Been bitten by the overdrive bug, what in the world should I do? A rambling journey of some sorts...

stylesforfree

LastMantra said:

I've came to the conclusion that they all (especially when 2 or more are stacked) they all end up sounding the same. 

Yeah, I've definitely found that the majority of overdrive pedals sound very similar with the Keeley oxblood and bearfoot honey beest being 2 of the odd ones out.

The superbolt and the twin twelve are both voiced quite similarly, with the twin twelve being very dark when the treble isn't dimed, but you can match the tone on one to the other very closely.

The Hudson has a pronounced sparkly high end at certain settings that sets it apart from the rest when using single coils

But on the whole a lot of overdrives sound the same at one setting or another. 

StefB

TheBigDipper said:

I'm partial to the Wampler Pantheon Deluxe into a clean/ish Fendery channel. Not so much into a Marshally one. And another vote for the Mojo Mojo. 

My main drive pedal for the last few months. 

Sounds great into my MkIV Hot Rod Deville and surprisingly good through the Normal channel of my AC30C2. 

stylesforfree

The accomplished badger has muscled its way ahead of the caroline blues. The extra op-amp gain stage and internal dip-switches just give it quite a bit more versatility with the silicon diodes, adding more range throughout the knob as you go from edge of break up to crunch and fuzzy overdrive.

Couple of quick questions for anyone still following my ramblings...I am thinking of picking up a Hudson dual footswitch....

First question: Does it sound and will it sound EXACTLY the same as my single footswitch, because I have come to love the sound of it so much.

Second question: Is there much benefit from having a dual footswitch if im just recording and noodling and not playing live?

theterracat

FWIW - am nowhere near where you are on this journey, many cheers to you for documenting it! I have been mostly trying to naturally overdrive amps with lots of clean boost or by pushing them into my Fryette to attenuate. That said, I'm waiting on an order for the dual footswitch Hudson Broadcast at the moment, and am very excited to try it. I've been looking for that early Steely Dan straight-into-cranked-console soloing sound on a few numbers. (Not the Carlton 5e3 sound, separate obsession.) The "console sound" thing is its own separate obsession to explore though, because you end up looking up which mic preamps were used in which consoles which were used on which albums, etc.   

But I'm excited to try this Broadcast. From what research I did, the dual switch should be capable of precisely the same sounds as the single switch, but the dual more adjustable. At least that was my takeaway from reading lots of Hudson's site and forum posts, and it is why I went dual myself.

Can anyone speak to why one might prefer a Sidecar to a Broadcast, though? Other than the cooler name?

stylesforfree

The broadcast is simply incredible, very low noise, tons of headroom when running it at 18v, very wide range on all the knobs, stacks well, can get mildly saggy and compressed depending on what pickups you use. It can be an always on boost, and goes from sparkly trebley open sounds to fuzzy heavy crunch.

roberty

stylesforfree said:

The broadcast is simply incredible, very low noise, tons of headroom when running it at 18v, very wide range on all the knobs, stacks well, can get mildly saggy and compressed depending on what pickups you use. It can be an always on boost, and goes from sparkly trebley open sounds to fuzzy heavy crunch.

Glad you're enjoying it. It's one of my favourite fuzzes, in my top 3 out of the 60 I own. How it excels at everything else on top of that is just baffling to me, and quite amazing 

pintspiller

Depends on your budget, but don't forget some expensive ones are small runs or handmade clones/variants of popular or historic pedals. 

EBay can be a great source of used hear too. I bought and sold a good few Boss pedals this way, but haven't kept many.

stylesforfree

roberty said:

stylesforfree said:

The broadcast is simply incredible, very low noise, tons of headroom when running it at 18v, very wide range on all the knobs, stacks well, can get mildly saggy and compressed depending on what pickups you use. It can be an always on boost, and goes from sparkly trebley open sounds to fuzzy heavy crunch.

Glad you're enjoying it. It's one of my favourite fuzzes, in my top 3 out of the 60 I own. How it excels at everything else on top of that is just baffling to me, and quite amazing 

You own 60 fuzzes?!?! Mamma mia!!

stylesforfree

So, I definitely need another overdrive like I need a hole in the head...but ya know, when you see something you want to try, you just gotta try it.



And here we have the Keeley Retro Super Phat Mod Germanium overdrive. From overdrive to cranked amp to fuzzy face melting madness. I stumbled across it after looking at various blues driver shootout videos...

So the nuts and bolts, or the meat and potatoes of this thing......it's a modified blues driver with a germanium transistor gain stage and another gain stage which isn't specified as to what it actually is, maybe a JFET?

Anyway, it basically lives in PHAT mode because why not? Flat mode is cool for a humbucking lead sound but phat mode is where its at.

Tone control is usable throughout the whole range pretty much, it doesn't get too dark all the way down and it sparkles when dimed (just gotta keep the nitro in check!)

Level is bets kept pretty low as there's plenty of boost on tap.

The nitro is very interactive with the guitar volume and you really need to work both together, while it is quite touch responsive, I am pretty heavy handed and find that working the guitar volume and having the nitro set to noon or a little above gives me the best results otherwise it doesn't really do low-mid gain.

I have nothing to compare this to but it sounds amazing when stacked with the fredric accomplished badger and the hudson broadcast.

I now would like to try out some other blues driver pedals and still have my eye on the original keeley super phat and the fredric blue monarch.

roberty

stylesforfree said:

roberty said:

stylesforfree said:

The broadcast is simply incredible, very low noise, tons of headroom when running it at 18v, very wide range on all the knobs, stacks well, can get mildly saggy and compressed depending on what pickups you use. It can be an always on boost, and goes from sparkly trebley open sounds to fuzzy heavy crunch.

Glad you're enjoying it. It's one of my favourite fuzzes, in my top 3 out of the 60 I own. How it excels at everything else on top of that is just baffling to me, and quite amazing 

You own 60 fuzzes?!?! Mamma mia!!

Yeah it's silly. Lockdown has a lot to answer for. Most of them are DIY

Neilybob

I’m on this journey currently and have found you can get a idea of the tone from YT vids but until you really try a pedal will you know if it’s for you or not.

I currently have -
Demiurge ODR clone
Demiurge Benson preamp and Timmy clone 
Cornerstone Antiquity Mk1 (TS style)
Digitech Bad Monkey 
Ceriatone Horsebreaker (Klon and BB dual pedal)
Tone City Durple ( cheap and underrated)
Hello Sailor Kossoff Drive 
Moondriver (RAT style)
FLB 1991

+ way too many fuzzes.

Would recommend checking out the Funny Little Boxes 1991.  It has 2 OD pots which can be stacked.  

stylesforfree

Neilybob said:

I’m on this journey currently and have found you can get a idea of the tone from YT vids but until you really try a pedal will you know if it’s for you or not.

I currently have -
Demiurge ODR clone
Demiurge Benson preamp and Timmy clone 
Cornerstone Antiquity Mk1 (TS style)
Digitech Bad Monkey 
Ceriatone Horsebreaker (Klon and BB dual pedal)
Tone City Durple ( cheap and underrated)
Hello Sailor Kossoff Drive 
Moondriver (RAT style)
FLB 1991

+ way too many fuzzes.

Would recommend checking out the Funny Little Boxes 1991.  It has 2 OD pots which can be stacked.  

This is like...one year later but as an update, I still have:
JHS Superbolt
JHS Twin Twelve
Frederic Accomplished Badger
Hudson Broascast
lumpy's tone shop class A overdrive
Ramble FX twin bender

I ended up selling the keeley retro super phat and I bought a chase bliss brothers a few weeks ago and now im pretty much done for overdrives