Small Bear Elec Tweak Overdrive or BYOC?

[_tom_]

Looking for a pedal to stick either infront or behind my Keeley Rat (which I now use for a low-medium gain overdrive/distortion) to boost the gain and tighten up the bottom a bit for lead and higher gain stuff. I used to use my Behringer TO800 (tubescreamer copy and worked pretty well for doing this job) but its bypass is pretty cr@p and it compresses the sound quite a bit. So far I'm thinking of doing one of the following:

-BYOC Screamer kit (may also need modding..)
-Small Bear Tweak-O overdrive - http://www.smallbearelec.com/Projects/TweakO/TweakO.htm

Or I could always get a cheap SD1 off ebay then mod it if I feel the need to. OR! buy an MI Audio crunch box for my higher gain stuff but I've heard some good and some bad clips of it so am unsure if I'd like it.

Anyone used the BYOC or Small Bear build-your-own kits with good results? Was gonna build a Run Off Groove Thundercheif or BSIABII but they look too hard for a first build.

Cheers for any help and sorry if I ramble too much :lol:

[Tinus]

Hi, I have no experience with the Screamer but I did finish two other BYOC kits last sunday (tremolo and digital delay). If you have some experience with soldering you should be OK really. The delay pedal is obviously a lot more complex than the tremolo but apart from much more components and a more crowded print I didn't find it that much harder to do. Just take your time and be sure to check your work frequently to prevent hard to trace mistakes while you populate the PCB. By the way I'm pleased with the tonal results: both pedals are very quiet and sound just as I hoped they would.

As for your original question I suggest you could also try a straight booster to hike the gain of your RAT or amp. I tend to prefer booster pedals to overdrives as they generally clean up better, impose less tonal colour and allow for more dynamics. The tri-boost from byoc looks nice but there are a lot of 'em around.