Speaker Cranker vs Morgan OD vs DOD 250 help to choose please

[viskas]

I was looking for dead simple overdrive to enhance distortion, and i very much disliked tube screamer so i figured i need a flat eq kind of drive, and in fact i prefer no eq kind of drive since i already have volume and tone controls on my guitar and im very much into the learning process at the moment so i want as little distraction coming from pedals as possible. I norrowed down to these and i can purchase one of them at the similar price (europe) but dont know which one to choose. any suggestions?

DOD is a 2013 reissue

Thanks a lot!

 

[dystrust]

Re: Speaker Cranker vs Morgan OD vs DOD 250 help to choose please

I've never played the other two, but the DOD 250 / MXR Distortion+ is more of a distortion pedal than an overdrive. You may want to look into a clean boost or possibly a klone. The EH Soul Food is generally easy to find and relatively cheap; I have a Wampler Tumnus on my board and it's amazing. It essentially sounds like 'more' of your amp; you can vary how much color you add by turning up the drive knob.

 

[Darg1911]

Re: Speaker Cranker vs Morgan OD vs DOD 250 help to choose please

Of the three you mention, I would look hard at the Morgan Amps OD. In addition to what Dystrust mentions about the DOD, it's not really neutral, it's mid boosted. The Speaker Cranker is cool but you have no way to up the gain while controlling the volume. Cranking the knob adds compression and sustain rather than pure volume but there is still a fair amount of volume boost and no way to control it. The Morgan OD is still simple with only two knobs and it sounds pretty transparent. It allows you to control the level while increasing the gain because of the level and gain controls. And it's more of an OD than a distortion. I've only seen demos but it sounds great from those that I've seen. Based on the 3 you mention and your criteria, the Morgan is probably the one I would be leaning toward. But keep in mind that a pedal with a level, gain and tone control is still simple and having that tone control can be nice. There are plenty of them that are transparent. It opens up a bunch more options. Still, that Morgan does sound good.

 

[viskas]

Re: Speaker Cranker vs Morgan OD vs DOD 250 help to choose please

Thanks for replies, i was looking at soul food but decided against it for some reason, dont remember which one.

Morgan seems like a way to go. Also what other options would it be for me with eq controls? Timmy is expensive or/and hard to find in Europe, i also checked ehx crayon as being similar to timmy but ive read in few places that its not very dynamic, however price is attractive. Also ive heard boss bd2 is kind of neutral? i didnt look into that one too much.

Strangely enough im still leaning towards dod 250, ive read it can be transparent in lower gain setting that of an overdrive and i really like of what i hear in demos when its fully maxed and almost fuzzing out, seems like a nice option to have and ive read it cleans up very well with volume knob and smooths things out with tone knob if they get too bright. Also reissue seems not to cut bass that much as vintage versions.

I think im just gonna make a random decision since im a bit tired of all the options.

Advice is still appreciated though.

 

[Darg1911]

Re: Speaker Cranker vs Morgan OD vs DOD 250 help to choose please

The DOD can work as a clean boost. Sort of. There is still a little bump so it's not a totally transparent clean boost but it doesn't bump the mids like it does when you start cranking it. The Soul Food has much of that Klon midrange thing going.

Want to save some money? Check out the TC Electronics Mojo Mojo OD. I would think that it's readily available in Europe. It adds bass and treble eq's plus a voice switch. But it's still pretty easy to dial in. It may tick all the boxes for you. And if you don't gel with it, you aren't out much money. They've been available for a good while. I think they are about $50 in the states.

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Speaker Cranker vs Morgan OD vs DOD 250 help to choose please

I had a couple of the original DOD 250s. (One was stolen.)

My immediate thought on this pedal...try it through the amp you're going to be using. I found it very tempermental--it worked great with the vintage BF Fender amps I had at the time, but I hated it with my Marshall JCM 800. And with my SUNN solid-state Solos II, it worked great with certain guitars...but not so well with others.

For a low-gain pedal, the Soul Food is pretty good if you don't want the pedal to mess with your basic tone.

Bill