Going down the mega-distortion rabbit hole...

[Supernautilus]

I heard a lot of good things about the Joyo Rigel, so I picked one up. It’s pretty awesome. I guess it’s a clone of the KRS Ceres. I use it as a preamp into an IR loader, so I can’t say how it works with amps. But it sounds amazing for my little home studio.

https://youtu.be/DS7zqDoeN_A?si=J8bDjcSI5dpmuTF7

[Chistopher]

You’re so right. People ask if a particular product “has enough gain” for metal and advertisements will tout over the top amounts of gain as a selling point that actual metal players recording or playing shows with would barely use past 2 o’clock on the dial (mine doesn’t even make it past noon on most modern amps.).

The actual voicing is way more important for a heavy guitar sound in a mix. Context is important too. The conventional wisdom might suggest that the heavier or the more modern the genre, the more gain you need but if you listen closely, Eddie Van Halen probably uses more gain than most tech-death or djenty bands.

If you took out the reverb and mic’d his cabinet closer, it would sound a lot more in common with modern metal than would suit VH’s music

And half these pedals where the gain knob goes way to high struggle to achieve unity level, especially with higher output pickups.

[El Dunco]

And half these pedals where the gain knob goes way to high struggle to achieve unity level, especially with higher output pickups.

That’s a good argument for encouraging players to back off the gain if compromises must be made to accommodate levels higher than are practically useable. Why is that an issue? Does the output volume just inherently have to be lower to clip the input by that amount? Could they not compensate for it?

[Supernautilus]

I am going down that hole right now myself. I want to add another flavor for our next recording session. I might just break out my BOSS Mega-Distortion

I just went down the rabbit hole myself and ended buying a Boss Mega Distortion. The demos sounded great! I found one for 50 bucks on ebay. Can't wait to try it out at home.

[Aceman]

OK - I appreciate all of the "less gain is better" comments - but to be clear:

I just want stupid gain levels for playing solo in the music room, just for $#!ts and giggles because insane gain.

[Chistopher]

That’s a good argument for encouraging players to back off the gain if compromises must be made to accommodate levels higher than are practically useable. Why is that an issue? Does the output volume just inherently have to be lower to clip the input by that amount? Could they not compensate for it?

There are two parts to it that are kind of the same thing. If your pedal has hard clipping, which most high gain distortion pedals do at some point (be it through diodes, transistors, op amps etc), you limit the output of your signal. If you have a hard clipping section with diodes that clip at 0.7v (DS-1 for example) the most output you are going to get is 1.4v of output. Combine that with losses introduced from the tone stack, and the maximum output you can generate from a DS-1 is about 1v. With even a Super Distortion this is fine to generate a 6 dB boost, but if you ran an EMG 81, even at max volume and gain you wouldn't get close to your bypassed signal volume. Heck, with an 81 the gain control probably wouldn't do anything.

The way around this is gain staging or by just putting a booster on the output. The MD-2 does both. Granted most modern high gain distortions don't struggle from output issues, but they do struggle with boosting the signal into the clipping section to the point where the gain control past a certain point just controls the compression of your signal rather than adding any more distortion.

Btw If you remove the clipping diodes from a DS-1, it becomes extremely loud, but it will barely distortion your signal.

[Seashore]

Ace, does the Pod Go allow you to stack a couple different distortion models? I bet you could get something really cool happening with two dirt pedals, especially with separate EQ afterwards. I've been doing that on the HX Effects and it's a lot of fun.

[ArtieToo]

- Have a Duncan Twin Tube Mayhem . . . And never use them (it).

Just curious. What don't you like about the Mayhem? I have the TT Classic. I haven't heard the Mayhem, but the Classic covers a lot of bases.

[Aceman]

Ace, does the Pod Go allow you to stack a couple different distortion models? I bet you could get something really cool happening with two dirt pedals, especially with separate EQ afterwards. I've been doing that on the HX Effects and it's a lot of fun.

Yes it does. I'd imagine 4 if I wanted, 5 if I used a real one in the loop...

[Aceman]

Just curious. What don't you like about the Mayhem? I have the TT Classic. I haven't heard the Mayhem, but the Classic covers a lot of bases.

I like it a lot. It just isn't a mega-distortion pedal.

[ArtieToo]

Ah. Ok.

[Aceman]

Ah. Ok.

Honestly, a great midline distortion for doing stuff I really like; Scorpions, Dio, Maiden, Priest, Accept, etc...

[El Dunco]

OK - I appreciate all of the "less gain is better" comments - but to be clear:

I just want stupid gain levels for playing solo in the music room, just for $#!ts and giggles because insane gain.

That’s just a sidebar I thought people might find useful or interesting. I wouldn’t claim to know what you want better than you. I don’t necessarily think less gain is automatically better anyway. You can have too little for what you’re trying to do just as easily.

The TT is a good example. There’s a few reasons the Classic isn’t right for what you want, too little gain is probably most of them while the Mayhem is too whatever the Mayhem is meant to be. Fuzzy, sputtery, brittle? It would probably be amazing for doom metal bands.

[ehdwuld]

At some point it's just a fuzz ain't it?

[Chistopher]

Tons of gain from one source is definitely quite a different vibe than stacking 2 or three gain stages. If I were to design a pedal with goofy amounts of distortion, it wouldn't look much like anything I currently see on the market.