Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

[barbarianbrute]

pardon my ignorance here, but i always generally thought the following:

boost - for clean tones
overdrive - for bluesy or classic rock tones
distortion - for rock metal tones

also, i've always been under the impression that the harder teh rock, the more gain/distortion you use. so i'm evidently way off track here. then again, i know of several people who think similarly. are these just common misconceptions?

please explain to me the basics and how to get good tone with my pedals and my amp. i basically want four good tones: instrumental metal, rock, blues and clean. what are the basic things i need to know about these kinds of pedals? authoratively i'd like to know when to use overdrive, distortion, or boost. i'd also like to know how to tell when you have enough gain/distortion.

when i hear metal music, it sounds heavily distorted - seemingly more so than i normally use. the way i've always thought was basically this:

blues gain = around 10 o'clock
rock gain = around 12 o'clock
metal gain = around 3 o'clock

never maxed out

is this wrong? can anyone offer 101-102 classes for tube/pedal newbs? also, what's the deal with effects loops and input jacks? as far as i know, effects like reverb and delay go through the effects loop while overdrives and distortions go through the amp input. also, i've seen people use distortion/overdrive pedals through kind of a dirty channel while others use a completely clean channel. what's up with this and when do you know to do either or?

also with an amp like the jvm which offers tons of distortion over 4 channels, how do you know when to use what? i'm sure there are people who have great tone using a lot of amp gain, while others don't use as much. what's up with this paradox?

 

[Low_fidelity2100]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

wow, thats way to many questions to be asking at once. Haha.

Everyone uses OD/Dist/Boost differently. It just sorta depends on what situation your in, what style of music your playing, and what tone ya want.

Boosts (and occasionally EQ pedals) are generally used on an already Distorted/overdriven sound. Example: You've got your amp's dirty channel (or dirt box) set for a nice crunch for Rhythm/riffage. Basically a medium or lightly distorted signal. You would place the Boost before the OD/Distortion/Amp (i.e. Guitar>boost>Dirtbox/amp) and turn it on for leads/solo's to kickup the distortion. In this configuration it won't really make the sound you hear much louder, but will just make it more distorted.
Occasionally I see people put boosts in the loop, or after a distortion pedal. In this case the boost would be to bring up the overall volume (without changing the tone or gain), for leads/solo's. Although I tend to see people using EQ pedals for this reason more often than boosts.

An Over drive pedal can be used as your main distortion generator, but I mostly see them used in a similar fashion to boost pedals. Its basically the same deal if used that way. You'd set the OD for a boosted Volume, but keep the gain low (normally below 9 o'clock) and tone to taste (generally rolled back though). Set yer amp for a nice Light/medium Gain, and then kick in the OD when you need more gain, or for leads/solo's. Thats how Zakk Wylde uses his OD pedals. Although I think he tends to keep his on most of the time.

Distortion pedals really aren't that much different from OD's really. It seems alot more people use them as they're main distortion generators though, more so than OD at least. As for where ya should keep the "distortion" knob set, that all depends on the pedal, and what your looking for. Same goes with the tone knobs on Distortion pedals.
There are also people that use distortion pedals exactly the same way as most people use OD's and Boosts. Ya know, set the distortion low, Volume High, and tone to taste (again normally rolled back to the bassy side of things), Then run that into a slightly dirty amp as a gain boost or Lead boost or whatever. (Thats how Steve Vai uses his DS-1)

Now as far as a Guide line as to... This setting = metal, this setting = Blues, etc... There really isn't a guide line. It totally depends on what your using, and how you wanna play whatever music your playing.
If your using a Boss Metal Zone, no matter where you set the controls, your never gonna get a good blues tone. Not to me at least, and I think most people would agree. (although most people would also agree that you won't get any good tones period. But thats not what were talking about.)
As much as there is no guideline about "where should I set the distortion knob for (whatever)", the same goes for the tone knobs. When you twist that tone knob on whatever amp/pedal, thats gonna affect the character of the distortion, and vice versa.

What does this all mean? Absolutely nothing really. Ultimately your gonna have to twist those knobs, and find sounds that work for you. You'll also have to keep in mind what works in context. If your playing in your bedroom a scooped super distorted tone is gonna sound awesome. The second you throw a bass player, Drummer, second guitarist, and vocals into the mix though, That tone that sounded bad ass in your room is gonna sound like mushy inaudible crap.

 

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

Distortion and OD are different in the way they clip the signal, ask RID. Most of the OD are for the guys who like to push an amp that's already cooking. Distortions for most part are used by guys who prefer all of the saturation to come from pedal i.e distortion box into a clean channel, I would advise you to try your metal zone(there far better pedals really) into your JVM's clean channel give it a try. Most boost will push your pre-amp a bit i.e give you more dirt, if you want a clean increase in cut through, several people here have MXR MicroAmp in EFX loop. OD do to less clipping give you better single not quality in my openion, distortions tend to improve sustain and saturations, but can get fizzy really fast. Some people use distortions pedals into already driven amps but that's a really fine balance very thin ice, not for everybody. Some of the earlier distoriton pedals circuite wise a really close to ODs. Like I've said before in other thread pick 2-3 guys who's tone you really dig, find about their rigs and signal path and then ask local tone lords what actually happens.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

Overdrive pedals have soft clipping which is clipping of the signal within a feedback loop of the opamp and mixing that signal back in with the original clean signal.

Distortion pedals have hard clipping which clips the signal directly within its path, usually after the opamp. There is no mixing of the clean signal with it.

Look at the schematic for Boss DS-1 Distortion and then one for the Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive and you'll see what I mean.

The only OD I can think of with clipping diodes that are set up as hard clipping is the DOD 250 and YJM. Those are exceptions to the hard/soft clipping situation.

You can use whatever you want for anything. It's all in how you use it. If you want to use an OD for metal, go for it. Zakk Wylde does it, Kirk Hammet does it. Satch and Vai use a distortion pedal in their setups and they're not metal, at least I don't think so. In all of these cases, they use them to push their amps further, not as their main source of drive.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

Don't worry about what's supposed to be used for what. Use what you think sounds good, and tell everybody else to piss off.

 

[Empty Pockets]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

yeah man. it's not like music theory where there are set rules and boundaries. nobody's gonna catch you using a clean boost on your JVM and call the 'not metal police' or anything. the different tools just do different jobs.

i explained all of this in one of my posts that you said was a waste of time.

 

[baritone]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

Yeah, just go with your ears. I am comfortable using a Metal Zone for blues styles, and an overdrive for hard rock. I don't do that all the time, but I am comfortable with it.

 

[12guitdown]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

You are right about effects loops and input jacks. For the E.L.; don't run anything in there that'll boost the signal. You can screw up your amp pretty good by doing that.

Secondly, What amp and effects do you have? We can then determine if you have the potential to attain these sounds you're after and help you set up the proper effects chain etc..

 

[James Rock]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

boost - for clean tones
overdrive - for bluesy or classic rock tones
distortion - for rock metal tones

That isnt exactly true at all really.
Distortion pedals are used for things like Nirvana but boost and overdrive pedals are often used infront of stacks for metal
Tony Iommi used a treble booster, Zakk Wylde uses a super overdrive (which is quite low gain). That is a large generalisation and as said above use your ears to hear. High Gain is usually associated with heavier music but gain levels are different things most amps don't have one channel that by just changing the gain knob can take it from clean to death metal!

 

[dressed2kill]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

Don't worry about what's supposed to be used for what. Use what you think sounds good, and tell everybody else to piss off.

Now that is the best advice you could get :fing2:

 

[Gr8Scott]

Re: Effects Basics - Overdrive/Distortion/Boost

I'm going to +1 Low Fidelity 2100 on this and add one caveat.

My nephew uses a clean boost before his distortion pedal to get even more distortion out of that pedal. It really works astoundingly well. The same clean boost pedal doesn't seem to do anything running straight into the front end of my Edana except make it louder in a less than pleasing way. Clean boosts can be not so great just being run into the front end of an old amp by themselves, but they will kick the living crap out of a distortion or OD pedal. I don't know how clean boosts affect medium to high gain amps or other low gain designs, but they don't work well with all amps. They do seem to work well with distortion pedals and long cable runs.

As others have said, what sounds good to you is the most important thing, but it never hurts to get suggestions of things to try. I think this is why you started this thread. You were looking for things to try and wanted advice on which things may or may not work well for your rig. It's nice to experiment and actually hear what works well, but it's also nice to know what has worked well for others and might also work well for you.

In general, here's what I would tend to use most often for different types of music.

Blues - Amp clean by itself
-------Amp clean with OD pedal pushing it
-------Amp with master volume turned most of the way up with med to low gain
-------Amp with master volume turned most the way up and an OD pedal pushing it for a more blues rock sound.

Rock - Amp clean by itself (gotta have clean parts occasionally)
-------Amp master volume turned most of the way up with OD pedal pushing it, gain to taste
-------Amp gain and master volume cranked by itself

Metal - Amp clean by itself (gotta have clean parts occasionally)
-------Amp gain and master volume cranked with OD pedal pushing it
-------Amp clean pre with med to high master volume with clean boost pushing metal zone pedal.