Is their a pedal that does this?

Rockstar216

Rockstar216

New member
I was thinking the other day about how people describe what they want from their dirt pedals and wanted to know is their a pedal that will let you adjust the saturation, compression, and character of the signal. Usually the more gain you add the more saturation you get along with compression but what if you want the saturation but not the compression or vice versa. Also ideally it would have a active EQ.

I'm sure i'm not the first to think of something like this.
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

Character of the signal is typically controlled by way of a simple EQ circuit in most pedals. Compression is achieved by nature of boosting the signal and lopping the tops off the wave form . . . there isn't really a way to get a distorted signal without getting compression. What do you mean when you say saturation?
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

Rockstar216 said:
is their a pedal that will let you adjust the saturation . . . Usually the more gain you add the more saturation you get along with compression . . . what if you want the saturation but not the compression . . .
Click to expand...

GoldenVulture said:
It's Theirs ?
Click to expand...

Love this comment

Rockstar216 said:
When I say saturation I mean adding more distortion to a signal.
Click to expand...

So, instead of a "gain" control, you'd like it labeled "saturation?" I feel like you could do that with a sharpie or something.

As far as compression, some pedals (like the klon) have a clean boost in parallel with the distorted signal, and (my understanding is) the gain pot in addition to ramping up the distortion mixes in/out the clean boost. I'm not sure if it mixes in more or less clean boost as you turn up the gain knob but my gut instinct is more.

It sounds like you're describing a pedal that's a klon, a compressor, and a 3-band eq. Which, I mean, you can get all of those things individually for less than the price of a custom pedal that houses all of them in the same box. And on top of that you can experiment with where in the signal chain you'd like those things.

Or, if you're willing to fire up the soldering iron you can just get a few boards from madbean pedals or something and house them in the same enclosure.

Idk of any existing effects that are all three of those in one box.
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

Rockstar216 said:
I'm sure i'm not the first to think of something like this.
Click to expand...

Everyone thinks of great amp and pedal ideas, and then Reinhold Bogner does it.

With the red and blue XTC pedals, you can shape the gain any way you want......spongy, tight, vintage, modern. The blue is in the range of plexi to JCM 800. The red is more like Cantrell and Satriani.

If $300 is too much, find a mint used one. For that price, you're adding a ton of versatility to your amp.

Q354092.jpg
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

I'd suggest perhaps trying something like the Red Witch Famulous or the Black arts Sarcophagus/Coven. They all provide various flavours of distortion, that can be mixed incrementally to provide the right mix of sound.

Even the. Vox Ice-9 has a vintage/modern switch that switches between Germanium and Silicon distortion circuits to change the voicing.
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

jimijames said:
Love this comment



So, instead of a "gain" control, you'd like it labeled "saturation?" I feel like you could do that with a sharpie or something.

As far as compression, some pedals (like the klon) have a clean boost in parallel with the distorted signal, and (my understanding is) the gain pot in addition to ramping up the distortion mixes in/out the clean boost. I'm not sure if it mixes in more or less clean boost as you turn up the gain knob but my gut instinct is more.

It sounds like you're describing a pedal that's a klon, a compressor, and a 3-band eq.
Idk of any existing effects that are all three of those in one box.
Click to expand...

Yea you could say that but i'm not sure of what it is technically I am trying to achieve in one pedal. It's hard to explain because I don't have expertise in pedal building.
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

Gearjoneser said:
Everyone thinks of great amp and pedal ideas, and then Reinhold Bogner does it.

With the red and blue XTC pedals, you can shape the gain any way you want......spongy, tight, vintage, modern. The blue is in the range of plexi to JCM 800. The red is more like Cantrell and Satriani.

If $300 is too much, find a mint used one. For that price, you're adding a ton of versatility to your amp.

Q354092.jpg
Click to expand...

I looked at those and while they are great specimens they aren't exactly the idea of what I was thinking of. If I were looking for a pedal that acted as a second gain channel for an amp they would be in the top 5 on the list.
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

Gearjoneser said:
Everyone thinks of great amp and pedal ideas, and then Reinhold Bogner does it.

With the red and blue XTC pedals, you can shape the gain any way you want......spongy, tight, vintage, modern. The blue is in the range of plexi to JCM 800. The red is more like Cantrell and Satriani.

If $300 is too much, find a mint used one. For that price, you're adding a ton of versatility to your amp.

Q354092.jpg
Click to expand...

I got myself a Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe for the same reason. Now I just need to retube my Bassman head when I move into a more permanent residence and rock out with that. :)
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

I really liked the CompTortion, but it's disco like Gloria Gaynor.
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

The first thing I thought of was the EQD White Light. It has volume, tone, and gain controls like any other pedal, but it's also got a two way compression switch for more or less compression. That's the closest thing that I can think of that will get you there, although maybe not exactly as you have in mind.

Another thought is an OD with a clean blend built in. Way Huge Pork Loin maybe? Honestly I would just get an OD box and a real nice compressor. Although I do like the idea of this pedal you're dreaming up.
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

Rockstar216 said:
Yea you could say that but i'm not sure of what it is technically I am trying to achieve in one pedal. It's hard to explain because I don't have expertise in pedal building.
Click to expand...

Well intuitively I feel like saturation is this particular aspect to the sound, rather than the actual clipping itself - kind of like a richness point where there's greater harmonic nuance. My example is how SRV's sound is very "alive" even though technically it's not clipped or distorted as we think of it. Even though SRV used two ts808 pedals, my experience is that the marshall bluesbreaker circuit is dynamically more open than the tubescreamer circuit. However, it doesn't saturate in the same way that two cascaded ts808s do.

But you also want a very large dynamic range - but the thing is many pedals do have a large dynamic range, it's just that we as guitar players never learn dynamics. So, I feel like even if you had a very "open" sounding pedal it still might not sound that way depending on who held the guitar. Rather, I think people want a kind of "exaggerated" response circuit - something like you get with EP-based boosts or other "tone enhancer" clean boosts. What you want here is non-linear signal amplification.

As far as the 3-band EQ, that's just a matter of adapting the drive to different guitars and different rooms/amps etc. FWIW mxr pedals offer this functionality in a small enclosure.

I'm trying to come up with a combination of these things and some special sauce mojo in a pedal that has a footswitchable clean boost, but my brain doesn't work well enough in my free time to come up with such a monstrosity. But, slowly I'm learning. Eventually it may become a reality.

Also I should note that even though I kind of tried to do an underhanded turd lob at you, you rebounded gracefully and with aplomb. I apologize for that and hope that perhaps this post might be useful.
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

Part of the problem is that "saturation" is just the more poetic way of saying "distortion". If I drive a MOSFet 'til It can't take any more, I've saturated it. Thus, distortion comes out. Compression, as someone else pointed out, is the natural by-product of clipping. Dynamics comes from having different amplitude peaks. As you clip those peaks off, you're erasing the dynamic info.
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

There is the Source Audio Soundblox Multiwave Distortion pedal which may be what your looking for?
Its not an analog pedal but still maybe give it a try i think
 
Re: Is their a pedal that does this?

sorry to hijack, but I wanted to ask Joe a question bout the bogners. I think I want a red one, but I like having the jcm 800 option. Will the red go there, or is it going to over that level?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top