Lets talk about: Boutique Overdrives

[Mini Forklift]

Does anyone else regularly use OD with a Marshall?

AC Booster pedal into the clean channel works best for me, seems to retain a lot more clarity and better suits the tone I'm after. That's my head anyway, I like that simple and straight-ahead.



My Marshall combo on the other hand has a delay, a Dumble style pedal, Tube Squasher OD, TS9 and finally into a Line 6 Leslie simulator pedal (which is nice to have on the board but it doesn't get used that much TBH).

[Slowy]

Timmy,Gold Archer and Wampler compressor give me exactly what I want.
Blood Drive has one great sound and is lots of fun. Same for the Boss OD1 and SD1.
Cusack Screamer Fuzz never did it for me, a bit too aggressive.
Have never managed to get along with a Hotcake. Disappointing that.
Like the DLS Mk1. Nice vintagey Marshall tones.
I also was disappointed by the Wampler Paisley. Huge Brad fan but probably needed his chops to make it work.

I live almost exclusively at the point where clean boost meets OD so I'm no expert

[Eruera]

A thought occurred to me today.

Amp overdrive is made up of several different gain stages distorting in a row.

People who run pedals into clean channels and still get good dirty tones tend to stack several overdrives. Most of these pedals, from what I've seen, only really have a single distorting stage. So in some ways the combination of overdrive pedals is a rudimentary approximation of an amp.

Coincidence? Could a multistage overdrive pedal be the answer?

[alanp]

My current favourite overdrive, the Skreddy Screwdriver, has a mosfet buffer at the input that can be wound up to slam the rest of the circuit, a somewhat old NPN transistor next adding gain, all of which feeds into a NPN germanium (so three stages, overall. Currently, my clone has a Russian MP38A in the germanium stage.)

The Dr Boogey has multiple stages as well, as do most of the Run Off Groove circuits. (The Dr Boogey is a FET simulation of a Dual Rec, from memory, hence the multiple stages.)

[Molly]

Does anyone else regularly use OD with a Marshall?

It was only very recently that I discovered some people set their amp clean and use a pedal AS their overdrive tone.

For me the usual procedure was to put the Marshall's preamp on 10 to get part way there, then add an overdrive or distortion to push it the rest of the way. Think Ratt, Ozzy, an' all that stuff.

As an aside, it used to frustrate me that you couldn't easily boost solos with a Marshall MV amp. Putting anything more in the front end just seemed to increase gain which made it harder to cut through. Even when Marshall did try to address this they seemed to think we wanted a low gain sound for rhythm and high gain for lead. But a great lead sound WAS a great rhythm sound. I wanted that lead sound twice with one set louder than the other.

[rickenbackerkid]

I went through a bunch of OD's at one point. In the end, I decided that the differences were very minor, and the amp is a bigger factor.

That being said, I like the Hotcake the best. Clean boost, OD, Fuzz all in one little box.

[Reg18]

I notice you said you love your Honey Bee pedal, this is a great article sort of related as it's about stacking overdrives, but it goes into far greater detail about the relationship between transformers, speakers, negative feedback in amps and how he recreates some of those elements with pedals. Worth the lengthy read for the Tone chaser!
http://www.bjfe.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t ... 308c7d597f

[calling card]

I was using a dirt pedal to fake it and keep volume in check on my twin but since the Ryan 1987 made its appearance I don't. Just wrong on that thing. The master volume addition made a difference and I can now hear what the preamp is doing - boost. So I don't feel too much inclined to push it harder. always that option there though.
Compression pedal can get things into that kind of feedback territory with out ripping your ears off too. I halt if I feel physical ear pain.

[vintage52]

A thought occurred to me today.

Amp overdrive is made up of several different gain stages distorting in a row.

People who run pedals into clean channels and still get good dirty tones tend to stack several overdrives. Most of these pedals, from what I've seen, only really have a single distorting stage. So in some ways the combination of overdrive pedals is a rudimentary approximation of an amp.

Coincidence? Could a multistage overdrive pedal be the answer?

Sounds about right and that was what MI Audio were going for with the Tube Zone.

Their blurb:

"The Tube Zone was designed with valve amp-like response in mind, and gets its unique tone by mimicking the signal path of modern valve amp by clipping the signal up to 4 times!"

The Krank I have now does a very similar thing with cascading gain stages apparently.

[JHorner]

Could a multistage overdrive pedal be the answer?

Well, it wouldn't be the answer for me. I'm quite happy being able to swap out individual pedals (stages). A larger pedal with all the stages hardwired would be of no interest to me.

I'm also quite happy being able to turn the preamp stage up/down a preset amount by simply stepping on one of the earlier boosts in the chain, and likewise the master by stepping on a boost at the end of the chain.

[Mini Forklift]

People who run pedals into clean channels and still get good dirty tones tend to stack several overdrives. Most of these pedals, from what I've seen, only really have a single distorting stage. So in some ways the combination of overdrive pedals is a rudimentary approximation of an amp.

Good watch

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40iM9vqAIOg[/youtube]

[TmcB]

I think we've got two types of OD's, one where the goal is to impart character, the other to accentuate character.

The ones that impart character are primarily solving the 'how do I get gain/dirt out of clean amp?" problem. The marketing term is 'foundation pedal', and Catalinbread are undisputed the kings of this domain with their WIIO, Dirty Little Secret (Marshall), 5F6 (tweed), Gallileo (AC30), SFT (Ampeg) pedals for example. They're best run at the highest headroom you can manage and can be used to mimic a preamp in that they respond pretty damn well to be battered by boosts and the second type of OD's. I think the thing that separates them from amp modelling pedals is that they also suit being used to just accentuate flavours you already have. Other pedals I can think of are the Tightrock, ZVex Box of Rock, Emerald Green Distortion Machine to name a few.

The second type are the accentuator OD's that take what you have and push it further with some kind of tonally useful trick. They tend to be the types that people say "oh it sounded crap at home but amazing at gig volume". They're generally used to push amps that have at least a little bit of grit already happening and rely on midrange and output to get your amp singing, as opposed to the first type that are trying to provide their own flavour of gain. Tubescreamers are the king here, big mids with a bass cut and decent output which most of the time is all you need. Hotcakes are here too, lots of output, decent mids when the presence is wound up, lots of output. Timmy's, Tubescreamers and their ilk live here, along with Rats and Klons.

So the stacking thing makes sense if you're putting a type two into a type one OD if you're using a clean amp. Stacking kinda loses the point if you're going into a gritty amp unless you're using it to add a bit more gain and harmonics, or maybe more output, but I think a good boost would do that job with less real estate.

Those are my theories anyway, which explains why sometimes all OD's can sound the same if you have a gritty, mid-range amp like a Vox or Marshall, but can all sound totally different on a clean amp.

[Scooter13]

Does anyone else regularly use OD with a Marshall?

Other than everyone in the eighties?

Yeah, I didn't mean that to sound like 'I can't imagine anyone using OD with a Marshall'. I know plenty of people do - I was more interested in hearing from such persons and their reasons for doing so.

On a vaguely related tack, I'd be interested in a technical explanation of the differences between 'boost' and 'od'. In my head, the former just amps up the signal, so any dirt is actually coming from the amp, while the latter is clipping the signal before it gets to the amp. But I am embarrassingly ignorant...

Mostly what Toany said. I see ODs as being boosts with character. So they are the same thing really, boosting the front end of your amp for more overdrive, but they change the frequencies a little, usually to make your sound stand out more. If you crank the gain on them then yes they become an extra gain stage, but I think you'd find most of those TS in to Marshall 80s examples the gain is set really low. You're not getting distiortion frmo it, you're getting a shaped boost, maybe with a bit more hair.
To me, some of the early Fuzz Face and Tonebenders ware used the same way before ODs came along, gain/fuzz low and level high, pushing the signal/amp harder, and imparting a little grit and flavour on the way.
There's no rules though!

[jimi]

Does anyone else regularly use OD with a Marshall?

Me... I currently have a 1974X, and just sold my JCM2000 TSL601 which I gigged before I got the Bellbird.

The TSL had a lovely warm clean channel, but the drive channels disappeared in the mix, so I used the TSL as a single channel amp, with OD into the clean channel for my dirt sound.

The 1974X I use in a similar way, except being lower wattage I get a bit more grit from the amp, and clean it up by rolling off the volume.

I've had a decent list of drives etc go through my hands - at point I had a PT1 with 9 drive pedals on it (well a mix of OD/Dist/Fuzz).

The one pedal that has been a constant for me is the Hotcake. Currently have dHC so I can have it set up as both a clean boost and to add some dirt. The Hotcake fattens up the sound nicely too - I wouldnt call it transparent, but its lovely for a thick lead sound.

On the current board I also use a DLS mk3. Its a great sounding pedal, mostly got it to provide a nice marshall crunch when playing through my other amp (Greenstone Bellbird), and into the Marshall I use it for crunchy rhythm without having to OD the amp.

The other pedal that I swap in occasionally is a Black Toast (clean boost), which is awesome for overdriving the 1974X, but since I gig with a PT Nano, there's no room along with the dhc and dls.

Other notable pedals to have come and gone - Timmy, SFT, G2D Classic, Mi Blues Pro, TS. Also had a M9 and M13 for a while and found the tube drive and classic distortion(rat) models were near enough to replace my pedals for gigging during my multifx phase.

[Molly]

Just as an aside, here's a cross section of what I've had as I've chased the perfect OD so far (doesnt include Fuzz):

...

Which of those worked best do you think with the Top Hat? Watched a demo of the Tim and rather liked it.