What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

[daleh23]

This seems a strange question, but I need a distortion that work well on (higher dominant) chords such as 7ths thru 13ths plus jazz-altered harmonies and dissonances. I own various distortion pedals and fx:

Boss DS-1 & Metalizer
MXR Distortion+
Schultz Rockman Distortion Sustainer
Dean Markley Overlord

I'm not looking for flat-out distortion but rather a sound with tone and fullness of sound that will work when playing, for example, minor or diminished chords/arpeggios without sounding a complete mess!

[GuitarStv]

Re: What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

If you own a tube amp, set the preamp gain to just past where you can hear breakup when playing open chords. Roll back the tone and volume a little on your guitar and you can usually get a nice mild OD sound. I've found it can be pretty hard to do this with distortion pedals . . . there's always a little too much grittiness and most of them don't do the same kind of soft breakup.

[DankStar]

Re: What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

7ths thru 13ths plus jazz-altered harmonies and dissonances

are you in voivod by any chance?

[Vincent Vespa]

Re: What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

I agree with GuitarStv. Also, an Ibanez TubeScreamer is a good way to go for that, too.

[Gish_85]

Re: What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

I would have suggested the dist+ but you have already got it. For what you were talking about I would use that with output at 3:00 and drive at 9:00.
I have a tubescreamer as well and thought the mxr was better for that kind of thing

[Nightburst]

Re: What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

Get the Duncan Distortion, it's a pickup especially designed for complicated chords .
That's the distortion you need!

[super rad stuff]

Re: What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

sounds like you could use a couple of overdrive pedals! or, if you're feeling somewhat ballsy and in a DIY kinda mood, you could mod your DS-1 to have less gain and more midrange, which i did to mine and sounds great for complicated chord voicings. as far as overdrives go, tubescreamers are pretty hard to beat. there are tons of variations out there at all sorts of different price points, but they all do essentially the same thing.

[Chickenwings]

Re: What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

Yeah i understand the problem distortion and chord extensions. Most stompboxes have a certain frequency that they accentuate or clip heavily at. They tend to squash chords because all the complex overtones of each note get eaten when the diodes clip. If you play any pedal long enough they all seem to do this. This is fine for rock players because they dont often play chords with upper extensions, and very rarely play chord melody. The really modern sounding pedals that give you a huge, defined epic heavy drop tune sound work great for power chords, but not so well for half diminished. min (maj7) or 7b9 or 7#5 or #11. A nice, lightly overdriven tube amp can accomodate more complex voicings if the preamp tubes are not overdriven too heavily (think kenny burrell and his deluxe reverb). For some reason tubes seem to be able to handle more harmonic complexity when saturated than solid state gear (like clipping diodes) but this is not what you are asking i guess. You want to know which pedal is the most musical, in that it can reproduce complex harmonies. A simple tube screamer seems to work the best possibly because of two factors.
1. It does not offer a lot of gain so clipping is not too hard.
2. It tends to reproduce the mid frequencies rather than the top/bottom scooped sound like many pedals (eg boss ds1 etc). As a result the fundamental note is reproduced with less overtones. Less overtones = less clashing of harmonics = less complexity in each note = complex chord tones are reproduced more clearly.
So yeah - the lighter the drive and the less scopped sounding, the better chord extensions seem to work.
Best option: lightly overdriven all tube amp. Power amp saturation works better than preamp saturation.
Best option if you absolutely cant use a nice amp and have to use a pedal: Tube Screamer.

[Stef]

Re: What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

this one works great on minimum gain and maximum..dist + is too low on the volume with the gain down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4iCrvhQoto&feature=channel

[Stef]

Re: What is the 'best' distortion on minimum setting?

a ts does not reproduce anything - it always gives its own mid-range hump which sounds very artificial like and colors the tone too much.. Its other main flaw is the overcompressed tone and that is the opposite of a transparent tone IME.. srv used to turn it off when playing clean cords rather than using the volume pot on the guitar to clean it..