amazing live.
they sounded very powerful, don't get me wrong, but i couldn't understand almost a single note, just a piercing wall of heavily scooped sounds. and that's not what i call a good live sound.
but it must have been a single unfortunate episode, maybe... it was at a festival so they could have spent too little time in soundchecks
When I saw Nile they sounded brutal, but with superb tone. The whole set Karl was tweaking his sound from a laptop and on his amps. The guitars sounded aggressive, crushing and super articulate. Best sounding death metal band I have seen live Maybe you got them on a bad day. Here are a couple of pics.
(http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d29/yellowv/OZZFESTAUG3007116.jpg)
(http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d29/yellowv/OZZFESTAUG3007119.jpg)
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Why an 11 string as opposed to a 12?
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Why an 11 string as opposed to a 12?
Not really sure about the reason for 11 strings, but it is definately not to sound anything like a 12 string. That double neck KxK was the most brutal sounding guitar I have ever heard. That 11 string can do some crazy stuff. It's fretless as well. The 6 string neck is fully scalloped.
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That guitar is mental.
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Firstly, there's Blackstar pedals. Fantastic sound and the Dual gives you 2 boosts/ distortions to play with. All reviews ar ethat they are great.
Secondly, if you don't mind soldering and enjoying the fruits of your own labours - there's BYOC pedals. You can build and modify your own pedals. Checlkout the new OD2.
Jim
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Something I've been contemplating trying is putting one of the blackstar distortion pedals in front of my JCM900. Anyone got any views as to whether this is a good idea or not? My alternative option is trying to find a 5150 going cheap.
No thoughts on this anyone? Boo.
I also have an old Boss Super Overdrive lying around but from my slightly inept fiddlings I don't really see how that would push my Marshall into the higher gain territory I'm aiming for.
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I know someone that puts a Blacstar infront of a 900, and he seems to get fine results
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I know someone that puts a Blacstar infront of a 900, and he seems to get fine results
Am I right in assuming then that to do this, you'd run the 900 on the A channel (the 'clean' one) and use the pedal to switch between driven and clean sounds? How does this compare sound-wise to using the B channel on the Marshall?
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It was a dual master volume 900, so there weren't two channels (just loud, and LOUD). but yeah, set to clean and then used the blackstar for drive
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The same as with my setup and I like the sound of it quite a bit.
It will take some time though for you to get a feel for setting the pedal, especially if you get the dual like me.
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i've bought a blackstar dstx or how the hell it's named their metal distortion... very very nice. my amp is a bugera 333xl and i love it, i bought the pedal to have more tonal choices. i'm using it like a "soft" lead channel... gain level and overall tone is very similar to that of my amp, with ISP turned to british (blackstar pedals have got the option to emulate american or british tone), but the head itself is more punchy and "full"... if you don't like your amp distorted sound it can be an excellent solution, but "real" preamp sections are better, in my experience...