MXR Distortion Plus

[WhoFan]

i've been digging the new reissued Ozzy/RR cd's a hell of a lot... Dairy has long been a fav of mine... dig Randy's almost out of control sound on these... would a new Distortion Plus pedal get me some of his higher gain fuzzy sounds better then say my DS1...?

for this my rig is simple... a 76 maple neck LP with a JB in the bridge, into a stock 1981 2204 800 series...

 

[Mr 9finger]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I have an older one sitting on my shelf collecting dust if you want to give it a whirl for awhile. It definitely does the Randy thing to a T.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

You HAVE to have a D+ to rally nail the old RR stuff...he never turned his off!

However, they will NOT do that tone into a clean amp...it needs to be a cranked Marshall and the MXR EQ helps a lot too...with those 2 pedals into just about any Marshall with just about any guitar with just about any bucker you can get real close.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I have an older one sitting on my shelf collecting dust if you want to give it a whirl for awhile. It definitely does the Randy thing to a T.

thank you so much for the offer... i can borrow one from my local shop to test if need be... they allow some customers to do that...

 

[WhoFan]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

You HAVE to have a D+ to rally nail the old RR stuff...he never turned his off!

However, they will NOT do that tone into a clean amp...it needs to be a cranked Marshall and the MXR EQ helps a lot too...with those 2 pedals into just about any Marshall with just about any guitar with just about any bucker you can get real close.

ya i always wondered about the EQ he had... from a lot of interviews about those Ozzy sessions they said that old pedalboard of his was extremely noisey... made me wonder if the noise was the Distortion and EQ on all the time... some said if he stopped playing it would feedback instantly

the old 800 head i have has a nice grunt to it... they way i've been using it is like most players i would think, get a crunchy sound and boost it with distortion pedals...

i guess Maiden used Dist +'s as well in a simular set up to RR

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

Well, those old D+'s are a bit noisey then you run a 6 band EQ with an extreme push in the mids and the hiss will get pretty bad on top of that factor in the hot rodded (for more gain) Marshall and unpotted pickups...yeah, lots of hiss and noise and lots of feedback.

Listen to the intro to Crazy Train you can hear the Les Paul squeel like all hell right before Randy starts playing...he almost always left the neck pickup on ZERO and used it as a kill switch to stop the feedback.

Listen to this and you can hear what I'm talking about...he does all kinds of pick scrapes and such to sort of mask what is a ton of hiss and squeeling, there are also several places in here where he stops for a split second and you can hear the guitar just going nuts but if you want this tone you need the D+ and an MXR EQ.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

cool... i just remembered i somewhere have a cassette tape of him doing a clinic in a guitar store a month before he died... and you can hardly hear him talking over the hum of his amps... and then when he switches his pu on to play a passage it gets real noisey... he explains on that tape that he does have to think about hiding the noise and turning things off during quieter passages...

i would imagine he turns the Distortion + off when he was doing quieter stuff like the opening of Goodbye to Romance.... or do you think he just turned his guitar V pot down?

 

[Rich_S]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I have an older one sitting on my shelf collecting dust if you want to give it a whirl for awhile. It definitely does the Randy thing to a T.

Heck, I'll take you up on that. I've been working for a freakin' year on learning all the guitar parts on one of my favorite weird old '80s new wave albums, Martha and the Muffins' Danseparc. I can't get the distortion sound right, even with my new uber-Rat. I've corresponded with the guitar player/producer for M+M, Mark Gane, and he says his dirt and long sustain-feedback parts were all Distortion+ through a loud, clean amp, sometime s a Twin, sometimes a JC120.

For those interested in old Distortion+'s, the new Whirlwind pedal is supposed to be really good. It's probably closer to an old D+ than the current production D+ is. However, I believe I saw somewhere that MXR now has their own CS D+ built like the old ones. Whirlwind probably forced them into it. Sadly, my local store doesn't stock any of them.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I know it's not the same, but for Randy Rhoads, you'd probably get a better tone using the MXR 78 Badass Distortion or MXR Dist III/Classic Dist. I say that because they're easier to get sounding good.

As a teen, I had a few Dist + pedals go through my hands, and I never cared for them at all.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I know it's not the same, but for Randy Rhoads, you'd probably get a better tone using the MXR 78 Badass Distortion or MXR Dist III/Classic Dist. I say that because they're easier to get sounding good.

As a teen, I had a few Dist + pedals go through my hands, and I never cared for them at all.

ya i was looking at those too

 

[WhoFan]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

Heck, I'll take you up on that. I've been working for a freakin' year on learning all the guitar parts on one of my favorite weird old '80s new wave albums, Martha and the Muffins' Danseparc. I can't get the distortion sound right, even with my new uber-Rat. I've corresponded with the guitar player/producer for M+M, Mark Gane, and he says his dirt and long sustain-feedback parts were all Distortion+ through a loud, clean amp, sometime s a Twin, sometimes a JC120.

For those interested in old Distortion+'s, the new Whirlwind pedal is supposed to be really good. It's probably closer to an old D+ than the current production D+ is. However, I believe I saw somewhere that MXR now has their own CS D+ built like the old ones. Whirlwind probably forced them into it. Sadly, my local store doesn't stock any of them.

i looked around the net to see what the rough idea cost is on the Whilewind Gold Box, none of the stores i looked up sold them...

the reissue of the MXR Distortion + is like $56 at GC

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I came across this MXR shootout. You just have to imagine yourself finding the right settings. Demos tend to do everything 12:00 or with the gain higher than you'd use it.

 

[Mr 9finger]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I know it's not the same, but for Randy Rhoads, you'd probably get a better tone using the MXR 78 Badass Distortion or MXR Dist III/Classic Dist. I say that because they're easier to get sounding good.

As a teen, I had a few Dist + pedals go through my hands, and I never cared for them at all.

I kind of agree and disagree at the same time. I can get close to the same tone(realistically, that's all we can really hope for anyway lol) with the Classic Distortion ran into the crunch setting of my DSL and really cranking it without using too much of the gain knob on the amp and letting the tubes break up naturally. But, I can never get that dam tone knob set just right on it. It's either a little too flat/dull or too bright/harsh. Using the D+ and turning the output all the way up and running the distortion at about 3:00 really puts in you in the ballpark, but that's with no other effects in the chain.

There really isn't much to Randy's tone chain. It's actually pretty straight forward. I think it was Max Norman that was behind the desk for both albums and he really murdered Randy on Blizzard. I rarely listen to that disc cuz it's all on the Tribute CD and sounds so much better. If you haven't heard the alternate cut of Tribute that comes with the reissue of Diary, the cost of the disc is worth that extra alone. It sounds the most natural of all the Randy recordings I've heard.

I do remember an interview with Max Norman and he made comment about Randy's tone. It was something along the lines of between the varying levels of push his board gave him and those cranked modded Marshall's, that his tone was on the verge of being out of control and Randy's ability to control it and still play the way he did was all part of his magic.

 

[pinto79]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I've had a number of Distortion +'s over the years, and by far my favourite was the one I got in 1996 as a grad present along with my first Marshall (1978 JMP 2204). It was one of the ones with the 1/8" power plug rather than the more modern ones with the Boss style power inlet.

That one mixed perfectly with the JMP to get some very Randy-ish tones.

I've since had one from about 2000, one from 1982 and one from 1989. They've all been very different from each other. The 1989 one I have now is the closest to the first one I got (and stupidly sold)

It's a nasty, noisy, fuzzy pedal and I think everyone should have one!

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I've had a number of Distortion +'s over the years, and by far my favourite was the one I got in 1996 as a grad present along with my first Marshall (1978 JMP 2204). It was one of the ones with the 1/8" power plug rather than the more modern ones with the Boss style power inlet.

That one mixed perfectly with the JMP to get some very Randy-ish tones.

I've since had one from about 2000, one from 1982 and one from 1989. They've all been very different from each other. The 1989 one I have now is the closest to the first one I got (and stupidly sold)

It's a nasty, noisy, fuzzy pedal and I think everyone should have one!

Which one was the one that I repaired for you? Was that the '82? I remember it not having an LED or DC jack.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I had an MXR Distortion + in my late teens and early twenties. Sold it to a friend. Later bought it back for purely sentimental reasons. Used it once since then on a recording project.

RD, the originals were battery power only. No 9v DC socket. No LED. As mentioned above, there was no need for a telltale light. You could always hear when the pedal was on.

 

[XSSIVE]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I have a '79 JMP and a '79 D+ and between the two I can get quite close to that Randy tone...only problem is I don't like that tone. :laugh2: But yeah, with your 2204 and the D+ you should get in the ballpark for sure.

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

RD, the originals were battery power only. No 9v DC socket. No LED. As mentioned above, there was no need for a telltale light. You could always hear when the pedal was on.

Yep. All the old MXR's were like that.

A couple years ago Pinto gave me a barely functional Distortion+ to refurbish. I can't remember if it was a block or script logo, but it definitely was from the pre-DC jack and LED era. I cleaned away some corrosion and dust from the PCB, replaced the caps, and re-flowed the solder. Good as new, and sounded fantastic. I almost didn't give it back

Fun fact: the D+ and the Micro Amp are almost the exact same circuit.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

I have a '79 JMP and a '79 D+ and between the two I can get quite close to that Randy tone...only problem is I don't like that tone. :laugh2: But yeah, with your 2204 and the D+ you should get in the ballpark for sure.

cool... may have to track one down locally... ya a lot of players hate Randy's tone... depends on your taste... i like a lot of different tones...

 

[James Rock]

Re: MXR Distortion Plus

the D+ and the Micro Amp are almost the exact same circuit.

Whats the major different does the D+ use something for clipping the Micro Amp doesnt (making it not clean obviously)