Do you use an overdrive pedal for your rock lead sounds?

[Deleted member 5962]

Always been curious about Zvex. How is it?

Btw, right now I have five od's.

CMATMODS Signa Drive
CMATMODS Butah
Fulltone RTO
Lovepedal Eternity Burst (pcb)
Bogner Mini Ecstasy

All of em are great, the Signa has been my fave for a while. The RTO is pretty great too.

I used to know this stuff inside out, but please remind me... what pedal is the Signa Drive a version of? I know CMATMODS had a couple nice copies/mods of other pedals, back in the day. I can't remember which one that is based on.

And, I've wanted the Trower for years now.

 

[Draconomics]

I used to know this stuff inside out, but please remind me... what pedal is the Signa Drive a version of? I know CMATMODS had a couple nice copies/mods of other pedals, back in the day. I can't remember which one that is based on.

And, I've wanted the Trower for years now.

Signa....I think it's basically a modded TS-9 circuit. There was a version prior to this called the Tube Slammer, at least I think that was the case. It came in a purple housing but was superceded by the Signa. All of his stuff is pretty great, sadly last I heard his workshop was flooded and he lost a lot of equipment.

The Trower is pretty great. I like running the Signa into it as a small boost, due to it being quite transparent. Funny thing about my RTO is I bought it for like $125, and now that Fulltone is no more these things are selling for up to $400.

 

[László]

I have yet to have a cable fail on me because I am a bit OCD, see what I did there?, with my cable construction.

It's the way to be!

The last thing I want is to have a cable fail during a session, with clients present, and having to figure out which one it is. While I don't make my own cables up any more (I have them custom made because I've gotten too freaking lazy!), I always have them use the best quality, soldered connectors with traditional barrels and strain relief.

I've had things go bad in sessions with some of the stuff one can easily build. Never again.

 

[Lola]

You know what it is it’s confidence. I hate wasting $ if I wreck or destroy something through my lack of knowledge. I uploaded my very first video to YouTube and it wasn’t that hard at all. Just looked at it and it’s very grainy but I did it. I was so afraid of doing this. My mind has a tendency to make a mountain out of a molehill.

The more I do myself creates less dependence upon others.

 

[Draconomics]

The more I do myself creates less dependence upon others.

This. That's how I began doing things like guitar setups. I was always afraid of screwing something up, but I got tired of paying out the nose for something that is relatively a simple affair. I just sat down one day and learned everything I could from videos and doing work on an old practice guitar.

 

[Longneck Tenon]

I use pedals. I like to be able to give it a little more gain and a little boost. The amp I have gigged with for the past 7+ years is a modified Vibrolux circuit so it is a clean amp. Mine has a drive side but it is quite touchy so I don't really use it. If you change your volume on the amp it changes how the drive sounds so you have to adjust more than one thing to get back to where you were. I found that to be too much work to get what I wanted from it. I typically stack OD pedals as well as have some two sided models that I use. The ones on my board now that have been there the longest are these.

Jetter Gold Standard
Keeley Red Dirt
Friedman Dirty Shirley
Xotic EP Booster

These pedals get me every OD tone I am looking for as well as very clean with a boost. I honestly only have a delay and chorus on the board besides these. The amp has reverb in it. I am most picky about drive sounds.

Curious as to what order your drives are in the signal chain. I also have a Vibrolux Reverb as well as a Supro Keeley that see all of the drive pedals, with modulation sent only to the Keeley and delay, reverb and tremolo in its effects loop. I used to run a Jetter Gold 45/100 into a Timmy but I have flipped those around to get a warmer more saturated gain while controlling overall compression. Either or both of those pedals can be fed into an Archer Ikon which essentially is a boost, although I can run it solo as an overdrive as well.

 

[Lewguitar]

The new pedal I'm super curious about is the J Rockett Jeff Beck Archer.

Jeff was using it on his board before he passed.

It's a Klon but with a few tweaks Jeff requested to make it sound even more like his original Silver Klon.

Don't know if the Beck family benefits from the sale of this model, but I'd love to compare it to my Klon KTR and Wampler Tumnus Deluxe.

 

[László]

The new pedal I'm super curious about is the J Rockett Jeff Beck Archer.

Jeff was using it on his board before he passed.

It's a Klon but with a few tweaks Jeff requested to make it sound even more like his original Silver Klon.

Don't know if the Beck family benefits from the sale of this model, but I'd love to compare it to my Klon KTR and Wampler Tumnus Deluxe.

This seems like a pretty good demo of it.

 

[Lewguitar]

This seems like a pretty good demo of it.

I ordered one.

I also have a Wampler Tumnus Deluxe and a Klon KTR.

The Klon KTR is my favorite. It has the least congested, most open voice.

It's awesome for overdriving my Hot Cake pedal, and the two together get a soaring, rock anthem, soloing tone from any of my bridge humbuckers.

 

[JasonE]

Curious as to what order your drives are in the signal chain. I also have a Vibrolux Reverb as well as a Supro Keeley that see all of the drive pedals, with modulation sent only to the Keeley and delay, reverb and tremolo in its effects loop. I used to run a Jetter Gold 45/100 into a Timmy but I have flipped those around to get a warmer more saturated gain while controlling overall compression. Either or both of those pedals can be fed into an Archer Ikon which essentially is a boost, although I can run it solo as an overdrive as well.

This is the order I have them in. I use the DS alone most of the time. I may use the left side of the GS or the EP to boost for a solo. I use both sides of the GS together at times and other times I kick in the RD or EP. It just depends on whether I am looking for a raise in volume or a bit more OD with it.

Friedman Dirty Shirley
Jetter Gold Standard
Keeley Red Dirt
Xotic EP Booster

 

[Lewguitar]

Curious as to what order your drives are in the signal chain. I also have a Vibrolux Reverb as well as a Supro Keeley that see all of the drive pedals, with modulation sent only to the Keeley and delay, reverb and tremolo in its effects loop. I used to run a Jetter Gold 45/100 into a Timmy but I have flipped those around to get a warmer more saturated gain while controlling overall compression. Either or both of those pedals can be fed into an Archer Ikon which essentially is a boost, although I can run it solo as an overdrive as well.

Mine are arranged so that they get progressively more overdriven, saturated, and fuzzy as the pedals move to the left. At the extreme left is my Dover Drive - my only pedal with some actual fuzz. I use it to emulate Eric Johnson's violin tone.

So from right to left: EGO compressor/booster > Klon KTR > Wampler Tumnus Deluxe > Hot Cake > Dover Drive

But I experimented to get this arrangement. The klons sound best at the beginning, the Hot Cake sounds best after the Klons but just before the Dover Drive. If I reverse the Hot Cake and Dover Drive something feels "off".

https://imgur.com/ykdxYcE

 

[László]

Mine are arranged so that they get progressively more overdriven, saturated, and fuzzy as the pedals move to the left. At the extreme left is my Dover Drive - my only pedal with some actual fuzz. I use it to emulate Eric Johnson's violin tone.

I do pretty much the same thing.

I have an always-on Pettyjohn Lift preamp, with a very good buffer and a switchable boost. It's something that makes everything going into the board sound just a little better, so I call it my 'Betterizer'.

From there, the signal goes to a Suhr KokoBoost, which allows me to switch in a mid-frequency boost or a clean boost, then to a very low gain Pettyjohn Edge, into a Low-to-Medium gain Pettyjohn Chime II. I rarely stack pedals, but there are times I'll do it, and it makes sense to go low-to-higher when building a signal chain.

However, I put a Suhr compressor after all of the boosts and overdrives instead of ahead of them.

Overdrives compress the signal a bit as it is, so I don't want to compress signal going into them. However, sometimes I want a little compression after the pedals to control the amplitude peaks very lightly, as mastering engineers often say, to "kiss" the signal.

The overused phrase, "makes it sound like a record" seems to work doing it that way. However, it's all personal taste. From there I go into modulations and time-based effects like delay and reverb.

 

[BigChrisW]

I do pretty much the same thing.

I have an always-on Pettyjohn Lift preamp, with a very good buffer and a switchable boost. It's something that makes everything going into the board sound just a little better, so I call it my 'Betterizer'.

From there, the signal goes to a Suhr KokoBoost, which allows me to switch in a mid-frequency boost or a clean boost, then to a very low gain Pettyjohn Edge, into a Low-to-Medium gain Pettyjohn Chime II. I rarely stack pedals, but there are times I'll do it, and it makes sense to go low-to-higher when building a signal chain.

However, I put a Suhr compressor after all of the boosts and overdrives instead of ahead of them.

Overdrives compress the signal a bit as it is, so I don't want to compress signal going into them. However, sometimes I want a little compression after the pedals to control the amplitude peaks very lightly, as mastering engineers often say, to "kiss" the signal.

The overused phrase, "makes it sound like a record" seems to work doing it that way. However, it's all personal taste. From there I go into modulations and time-based effects like delay and reverb.

Do you put modulations, delays and reverbs before the amp? I've been scouring the web for either a PettyJohn Chime or Lift, or possibly a Greer Lightspeed but there are no bargains to be found

 

[BigChrisW]

Do you put modulations, delays and reverbs before the amp? I've been scouring the web for either a PettyJohn Chime or Lift, or possibly a Greer Lightspeed but there are no bargains to be found

...and is the compression after the overdrive and before the amp?

 

[László]

Do you put modulations, delays and reverbs before the amp? I've been scouring the web for either a PettyJohn Chime or Lift, or possibly a Greer Lightspeed but there are no bargains to be found

I put everything in front of the amp, including modulations and time-based stuff.

I like the way an amp's preamp section can 'glue' everything together, but I don't run high gain amps generally. I'm an 'edge of breakup' player. If an amp has an effects loop, I don't use it, and in the case of the Lone Star, I can switch it completely out of the circuit along with the global master volume, so I do that to have a simpler signal path.

If I was a high gain player, I'd probably use a loop live for time based effects.

If I'm recording at higher gain settings, I want my delays and reverbs at the mixer, but I'll still run modulation into the front of the amp.

There's certainly no right and wrong to any choices folks make about this; whatever works for a player, works. I just like the smoosh that happens going in front.

 

[László]

...and is the compression after the overdrive and before the amp?

Yes, for live, but if I'm recording I want a studio compressor to follow the mic preamp at the mixing end.

 

[Draconomics]

I do pretty much the same thing.

I have an always-on Pettyjohn Lift preamp, with a very good buffer and a switchable boost. It's something that makes everything going into the board sound just a little better, so I call it my 'Betterizer'.

From there, the signal goes to a Suhr KokoBoost, which allows me to switch in a mid-frequency boost or a clean boost, then to a very low gain Pettyjohn Edge, into a Low-to-Medium gain Pettyjohn Chime II. I rarely stack pedals, but there are times I'll do it, and it makes sense to go low-to-higher when building a signal chain.

However, I put a Suhr compressor after all of the boosts and overdrives instead of ahead of them.

Overdrives compress the signal a bit as it is, so I don't want to compress signal going into them. However, sometimes I want a little compression after the pedals to control the amplitude peaks very lightly, as mastering engineers often say, to "kiss" the signal.

The overused phrase, "makes it sound like a record" seems to work doing it that way. However, it's all personal taste. From there I go into modulations and time-based effects like delay and reverb.

Im gonna try that, putting a compressor after my OD's. I figure you'd only need very slight compression in that sort of chain.

 

[László]

Im gonna try that, putting a compressor after my OD's. I figure you'd only need very slight compression in that sort of chain.

Yeah, you don't have to squish it down, just slightly tame the peaks. Good plan!

 

[Draconomics]

Yeah, you don't have to squish it down, just slightly tame the peaks. Good plan!

Yeah, that's what I thought. I tried going compression into an OD a few times, but wasnt feeling it. I think my Signa adds enough in that part of the chain. Speaking of Od's, I need to get a Klon clone. Of the ones I have, the RTO is I think a variation of an OCD, Signa and Eternity Burst are TS circuits, the Butah is...I think a Bluesbreaker variant, and the Bogner Red is...well a Bogner Red channel emulator. Klon circuit type things I've never done anything with.

 

[Longneck Tenon]

I also set my amp clean and use pedals.
I have WAY too many overdrive and distortion pedals but currently on my main board for gain I have
Keeley Red Dirt mini
Boss JB-2 Angry Driver
Keeley Montery

My small board has
Nobels ODR Mini
Xotic SL Drive

I just got a Nobels ODR-Mini to go on a small pedalboard I am building for my son. I did A-B it with my MXR Timmy Mini and found them to be very similar. I would be happy with either of them, but I think the ODR will work better for him.