What is your favorite overdrive?

[TimmyPage]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

I have two.. and neither of them are really overdrive pedals.

I use a compressor a LOT, and I set mine with a tiny hump in volume, just enough to push an amp slightly over. Almost like a clean, squished boost. After a few months of experimenting with overdrive pedals, using various Klones.. and this is blasphemous.. I ended up with a TC Electronic Spark Boost. It's unreal how fat this thing sounds, and it adds just the tiniest bit of musical grit to my sound. I usually have it set with the gain fairly high and the volume just above unity. I have at least one of them on almost all the time, and some rare times when I need a cleaner solo I'll even flick on both.

They're my secret weapons, as much as I like the Xotic SL drive which shapes most of my distorted/lead tones, I would say that the Spark Boost and Mooer Yellow Comp (Soon to be an SP compressor) do more to shape, guide, and overdrive my sound. They're the ones that I would consider integral to my sound.

And using all three at once, practically magic. Serious EJ/Gilmour territory.

 

[DeadandBuried]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

The Ibanez TS-9. There's probably something better out there but it does a nice job of giving a bit more bite and gain in front of the amp, which is a Peavey 6505+. No more to be said really, the lead channel has gain to spare and if you're not careful you could dial in too much!

So the trick is to use less on the amp and then crank the level on the pedal, it tightens up the tone big time and smooths it out giving a punchy chugging sound!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

I have two.. and neither of them are really overdrive pedals.

I use a compressor a LOT, and I set mine with a tiny hump in volume, just enough to push an amp slightly over.

It's funny, I use a comp a lot as well: the Pigtronix Philospher's Tone. And I set mine to bring the volume DOWN a notch and give a smooth, clean, sustaining sound with a bit of cut before going onto the rest of the chain. I find this eliminates the gummy, tubby sound that compression can add if you dial in too much.

 

[TimmyPage]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

It's funny, I use a comp a lot as well: the Pigtronix Philospher's Tone. And I set mine to bring the volume DOWN a notch and give a smooth, clean, sustaining sound with a bit of cut before going onto the rest of the chain. I find this eliminates the gummy, tubby sound that compression can add if you dial in too much.

I think it's partially a symptom of my very light picking. When I pick heavily the compressor is about unity with the clean tone, when I pick light (as I normally do) theres a little boost in volume. I'm definitely tempted to play with my compressor later after reading that though.

 

[Detroitblues]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

Cheap and easy (just like me!), Digitech Bad Monkey.... If its good enough for Gary Moore and Phil X, its good enough for me!

 

[GilmourD]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

Overdrive? MXR Classic Overdrive. I moved the internal voicing (GT-OD or ZW-OD) switch to the top of the case and it's amazing in both modes.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

 

[Hoss]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

I hesitate to call it a drive per say, but my fave is the EM-Drive. I also loved the Timmy, Jetter Gain Stage Red, Keisman Early Bird, & Original 808.

 

[thespricket]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

I was very lucky to get a Tim for almost nothing. It's a really amazing, I never knew what transparent meant until I heard this thing. The boost section sounds great too, plenty or gain on tap. I wish it could be used separately on its own. I find when I'm playing in most practical situations the Tim is my go to, it's an on all the time kinda thing.

I also looove the Plimsoul which I use for all of my crunchier stuff, classic plexi in a box sounds. The proguitarshop demo for it starts with Andy playing a bit from the Allman Bros live at the Filmore and really nails the tone. After hearing that I had to try it.

I work at GC and my store has a pretty good selection of pedals so I get to try a lot of stuff. I often AB them with the Plimsoul and while they all sound good I really can't say I'm compelled to switch it out with anything else. A close second is the BB preamp. Most drives just sound way too similar for me to go too crazy trying to find The One.

I tend to agree with most everyone here and say the SD1 is fantastic. Give me an SD1 and a clean fender amp and I can make some great sounds.


Guitar->pedals->amp

 

[JacobThe13th]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

if you ever decide to get an overdrive I highly recommend the mxr zakk wylde. Transparent, no mid boost, slight pick attack increase but no quack.

 

[allbutromeo]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

You would probably like an OCD, if you don't already have one.

+1, love this with an 18v power supply

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

NXgeneration Warm Drive for incredible light to medium crunch/drive..






...love mine

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

The Warm Drive is very sweet!

 

[Drunken Bowling]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

I plug straight into the amp.

 

[El Supremo]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

Skreddy Screw Driver or a RAT. Both sound good through both through a clean amp or a dirty one. Both can get fuzzy on demand (the Skreddy a little more though). Both cover a huge amount of ground when it comes to classic tones.

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

Aluminum Falcon II is always on and then a KOT for kicking separate butts.

 

[jball85]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

+1 on the OCD

 

[trevorus]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

My modded Soul Food with Telefunken germanium diodes, into a driven green channel on a Britain made DSL100.

 

[Demanic]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

I suppose all of my effects are variations of boost/overdrive/distortion: Keeley compressor (which can be a boost if I raise the level past 12:00) into a TS-7 set on hot, drive and level at 12:00 and tone at 10:00, into a Keeley modded MT-2 set to triple rec, volume at 12:00, gain at 1:00, Treble at 1:00, Bass at 3:00, Mid shift to 11:00 with level set at 9:00 and last but not least, a Keeley Katana set on clean mode with the volume at 7. I can use any of them separately to push the amp (either my Picovalve or Carvin XV-212), or various ones in series together, running all of them for a full tilt boogie lead sound.

This:

 

[jimijames]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

Basically a Klone with a "boost" function (it just switches to a set of diodes with a higher fv so there's a volume jump you can tune with the drive knob)

I still really like the added compression you get with a tubescreamer but this pedal is seriously nice for adding some grit and girth to a telecaster bridge.

I'm working on my own secret sauce drive/boost pedal in my free time but progress is limited to my ability to teach myself how basic electronics components work lol.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: What is your favorite overdrive?

I think it's partially a symptom of my very light picking. When I pick heavily the compressor is about unity with the clean tone, when I pick light (as I normally do) theres a little boost in volume. I'm definitely tempted to play with my compressor later after reading that though.

Did you ever run this experiment? Curious as to what you ended up with!