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
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Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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.
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.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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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).
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.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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... ) )
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein