Not so happy NPD

[misterwhizzy]

I made the mistake of buying into internet hype. I freely admit it. I'll tell a short story and how I perhaps foolishly went about trying to solve my problem.

For a while now, I've been trying to decide if I want to go for boosted Plexi sounds or slightly thicker JCM800 tones. I really like what I've been getting out of my Friedman Smallbox pedal as a dirt channel, but I felt like I wanted a little bit, not a lot, more. And when you look online for Friedman, everyone loudly sings the praises of the BE-OD pedal. So I got what I think is a very good deal on one from Reverb.

Even after turning the internal trimpot way down, it's just way too much. Too much gain, way too much compression, etc. It reminds me of early Line6 tones. It really feels like it needs a mids knob, for starters.

Anyways, long story short, I'm going to hang onto it to try again later, I think, but for now, I think I'm just going to try to find the right boost for the Smallbox.

[marcello252]

I think it's a common issue with marshall type devices, they tend to be a little too much driven , I mean my JCM800 sound, the one I like the most, is with gain 5/8 and master volume pretty high, it's not overly distorted, where it tends to mush all, the pedals are made instead to sound like a marshall on 11 , so you have one sound only.

In the end I use an early fulltone OCD to mimic the Marshall sound, it's not accurate but it's close enough for that mid high push, and it's dynamic too

[Chistopher]

Perhaps an EQ pedal in the front of either of your pedals could help you out

[Aceman]

I don't know - the gain issue doesn't get fixed with an EQ.

Interesting take on this. As I have always said, there is an "It" pedal that comes, and then goes. So how awesome was it really?

MI Crunchbox
Amptweaker Tight Metal
EVH 5150
now Friedman BE OD

I'm missing a few no doubt...but you get the point. All it takes to get the gain boys excited is a new pedal with more gain, as their ears are exhausted from the last pedal.

[marcello252]

I have a wampler pinnacle too, more evh than other,s still too much gain
then I have a Xotic Sl drive , yes, too much gain here too, I used it with gain almost at zero.
I don't even talk about the MI crunchbox, one sound only more or less, and plexitone, same.
I remmeber I built a BrownSound In a Box back in the early days of pedal building forums, no way to tame down the gain without compromising the overall tone.
I could save the wampler plexi drive but it's very finnick on the type of rig it is in.
So, in the end, my old OCD has not a gain over the top, I can manage it for that sound (ver 2.0 is another thing, it falls in the same category of the gainy pedals before)

[misterwhizzy]

I have a Plexi Drive too, but the Smallbox just slightly edged it out for board space, even though the Wampler takes next to none. Everything Wampler seems really great, though.

At some point, I'll definitely try to dial in the BE-OD again after I crank down the internal trimpot further.

[Animal]

I don't know - the gain issue doesn't get fixed with an EQ.

Interesting take on this. As I have always said, there is an "It" pedal that comes, and then goes. So how awesome was it really?

MI Crunchbox
Amptweaker Tight Metal
EVH 5150
now Friedman BE OD

I'm missing a few no doubt...but you get the point. All it takes to get the gain boys excited is a new pedal with more gain, as their ears are exhausted from the last pedal.

These are finished tones in a box.

When you play through these it just feels like you're playing the pedal, not your amp. The nuances of your rig will be diminished as the final sound has already been mostly filtered through the box.

[Aceman]

These are finished tones in a box.

When you play through these it just feels like you're playing the pedal, not your amp. The nuances of your rig will be diminished as the final sound has already been mostly filtered through the box.

Which, if you dig the sound, is cool. If not...oh well. Next box.

[marcello252]

For years, back when I was building pedals (with Hammer, Wampler and Scott among the forum members ) I tried to replicate one sound only: the '67 Monterey pop festival Hendrix' sound, a Fuzz Face in front of a a crunching 6550 loaded plexi.
The best approximation was a moderate gained Germanium Fuzz Face circuit in front of a Marshall 2203 preamp topology replacing the 12AX7 tubes with JFet SRPP circuit, so, if you want to emulate the British sound possibly with OD in front of it I would reccomend you this type of pedal:

wampler pinnacle
DIY brown sound in a box
Catalinbread dirty little secret
wampler plexi drive (with jfet but not in SRPP config , still good sounding)
...

there are others but I don't remember at the moment

[Animal]

Which, if you dig the sound, is cool. If not...oh well. Next box.

I think they can have a purpose depending on what the rig strategy is.

If you've already got an amp that has a similar built-in sound, it can be an excessive or even an inferior option to what you already have.

For a pedal board into a clean amp rig they can be much more useful. The feel will be different though.

[8eezrule]

I dunno man, I like gain, but I'm selling all my drive pedals except my ehx lpb1, my boss sd1, and my dod YJM308 preamp. I just use these 3 for a clean boost, but may end up boxing them up in favor of the parallel efx loop I have jumped into a footswitch. The gain on my JCM600 is set at 4-6 and volume and master volume I go between the 2 at full. Get different mids tones when one or the other is pushing the tubes. When I engage the parallel loop (set at 5) it's perfect for solo's. I too was a pedal chaser, but I found my amp now. Maybe I'll make another pedal board with the above pedals for my Vox ac10. It doesn't have enough gain. I'm using a Boss mt2 through it.

[treyhaislip]

Have you tried a Lovepedal Purple Plexi? That's my favorite "plexi" sounding pedal as it can get the plexi sound without the overly hissy sound (what I did not like about my Suhr Riot.)

[marcello252]

Have you tried a Lovepedal Purple Plexi?

it's a LM386 based pedal, I made a clone myself some years ago. I don't know why but everytime I tried a circuit based on the LM386 I've found a strange odd release on the note, the attack is right, so the overall sound but the release is like gated, in a nasty way, this is , personally, a deal breaker

[misterwhizzy]

I guess I've come around more to this pedal. I get it now. It's a preamp. I could not get a decent tone going into the front end of my amp at all. It just doesn't work that way.

When setup in that fashion, it feels like it starts in boosted JCM800 territory and can go from there. But after playing with it a while, I realized that it's redundant for my situation. I can get those tones (or close enough) from my Revv G4, and the BE-OD isn't nearly as versatile. Plus, I'd rather use the Smallbox pedal I already have for Plexi to boosted-Plexi tones, which I like just as much as (maybe more than) a JCM800. I hate to call it a one-trick-pony, but it feels like a one-trick pony. And when I compare the $150 or so I spent to the cost of a real JCM800, it doesn't seem like a terrible short-term investment.

AceBob mentioned it as coming across as a current or recent darling of the fast-moving internet pedal craze, and he may be right. I think it does what it's designed to do reasonably well, but the Tight knob seems gimmicky, and I wish it had a mids control, and it doesn't seem to clean up all that well with the volume knob. So I think it'll be on its way out.

[hamerfan]

Have you tried a Lovepedal Purple Plexi? That's my favorite "plexi" sounding pedal as it can get the plexi sound without the overly hissy sound (what I did not like about my Suhr Riot.)

i would rather go for a Lovepedal Jubilee, which is the same circuit as the Purple Plexi but with less gain and a bit different eq.