Does the world need another overdrive/distortion pedal?

hugbot

I found this pedal discription the other day. Play spot the cliche:

The Caveman™ Overdrive is an extremely transparent overdrive that has an amazingly versatile range of sounds! This pedal nails every sound from full distorted tones to softer overdrive. The one thing about the caveman that amazes players is the dynamics. They are simply amazing. Not only is the caveman drive one of the best sounding drives on the market, it is the best feeling. The Caveman™ is one of very few pedals on the market that actually feels and reacts like a cranked tube amp. Go from screaming distortion to sweet, smooth, overdrive with no volume loss by simply lowering your guitar’s volume knob. Perfect for all styles of playing! The controls are volume, tone, drive and a brilliant fixed volume and gain boost which is just enough to give you that push for a solo.

samzadgan

I dont disagree...but its still fun to buy a new shiny box of gain...otherwise, what would i spend money on...????

I guess i could do something stupid and save for a house...

thisisguitar

thorpy6 said:

ChrisMusic said:

EricTheWeary said:

thorpy6 said:

you could say the same about wine, food, whiskey etc etc. all of them have subtly different flavours and the aficionados can tell them apart (for me all whiskey just tastes like burn). The cream will rise to the top so do we need more, the answer is probably not, does it hurt to have more? the answer is not at all. 

that's about right. I quite like whiskey though. I once did a whiskey tasting and compared to each other you could tell the differences. However, give me a shot of whiskey and it's just whiskey flavour to me. Err, so do ten TS variants sound different? Possibly and you could hear changes one from another. Do they all do basically the same thing and are effectively interchangeable? Yep.

That reminded me of a stormy night spent in small bar in Gairloch, with a lovely selection of whisky bottles along the back shelf.

Every one had a very different character, and I developed potentially expensive habits that night.

With little prospect of a good sunrise, and the attendant promise of good photography that the stunning area the Torridon on the north west coast of Scotland offers in abundance, my friends and I worked our way across the shelf, swapping tastes of each others choice of whisky until we hit the bottle that was £200 for a single measure ! 

We stopped there, and that's a bit like how I feel about pedals.  Except maybe the temptation that is Kingsley may have to be sated sometime.  And maybe I'll get back to Torridon and see if that whisky really is that good, and if it really is £200 a shot, or whether that is just a story for the southers to take home.  Even the barman hadn't dared to try it, so maybe it has promise...

the difference between the kingsley and the £200 shot whiskey is that once bought the kingsley will save you money, nothing will get close so you'll stop bothering to search. If the whiskey was that good, you'd be in debt very quickly unless you have very deep pockets.

I thought that… then I bought 2 Pete Cornish Pedals. At least I can believe that it stops with Pete, but now I want some of his others, namely a P-1 :-) 

Fewer and better quality seems a way to go though.

JohnPerry

thisisguitar said:

thorpy6 said:

ChrisMusic said:

EricTheWeary said:

thorpy6 said:

you could say the same about wine, food, whiskey etc etc. all of them have subtly different flavours and the aficionados can tell them apart (for me all whiskey just tastes like burn). The cream will rise to the top so do we need more, the answer is probably not, does it hurt to have more? the answer is not at all. 

that's about right. I quite like whiskey though. I once did a whiskey tasting and compared to each other you could tell the differences. However, give me a shot of whiskey and it's just whiskey flavour to me. Err, so do ten TS variants sound different? Possibly and you could hear changes one from another. Do they all do basically the same thing and are effectively interchangeable? Yep.

That reminded me of a stormy night spent in small bar in Gairloch, with a lovely selection of whisky bottles along the back shelf.

Every one had a very different character, and I developed potentially expensive habits that night.

With little prospect of a good sunrise, and the attendant promise of good photography that the stunning area the Torridon on the north west coast of Scotland offers in abundance, my friends and I worked our way across the shelf, swapping tastes of each others choice of whisky until we hit the bottle that was £200 for a single measure ! 

We stopped there, and that's a bit like how I feel about pedals.  Except maybe the temptation that is Kingsley may have to be sated sometime.  And maybe I'll get back to Torridon and see if that whisky really is that good, and if it really is £200 a shot, or whether that is just a story for the southers to take home.  Even the barman hadn't dared to try it, so maybe it has promise...

the difference between the kingsley and the £200 shot whiskey is that once bought the kingsley will save you money, nothing will get close so you'll stop bothering to search. If the whiskey was that good, you'd be in debt very quickly unless you have very deep pockets.

I thought that… then I bought 2 Pete Cornish Pedals. At least I can believe that it stops with Pete, but now I want some of his others, namely a P-1 :-) 

Fewer and better quality seems a way to go though.

Big Kingsley fan here. Jester, Jouster, Juggler, Page, Bard. But I have one word for you. Weehbo.

thisisguitar

@JohnPerry - I think you are overdue for a gear related meet up!

JohnPerry

We should discuss one of those, south midlands/cotswolds. I know couple of others might be willing

ThorpyFX

Big Kingsley fan here. Jester, Jouster, Juggler, Page, Bard. But I have one word for you. Weehbo.

I do want to try a weehbo, but i also want to know what makes it special?

JohnPerry

thorpy6 said:

Big Kingsley fan here. Jester, Jouster, Juggler, Page, Bard. But I have one word for you. Weehbo.

I do want to try a weehbo, but i also want to know what makes it special?

i can only vouch for the JTM, to be fair. A stunning low-gain Marshall Plexi pedal into my Carr Sportsman and even better into a Cornell 18/20. It has chime, grunt, great control over the mids and a fabulous drive sound which I have to say is more addictive than my Jester and there's even something more pleasing (and more dramatic) about the EQ too. Easily the best of a million solid state pedals I've had. I never thought I would find an OD i would turn to more than the Jester but, well, here it is. Of course, you might try one and think it's crap. I guess it depends on the amp. I'll try it with some of my others in due course and see what happens.

thisisguitar

@JohnPerry - Maybe we should think about one just after Christmas when most people are bored/not gigging/free etc

Dave_Mc

mike_l said:

However I do have a range of pedals which I can back-to-back and compare toneally.

Same here.

THEY ALL SOUND THE SAME FFS

And I still want more. WTF?

thorpy6 said:

you could say the same about wine, food, whiskey etc etc. all of them have subtly different flavours and the aficionados can tell them apart (for me all whiskey just tastes like burn). The cream will rise to the top so do we need more, the answer is probably not, does it hurt to have more? the answer is not at all. 

Didn't they do research a while back which suggested that those sommelier-types were full of it? Even, IIRC, being unable to tell white from red (or possibly vice-versa) in a blind test?

hugbot said:

I found this pedal discription the other day. Play spot the cliche:

The Caveman™ Overdrive is an extremely transparent overdrive that has an amazingly versatile range of sounds! This pedal nails every sound from full distorted tones to softer overdrive. The one thing about the caveman that amazes players is the dynamics. They are simply amazing. Not only is the caveman drive one of the best sounding drives on the market, it is the best feeling. The Caveman™ is one of very few pedals on the market that actually feels and reacts like a cranked tube amp. Go from screaming distortion to sweet, smooth, overdrive with no volume loss by simply lowering your guitar’s volume knob. Perfect for all styles of playing! The controls are volume, tone, drive and a brilliant fixed volume and gain boost which is just enough to give you that push for a solo.

OCD clone I think. There was a big blow-up about it on TGP... I think fuller contacted him and I don't think it's an OCD any more... )

xSkarloey

Based on all of the above then, here's a question: 

What do you think are the touchstone dirt sounds? 

Granted that like colours, you have different shades and tones when it comes to dirt pedals. 

But what are our 'primary' dirt boxes, the basic touchstone pedals that most of the current crop rare based on? 

Dave_Mc

i'd guess:

fuzz: fuzz face, muff and tonebender

overdrive: tubescreamer (probably include SD1-types in that, too), more and more clones/modded ones are coming along in the more transparent mould, so things like your klon, timmy, bluesbreaker etc.

distortion: ds1, rat, distortion+, guvnor/crunchbox types.

there are probably some really obvious ones I've missed there, that's just off the top of my head.

UnclePsychosis

Genuinely dont understand how people get so excited over dirt boxes. Distortion is distortion, really. The things that make me GAS the hardest are the weird and wacky things that actually do something different. The thought of getting excited at another tubescreamer variant just seems totally alien to me.

TheCount

OCD clone I think. There was a big blow-up about it on TGP... I think fuller contacted him and I don't think it's an OCD any more... )

Don't see why Fuller got the arse over it, the OCD is a Voodoo Labs Overdriver, Pot kettle 

JohnPerry

UnclePsychosis said:

Genuinely dont understand how people get so excited over dirt boxes. Distortion is distortion, really.

...and i guess reverb is reverb and a guitar is a guitar.

ICBM

To quite a large degree that is true.

ChrisMusic

JohnPerry said:

We should discuss one of those, south midlands/cotswolds. I know couple of others might be willing

Make that a couple plus one more...   Great idea.

@JohnPerry @thisisguitar

UnclePsychosis

JohnPerry;383628" said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Genuinely dont understand how people get so excited over dirt boxes. Distortion is distortion, really.







...and i guess reverb is reverb and a guitar is a guitar.

In terms of basic sounds, pretty much.

Dave_Mc

TheCount said:

OCD clone I think. There was a big blow-up about it on TGP... I think fuller contacted him and I don't think it's an OCD any more... )

Don't see why Fuller got the arse over it, the OCD is a Voodoo Labs Overdriver, Pot kettle 

I never said he was justified! )

ICBM

TheCount said:

Fuller    arse

There you go.