Favorite distortion/overdrive stomp box?

[dugg]

I only have a bass/keyboard type amp. I don't own any guitar pedals at all yet. I was thinking about getting some kind of distortion pedal and either gutting it or copying the circuit and installing it in my partscaster. I can handle any wood or electronic work I might need to do, but I don't know what would be a good pedal to start with. I like the sound of those early 'tube screamer' pedals 'cuz I like to play blues, but I've heard some more metal-ey sounding pedals that sounded cool too. What are your favorite distortion pedal sounds?

[bobthecanadian]

My favorite overdrive pedal is my modded BD2 (Blues Driver). Just sounds like what I want it to sound like.

[Marmelaki]

I don't think you can safely say "this pedal sounds better than the other", simply because such pedals will give you a differrent sound depending on the guitar/pickups and the amp you drive it through.
For example, a TS9 through a Strat with Texas Specials and a full-tube Vox amp will sound very different compared to the same TS9 through a Strat with Noiseless pups and a solid-state Marshall.
The best you can do is try the pedals yourself and see what suits you best.

Personally, I like pedals that allow the guitar to sound nice and clean with the volume rolled-off, but add a subtle and mellow overdrive when cranked up.
I heard that Barber Electronics LTD pedal is very good.
Also, the original-spec Maxon TS-808 and Fuzzface are considered to be top-notch.

But my question is this: will installing such a circuit inside a guitar sound good in the first place? What if you want to add other effects as well between the guitar and amp? This installation limits your options because the OD will always be first in the chain of effects. Won't that be a problem?

[bobthecanadian]

I read you original post too quickly, but having read it a second time I have a suggestion. Go to Guitar Fetish and check out their MODboards, especially this one Onboard Tube Distortion It might taking a look at.

Cheers,

Bob

[thaus]

I am not really a stomp-box type of player but I recently bought a Fulltone OCD and it is the cat's meow!! Seriously, I have never heard a pedal sound so good.........it has dynamics which you normally only find in overdriven tube amps. Definitely recommended!!

[dugg]

Exellent. Marmelaki, thaus, Bob, your suggestions are exactly what I'm looking for, now I'm off to do homework. Bob, the GFS site is exactly where I got the idea to put the circuit in my axe. I was thinking about their tube screamer, but those mod boards look cool too.

Marmelaki, your point about not putting it in the axe is one I wanted to hear, because I'm not absolutely decided on whether to build it in or just make a stomp box to house it. You're right that if I put it in the axe it will always be first in the chain. I am planning to put a bypass switch in though. I understand your point about matching the amp, but my amp is a keyboard/bass amp and it really doesn't have a 'sound' in the sense that a good guitar amp does. That's part of the reason I want to be able to dial in some grit!

[60strat]

i use the LINE6 Floor Pod Plus and the BOSS ME-50
both of these have a varity of differnt distortions
to work with.

[Doug Ferguson]

I used, and loved, a Blues Driver for years. It got ruined in a fire several months ago, but I was able to get a Tubscreamer TS-7 for $20 from a friend of a friend who's gone to a modeling amp. Haven't need, and don't want, anything else

[pookie613]

I've put modded SD-1 circuits in 3 of my Strats and have no regrets: It's great to have the stompbox controls at your pinky for on-the-fly tweaking. You can do it without looking, and you don't need to be standing near your pedals. The hardware bypass switch is like having a second pickup selector at your fingertips.

If you're going to use other effect pedals, there's no problem with sticking a second OD after a wah, or whatever. You can kick in the onboard OD to get just a little (or a lot) more gain, and the "OD/wah sandwich" doesn't sound funky like having a single OD before the wah.

Another cool thing about this is that you can travel light, simply plug in and have "instant grit" for difficult amps like a Twin Reverb.

In my modded Strats, the top pot is a global master volume. The center pot is a ganged TBX pot that's a tone (treble cut) control when it's in bypass; at the other end, it's the SD-1's gain control. The lower pot is a push-pull redundant battery switch (so it doesn't need to be unplugged) and the SD-1's tone control. Tubescreamer-style circuits are great for this because they have a very low current drain and very basic controls.

Fun stuff.

-Jim

[thaus]

Bob, that GFS link is cool! That's something I would love to try sometime!!

[dugg]

Thanks 60strat and Doug, I'll give those a listen too. Pookie, I was thinking that there.....what you said about having the controls at the fingertips. Another consideration is the buffing aspect of an active circuit. I'm primarily a bass player and we know that there's precious frequencies that get cut by long unbalanced instrument cables. Guitar players don't seem to care as much about the active vs. passive debate, I suppose because guitars don't suffer as much when you remove some highs (and lows)?

[pookie613]

The buffered output is probably a benefit, although I don't have a very long cable run before it hits other electronics; also, my bypass mode isn't buffered (intentionally, so it can go battery-less). I don't notice the fidelity loss in the bypass mode, perhaps because the active circuit has a more mid-range EQ. (Besides, I've never felt that Strats would suffer much from a loss of some high end frequencies!)

I looked at Guitarfetish's modboards before doing my second Strat, and wasn't entirely sold by their controls scheme. I wanted to retain the standard Strat cosmetics as much as possible without using concentric pots, so It seemed easier for me to adapt the known controls layout of the SD-1 stompbox (esp. since I'd already done one) than to try to figure out how to adapt their modular approach. Also, the circuitry shown at their website looked pretty sparse compared to the SD-1. I don't know if the backside is densely packed with SMT components, but I do like the SD-1's easily-modded old-school construction.

It didn't help that they didn't have any sound samples or that there weren't any Google-able glowing reviews of Modboards at the time. If I'd been more adventurous, it looks like an attractive and easily reversible option to try; it's not outrageously expensive either.

-Jim