and for my next stupid question.........which distortion pedal for harmonics, fret tapping etc

nickp

i'm going where no man should ever go........into the world of widdling, tapped harmonics, fret tapping and whammy bar dives.

or I will be when I finish sorting out my new strat equipped with a seymour duncan JB jnr.

I have a fairly high gain amp (engl screamer) but don't have the gain up that far usually so I could do with a distortion pedal to send it into metal widdling heaven.

will the good old boss sd1 do the trick (or a clone of the sd1 like the little mooer) or are there better pedals out there.  I don't want to spend a fortune on it as "metal" widdling isn't part of my core sound.  

cheers as usual

nick

octatonic

The Engl Screamer has more than enough gain for harmonics and tapping.

viz

Yep, tubescreamer, sd1, ds1 you name it.

ICBM

The SD-1 is the king of forced harmonics. The amp may have enough gain by itself anyway, but the pedal really adds something that makes the harmonics jump out. Not a surprise that Zakk Wylde used one for years until he switched to his signature MXR - which is pretty much an SD-1 but more expensive and with a crap switch.

monquixote

If you are putting it into the already dirty Engl then yes a TS or SD1 would be perfect. 

An alternative choice would be an Xotic AC Boost it's what Paul Gilbert uses for maximum shred and it also has the benefit of sounding fantastic into a clean amp as well. 

As it's the forum official pedal the Liquid Sunshine MKII can also be used to make amps go bonkers if you crank the mid focussed gain.

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

The SD-1 is the king of forced harmonics. The amp may have enough gain by itself anyway, but the pedal really adds something that makes the harmonics jump out. Not a surprise that Zakk Wylde used one for years until he switched to his signature MXR - which is pretty much an SD-1 but more expensive and with a crap switch.

+1

A tubescreamer works pretty well too- sd1 has a little more bite and may be slightly better for the harmonics thing as a result, but i find with some brighter/fizzier amps it can be too fizzy. conversely if the amp is smoothish already the ts can be too smooth/honky and the sd1 is better. IMO. Not sure which I'd prefer for the screamer, I'm not sure I've ever used a boost with it. They're pretty bright though so the ts (or a cheaper clone just to see) might be better, but :?

I'd definitely say if your amp has enough preamp gain (and the screamer does) I'd use that and use a boost instead of going for a standalone distortion pedal through the clean channel, you get (IMO) way, way, way better results that way. Kind of like having a ferrari and saying you don't feel like driving it in top gear but still want to have fun racing it.

if you don't want to put the gain up too high, though, you could still maybe get away with two boosts- i normally use a fairly transparent boost for rhythm tones and then kick in a ts or sd1 clone for leads. again, personally I think that works way better than a distortion pedal.

nickp

i tend to leave the engl gain fairly low at about 10 -11 o clock (on both channels) as it gives me a good rock tone without going bonkers all over the place and fits in with the music we normally play.  It has taken me a while to get the thing dialed in as I like it (coz it is bright as you say @Dave_Mc - you might remember advising me on which speakers to use etc etc ) and i'd prefer to leave the amp set up for most of the set and use a pedal if necessary.

I haven't tried the amp cranked up to sensible volumes with the new guitar whilst trying to do the frettappy widdling.

the SD1/DS1 is nice and cheap so it won't be a hassle to get one and go from there. I've already got a TS clone but have to say that i'm not overly in love with the sound and it is touch and go whether it'll stay on the board.

my new strat (with the JB jnr in the bridge position) is now in bits waiting for a new wilkinson trem and tuners (and tone pot mods thanks to @icbm) so i have a week or two to sneak a boss pedal in the front door

cheers 

Nick

nickp

and rather off topic, the pedal I am in love with is the lovepedal OD 11 - great for a warm bluesy tone through the clean channel as the engl crunch is quite "in your face"

ElectroDan

Maybe a good compressor would be the answer, You got extra options on your clean sound then too. Putting something like a Wampler Pinnacle into a cranked Engl Screamer might tear you a new one!

littlegreenman

I would suggest a Blackstar Dist-X into the clean channel, perfect for what you want and eminently tweakable. It may be a bit large for your board though if it's only going to be a one-trick pony.

ThePrettyDamned

Boss SD-1 or similar.  

The only issue with them is the buffer is a bit weird.  @ICBM is this moddable?

Love the Engl, try running it at higher gain, then rolling volume back.  That works pretty well, though I prefer keeping things full up and stamping on something.

Dave_Mc

nickp said:

i tend to leave the engl gain fairly low at about 10 -11 o clock (on both channels) as it gives me a good rock tone without going bonkers all over the place and fits in with the music we normally play.  It has taken me a while to get the thing dialed in as I like it (coz it is bright as you say @Dave_Mc - you might remember advising me on which speakers to use etc etc ) and i'd prefer to leave the amp set up for most of the set and use a pedal if necessary.

I haven't tried the amp cranked up to sensible volumes with the new guitar whilst trying to do the frettappy widdling.

the SD1/DS1 is nice and cheap so it won't be a hassle to get one and go from there. I've already got a TS clone but have to say that i'm not overly in love with the sound and it is touch and go whether it'll stay on the board.

my new strat (with the JB jnr in the bridge position) is now in bits waiting for a new wilkinson trem and tuners (and tone pot mods thanks to @icbm) so i have a week or two to sneak a boss pedal in the front door

cheers 

Nick

yeah I think i remember

if you don't like a ts I dunno about an sd1. They sound a fair bit different, but are still in the same ballpark (ish).

a boost (or the double boost thing i mentioned above) might do enough if your gain is on 11 o'clock on the highest gain channel.

another advantage of the sd1 over the ts is that i think it is better than the ts if you want to add a bit of pedal dirt as well, the ts gets very honky if you turn the drive on the pedal above zero whereas the sd1 isn't so bad in that respect (and you might need a bit of pedal drive too if you want to keep the gain on the amp low). and doing that might make more sense than running straight to two boosts.

ICBM

I think the SD-1 in particular and the TS to a large extent add some extra harmonic stuff that a plain boost pushing the amp harder doesn't - it's the combination of the pedal drive and the valve drive that unleashes the touch-sensitive harmonic madness .

It is definitely the SD-1 you want and not the DS-1 - I love the DS-1, as an actual drive sound I much prefer it to the SD, but it doesn't do that forced harmonic thing anywhere near as well.

Although SD-1 into DS-1 into amp is brilliant if too much is still not quite enough .

monquixote

I love a ds1 into a dirty amp. It's a real satch type sound

nickp

@dave_mc it is the honkyness that i don't like.  i'll try the TS with gain at zero as i have one sitting around

thomasross20

Suhr riot (reloaded). Try it in a shop and weep at its power

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

I think the SD-1 in particular and the TS to a large extent add some extra harmonic stuff that a plain boost pushing the amp harder doesn't - it's the combination of the pedal drive and the valve drive that unleashes the touch-sensitive harmonic madness .

It is definitely the SD-1 you want and not the DS-1 - I love the DS-1, as an actual drive sound I much prefer it to the SD, but it doesn't do that forced harmonic thing anywhere near as well.

Although SD-1 into DS-1 into amp is brilliant if too much is still not quite enough .

agreed. when i said "boost" there i meant "overdrive". )

and yeah i wonder is it the mids (and/or the compression)? i've tried distortion pedals as boosts as well, and while they "work", they don't normally work as well as a ts or sd1-type. more transparent overdrives (and i suppose clean boosts too) don't seem to bring out the pinches as well either and they have fewer mids and less compression (though I like them for rhythm tones as they're not as honky and more transparent and crunchier).

nickp said:

@dave_mc it is the honkyness that i don't like.  i'll try the TS with gain at zero as i have one sitting around

yeah if my daphon sd1 clone is anything to go by, it's a bit less honky, but it depends on how much it annoys you- it's still pretty middy.

matt1973

Not a pedal but an Ibanez shred guitar sure helps a lot for harmonics...

ICBM

Dave_Mc said:

and yeah i wonder is it the mids (and/or the compression)? i've tried distortion pedals as boosts as well, and while they "work", they don't normally work as well as a ts or sd1-type. more transparent overdrives (and i suppose clean boosts too) don't seem to bring out the pinches as well either and they have fewer mids and less compression (though I like them for rhythm tones as they're not as honky and more transparent and crunchier).

I think it's to do with that feedback clipping circuit where the dirt is essentially part of the gain of the op-amp, rather than amplifying a clean signal and then clipping it as most distortion pedals do. The SD-1 even more so, since the clipping is asymetrical, and it seems to interact even more with the amp. Hard to explain, but there is *something* in that "TS-type" circuit which makes it naturally brilliant when running into an already overdriving valve amp. Just one of those magic accidents, it was never meant for that .

Dave_Mc

That may well be so )

What about the more transparent ods which have the feedback loop clipping too? E.g. the timmy or something like that? They don't seem to bring out the pinches as well as a ts or sd1 (though maybe they're not quite the same in terms of circuit design either, I kind of know just enough about these electronics things to consistently get the wrong end of the stick... ) )

ICBM

I haven't played one personally, but from what I can tell from the available schematics, the Timmy (and the Zendrive, although it uses different clipping elements) use the TS-type clipping circuit but with Rat-type filtering… maybe that takes the edge off them - although the Rat itself is good too, just not as good as a TS for this! So probably the midrange boost is important too. It might even be something to do with the tone circuit as well - it's years since I had a Boss OD-1 (basically a SD-1 without the tone part), it would be interesting to compare it.