Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

Re: Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

Xotic BB Preamp. It's their highest-gain pedal, but it the grand scheme of things it's really just mid-gain. Super-flexible active EQ and plenty of clean boost, though.

Also, if thinner tones are your bag, my recently-modded-to-near-Lovepedal-Eternity SD-1 is a nice pedal... the TS-based drive that sounds nothing like a TS.
 
Re: Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

Xotic BB Preamp. It's their highest-gain pedal, but it the grand scheme of things it's really just mid-gain. Super-flexible active EQ and plenty of clean boost, though.
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I love my RC Booster and really liked the AC too. I wish I could come across a BB to try.
 
Re: Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

I am not a traditional OD person. I would go with Skreddy Screw Driver or Keeley Fuzz Head ... Maybe Huckleberry.
 
Re: Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

I've tried a lot and owned a lot, but for me it always comes back to the Klon Centaur.

It's not just the range of the beautifully voiced gain, which sounds like a natural extension of any amp you use, it's the feel under the fingers that doesn't have that hard, SS, or fake feel. It only has one claim to fame - sounding like your amp had more extended range, and any coloration it imparts, which is very little, sounds better than without it.
When you turn off the Klon, it sounds like your amp lost all it's richness.

I like to think of the Klon being a pedal that does to guitar what a Neve module does to a vocal mic. The Klon Centaur is a sonic benchmark. That's why it has a zillion reviews on harmonycentral and is used for reference by other pedal makers.

One funny thing about the Klon is that the circuit board is caked in glue, supposedly to make it hard for copycats to reverse engineer, but it also serves as a shield preventing noise.
 
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Re: Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

No matter what I've tried over the years, be it cheap or expensive, I always end up back with the Boss SD-1. Doesn't stop me from trying others. My current SD-1 has been modded so much and put back to stock enough times that it's starting to not behave so I may be looking at getting a Satchurator......maybe.
 
Re: Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

interested to hear PFDarkside's review of the Blues Pro in a few days!?!? :cool2:
 
Re: Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

it's really hard to find a bad sound in that Blues Pro...and there's a ton of sounds in it!

but when you spend some really good quality time with it and find it's sweet spot with your rig...WATCH OUT!!! :headbang:
 
Re: Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

Boss SD-1 MIJ Black Label

Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer MIJ Silver Label First Reissue

Ibanez SM-9 Super Metal Maxon MIJ Original 80's

Tech21 Double Drive
 
Re: Favorite mid-gain OD pedal?

My absolute favorite OD pedal is the BK Butler Tube Driver. If I could only have one pedal, that would be it. Such delicious overtones, and most useful two-knob tone stack I've ever seen. It uses a real 12AX7, so you can also swap out the tube for many different gains and tone flavors. Not cheap, but extremely well built. Gilmour's OD pedal of choice, he uses two of them. BK Tube Driver

I also like the OCD, which I still use occasionally, although not as much now that I have the Tube Driver. But it's a very fine, versatile pedal.

On the subject of a pedal shootout, there's an outstanding site here with exactly that -- the best overdrive pedal shootout I've seen yet, even though it may not have your particular pedal of interest. It allows side-by-side comparisons, with many listening options: OD pedal shootout
 
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