Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

TimmyPage

TimmyPage

New member
I'm just so overburdened for choice, every google search I do, every forum I look at I just end up with MORE pedal options. Even walking into a store has become stressful because every store will have one shelf for all the other effects, then about 4 shelves dedicated to gain pedals. I'm half tempted to just give up and play clean exclusively forever.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

Just pick one and make it work for you. Explore it's limitations, then decide if you need more from there.

Too many people go the other way.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

Are you anywhere near Andertons? It seems like they have a great selection. I'd just go in with a few hours to spare and try a bunch of things. If they don't have something that makes you happy, it's not likely anything else will.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

what are you looking for? I have lots of drive pedals but timmy is still one of my favorites for a relatively transparent overdrive
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

Ts9, bad monkey, OCD, DS1, Rat, MXR bad@$$, muff of choice. Money not an issue? Bogner pedal or Klon.
How hard can that be?

If one of those doesn't do it, you are wayyyyy over thinking it.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

Aceman said:
Ts9, bad monkey, OCD, DS1, Rat, MXR bad@$$, muff of choice. Money not an issue? Bogner pedal or Klon.
How hard can that be?

If one of those doesn't do it, you are wayyyyy over thinking it.
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love ya bob, but I totally disagree
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

I agree with the above posters... (Plus, theres really only a few unique circuits anyway, most are tweaks of old favorites) Pick a drive, pick a fuzz, put them through their paces on your rig and really get to know how they interact with your amp and guitar. You'll probably be good to go.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

How filthy do you need your sound to get? How dynamic do you need the pedal's response to be?

The one overdrive pedal that I currently own is a Catlinbread RAH. I almost never use this because I prefer to torture the valves in my amplifiers.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

Getting one of the 808 clones with a little more tone agility is never a bad idea. My is a zendrive clone but theres hundreds to choose from at this point.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

I just got over this. I purchased about 8 pedals until I found the "one", or in my case, the three that will do the job. One advantage I had was I knew the sounds I wanted, just needed to find the pedal form of it.

The three I settled on, blakemore effects dreamsicle fuzz, zvex double rock, marshall jackhammer.

I was on the search for high gain marshall in a box, and I found it with the jackhammer I bought for $30. Even pedals I checked out in the $300 range (bogner, ect) didn't cut it for me, but the jackhammer was it! I was shocked how nice the marshall pedal line is. Maybe you could describe what your looking for?
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

If you aren't planning to record an album just get any pedal and make it work for you.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

Well one thing I've really figured out in this process is that I really don't like Tubescreamer clones. The gain on my pedalboard right now is a Soulfood set as a boost into a cheap 808 clone that just isn't doing it for me. All of the tubescreamer's I've tried just sound kind of.. mushy to me, so I definitely want something a little tighter than that. I am looking for something fairly big sounding that is fairly coloured sounding. I mean the type of thing where I can set my amp clean and use it as my sole dirt, and something which I can boost with the Soul Food to send it into huge fat screaming leads.

I'm looking into a preamp, more or less, so that I can just use my amp for it's clean headroom and for a clean tone. Medium-High-ish gain. Realistically, the highest gain stuff I play with one of the groups I play with is Pink Floyd stuff and a Hendrix tune now and again. My main band we do some original soul and bluesish tunes, combined with some ambient and instrumental jams. When I write it out like this it almost makes me think a muff-alike would be a better bet for me.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

TimmyPage said:
Well one thing I've really figured out in this process is that I really don't like Tubescreamer clones. The gain on my pedalboard right now is a Soulfood set as a boost into a cheap 808 clone that just isn't doing it for me. All of the tubescreamer's I've tried just sound kind of.. mushy to me, so I definitely want something a little tighter than that. I am looking for something fairly big sounding that is fairly coloured sounding. I mean the type of thing where I can set my amp clean and use it as my sole dirt, and something which I can boost with the Soul Food to send it into huge fat screaming leads.

I'm looking into a preamp, more or less, so that I can just use my amp for it's clean headroom and for a clean tone. Medium-High-ish gain. Realistically, the highest gain stuff I play with one of the groups I play with is Pink Floyd stuff and a Hendrix tune now and again. My main band we do some original soul and bluesish tunes, combined with some ambient and instrumental jams. When I write it out like this it almost makes me think a muff-alike would be a better bet for me.
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I thought Agileguy's demo of the Basic Audio Tri/Ram sounded pretty amazing. I'm not currently in the market for a boutique Muff clone, but it's the one I'd go after if I were.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

dystrust said:
I thought Agileguy's demo of the Basic Audio Tri/Ram sounded pretty amazing. I'm not currently in the market for a boutique Muff clone, but it's the one I'd go after if I were.
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Thanks, dude! I appreciate that. The Tri/Ram is still my favorite muff out of the many I had tried. Everyone that's tried it agrees too.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

"Trick or treating is so stressful. There's just so many different candies to eat."

Taste a bunch of them and keep your favorites.
 
Re: Looking for gain pedals is stressful.

Timmy, I agree with you. I've kinda been looking for a low gain, MIB pedal to complement the distortion tones from my Mesa amps, and just not finding anything that works for me.

Simple truth is, that for me, SS distortion pedals just sound unnatural to me. I'm not sure these poor, abused, tone-deaf ears will EVER find anything to my liking but tube amp distortion. I've been spoiled! :)

Bill
 
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