To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

[Jazzfiend101]

Hello all, I'm looking for some advice on how I can get a better more distinguished sound out of my gear. I play in a cover band that has to have a variety of sounds, and I've managed to get most of them but my deal is refining the sound. We have another guitarist who plays mostly rythym and he has a sort of background sound, sort of dark. We play modern music, but think of him as the Izzy to my Slash. Really dark sound, lower midrangey... he uses a lot of gain tho, so sometimes it's incoherent from my side of the stage.

I have a sound I'm going for, and I think I have the right gear for it. I'm using an Epiphone Les Paul Custom with the Hot Rodded Hunbucker setup. I'm running it through five pedals, a Dunlop 535Q Wah, an Ibanez Jet Driver (it's a Tubescreamer with a Mids knob), an MXR Phase 90, a Boss Super Chorus, and a Boss DD7 delay. These go straight into an Orange Dark Terror pushing two 1x12 cabs.

So I'm looking for two things, a healthy lead tone, and a blistering rythym sound. I do a lot of pinch harmonics in my rythyms a la Zakk Wylde. What I've always noticed is it is way easier to coax those little monsters out of my guitar when my Jet Driver is engaged. But I lose a lot of bottom end from my sound, even if the tone is dialed to the opposite of treble.

I generally push the amp's power to just over halfway to really get some juice from the tubes, but the distortion is usually set to about one or two o'clock. I notice that sometimes the pinch harmonics are way more pronounced when that overdrive is going, but the tone is biting, almost too much to keep it on 100%. And then there is the question of if I keep the overdrive on (which doesn't really add much volume boost to my leads even if the level is up and the drive is totally down) how do I get a noticeably different lead sound? I've generally used the chorus and the phase with the Jet Driver for gnarly solos, or I've used the Wah or the Wah and chorus because it makes a really wicked lead sound, but I try to use the Wah on its own mostly.

Does anyone have any suggestions I can use to get a solid rythym sound that's chunky, never fails on squealies, but still sounds full, and then where should I go for a good lead set up?

I saw a video where Alex Skolnick said he'd set up an amp for mid rangy crunch, with an overdrive going to give the amp some teeth, but I never caught how he'd differentiate between a nasty rhythym sound and a searing lead sound. I know there are clean boosts out there, but when I've set them up to use for my amps, it's like when I step on them my rig wants to explode with unwanted low end feedback.

Should I be dialing my amp to lower crunch, and pushing it with the overdrive? If so, how should I set the overdrive up? Should I just keep the drive to its lowest setting and use the level to up the sound? And then what when I go to solo? Do I need to buy another overdrive?

I like my Orange, it gets some sick distortion on its own, but the tone compresses a lot when I step on the overdrive. Upper mids, upper treble, not much body...

Will any of this matter much even though I've got a bassist and a rhythym player who are covering the sound?

Any advice will help! Sorry for the long post

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[Funkfingers]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

Difference between "searing lead" and "nasty rhythm" = rolling the guitar volume down from ten to about six or seven.

 

[Jazzfiend101]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

Difference between "searing lead" and "nasty rhythm" = rolling the guitar volume down from ten to about six or seven.

I dunno... rolling down the volume on that rig cuts pinch harmonics out. I notice that to make the volume gap apparent I have to roll the knob down considerably, and apart from changing the pots, I believe I have a pair of 500k pots in the tones, Im not sure that it would have the desires effect. I kinda know what that sound sounds like, and it leads to mud, dark midrange, less power and definitely doesn't cooperate with whipping out squealies every five seconds. And we can't have that, no sir.

So apart from further work on the guitar, what else do we suggest? Any pedal configurations?

Who here plays high gain live? How do you make that work for you, and what advice would you have on getting proper separate rhythym and lead sounds across the stage?

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[LLL]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

I'm not sure what the precise question is here, but more often than not...

...on any given album which features heavily distorted guitars, the difference between the rhythm and the lead parts
is EQing. Typically the lead part will be given more mid-range freqs (the range our human ears hear easiest) to
stand out (it is a solo, after all).

The problem with that is with a lot of modern, metal-ish type tones, the "scooped mids" mentality rules.

You might want to look into using an EQ. And don't underestimate the power of EQing; many EQs can really
push the input of the typical guitar amp. MXR 6-Band, for example has a great selection of guitar-specific freqs
that you can boost +18dB (however I always recommend a strong, hot signal in front of the MXR 6-Band to help
cut down the noise level).

 

[Lampy H]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

The only way you're going to know if anything is going to work in the band is to play with the band.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

Sounds to me as if you could use an OD pedal that interacts better with your guitar's volume knob. TS is a great OD type- articulate, sounds good in a mix, plenty of warm mids to fill out mid-scooped modern amp tones, and responds well to pick dynamics. I've had one since 1980 and still come back to it for that certain sound & feel. It's become iconic (and the basis of innumerable copies & variants) for good reason. But some of the more modern designs retain their tone better when you're cleaning up by rolling back the volume control. You might think about trying one of the Klon clones (or an actual Klon KTR) , which are excellent at this. My current favorite is the Mythical Overdrive, but there are plenty of klones available these days; the Archer is popular with a lot of players. Another advantage is that they stack very well with other pedals, including TSs.

EDIT: There's also the Duncan 805, an OD pedal with three band EQ. But I still think a better option for you is in my next post...

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

Been thinking about your situation and an idea occurs to me: a different option would be to augment your OD with a distortion unit. It'd give you access to a whole other set of flavors, offering more chunk and more scream than a straight OD. The venerable Boss DS-1 is as much a classic in its own right as the TubeScreamer. Again, for very good reason. A whole cottage industry has grown up around modding these- I have one that was done by John Spina and it's huge, especially the low end. But even stock, the DS-1 won't trim your bass the way a TS does. They sound great and can be had quite cheap because there are zillions of 'em out there.

But there are tons of distortion pedals today that offer more tonal control than the old designs; plenty have separate treble, mid, and bass knobs. My point is that based on what you want, limiting yourself to OD pedals might not be the answer. Consider adding a distortion instead.

 

[Demanic]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

Two words: Clean Boost.

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[Mincer]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

It sounds like it isn't you that has the majority of changes to do- it is the other guitarist. If he sounds indistinct on your side of the stage, what about in the audience? I think it is a matter of working together to see what blends the best- not just 'here is my sound, deal with it'. I would agree a clean boost is better than an overdrive, and turning the gain down for everyone is a good idea. It is amazing to me how little overdrive is on the classic guitar sounds we love.

 

[Jazzfiend101]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

I have come down on my gain considerably over the years. I never turn the distortion on my amps past 2 o'clock and the closer I can keep them to half way up, and still get squealies, then I'm good. I have stacked over a crunch channel and used some overdrives to some success to get really crunchy metal sounds... but then I'm like hooray I have a badass rhythym sound and it only took me using like two pedals to do it and cutting my gain down... now where do I go for the solo? But I do like the idea of the EQ. I work at a music store, I should try some more stuff out

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[Jazzfiend101]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

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[Jazzfiend101]

Re: To overdrive, or not to overdrive? That is the question

I bought one of these TC Dark Matter pedals today. It says it's a distortion but it's a very clear one that works as a subtle overdrive. My Ibanez Jet Driver is really middy and kinda muddy. My neck pickup (Jazz) never seemed to like it. But this pedal is a bit more transparent and adds a touch of upper midrange.

Our tech at the store told me that it wasn't so much about getting a big volume boost as much as it was moving into a different defined tonal spectrum.

We'll see how it translates live though. Still enjoying yalls feedback. More input is welcome too!

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