Help with my Drive section

joeyowen

As yee may or may not have seen, I am in the process of selling all my gear to fund new stuff, for no other reason that I fancied a change!  I've got an idea for most sections but I'm struggling with my drive hunt. 

I need a low gain and heavier gain which stack well together.  I play anything from blues, classic rock and modern stuffs (biffy/Jimmy Eat World/Killers etc...) and the variety is making it hard.

My main guitar is a Parker P44 (although a Fender Strat and LP feature a lot).  They are played through a Fender Deville 2x12.

So far I'm thinking a Bogner Red for my heavier needs, but I'm stuck on light drives, so any thoughts on:

XTS Imperial Overdrive

Analogman POT

Something by Providence/Free the Tone

Timmy

Branshen

Not tried any of those, aside from a timmy clone I had. I will chuck a recommendation in however, my favourite low gainer is the blue note OD. It's voiced pretty transparent, but there is a fat knob that will boost the lower mids to "fatten" your tone. And there may be one in the classified somewhere (not mine)..

MattFGBI

Tube Screamer or similar into a Boss DS-1.

I find this to give me pretty much anything. 

joeyowen

MattFGBI said:

Tube Screamer or similar into a Boss DS-1.

I find this to give me pretty much anything. 

I used a TS for a long time, wasn't the biggest fan, but thanks for the suggestion

I also used a Keeley DS1 which is a great pedal!

gubble

EHX Soul Food > Boss DS-1 > Boss SD-1.

 

Simple, cheap, effective.

 

The more drive pedals i own, buy,use the more i keep returning to my SD1 and DS-1. I could have saved thousands over the years by just listening to my ears rather than lusting after plenty of different overdrives

Brad

+1 for the Rockett Blue Note. Excellent pedal for low/mid - gain stuff. 

Sassafras

Sub Decay Liquid Sunshine.

Said it for you Monquixote!

monquixote

Sassafras said:

Sub Decay Liquid Sunshine.

Said it for you Monquixote!

Hey don't muscle in on my territory, they might not give me my commission now!

Seriously though it's the biz. 

The Bogner Red is excellent. I also rate the Riot as a high gainer, as well as the Shredmaster/Son of Hyde (It's a clone).

A superb pairing is the MXR Badass OD and Super Badass. They are designed to work well together and sound vast when stacked.

bingefeller

The Boss OD1X is really great.  The SD-1 Waza sounds good too, although I haven't played it.  

MXR Badass Custom OD is another nice overdrive I really like.  

photek

Get a BMF El Jefe and tell me if it is good as folk say

Lew

Shouldn't you be sodderin ;-)

monquixote

bingefeller said:

The Boss OD1X is really great.  The SD-1 Waza sounds good too, although I haven't played it.  

MXR Badass Custom OD is another nice overdrive I really like.  

The OD-1X is really cool especially if you play down tuned.

meltedbuzzbox

I would think a Nobels ODR1 and a RAT would give you a lot of what you want

Sassafras

^ The Rat is a hell of a lot more versatile than just 'distortion' would suggest. Everything from clean to scream.

GavRichList

Crowther Hotcake

Beexter

joeyowen said:

As yee may or may not have seen, I am in the process of selling all my gear to fund new stuff, for no other reason that I fancied a change!  I've got an idea for most sections but I'm struggling with my drive hunt. 

I need a low gain and heavier gain which stack well together.  I play anything from blues, classic rock and modern stuffs (biffy/Jimmy Eat World/Killers etc...) and the variety is making it hard.

My main guitar is a Parker P44 (although a Fender Strat and LP feature a lot).  They are played through a Fender Deville 2x12.

So far I'm thinking a Bogner Red for my heavier needs, but I'm stuck on light drives, so any thoughts on:

XTS Imperial Overdrive

Analogman POT

Something by Providence/Free the Tone

Timmy

Admittedly, I have one for sale but you might want to have a look at the Tech21 Double Drive.

It basically gives you a Vox style drive or a Fender/ Marshall style with the ability to run one into the other giving a huge range from light break up to full on drive. It's very dynamic too, reacting well to guitar volume and picking strength. The two drives can be cascaded into each other for "stacking". I play in a covers band and used this for most of my basic drive sounds as it is so flexible. Here's what Tech21 say about it:

"DRIVE A controls the amount of Class A power amp output stage distortion (like Vox AC30®-style amp), rich in even harmonics. The amount of harmonics is dynamically controlled by the input level and their ratio by how hard you pick. DRIVE A/B controls the amount of Class A/B power amp output stage distortion (like Fender®/Marshall®-style amps), rich in odd harmonics."

I'm selling the now discontinued original, not the x3 which has presets. PM me if you're interested.

crunchman

OCD

It has a wide range of gain so it does higher gain as well but I really like it for lower gain stuff.  For the lower gain stuff it can help running it at 12 or 18V.

LewisW

I currently run a JHS Morning Glory into a This1sMyne The Pearl and have found they stack very nicely. (I play a musicman jp6 into a mesa f30 clean channel, flat eq).

The morning glory is a transparent drive in the blue breaker vein... kinda just takes everything I've thrown at it and every time makes the low gain stuff sound great. It can do a good 'thumping' rythm tone for the chords (but never overbearing) and has a cool cut when you need it to.

The pearl's right side is (I think) voiced similar to the morning glory but more gain, a prescence and shine knob (I roll these off a certain amount, clarity is still good) - but stacked with the MG its a really great mid/higher gain tone. The left side is a tubescreamer with loads of headroom, can go fuzzy via clipping switches or be tamed and used to stack either the right side or MG.

Personally.. for a single coil sound, I choose middle position, tone at around 25%, hit the TS side of the pearl... bit of reverb... MG to boost into a gainer side. For just an all out lead tone, bridge/neck - all 3 parts of the pedals on, verb/delay in the loop and for me its just a great clear marshall sounding tone.

another option could be ... a JHS double barrel, its a morning glory into a tubescreamer.. and you can change the order.

Hope this helps a bit.

mike_l

photek said:

Get a BMF El Jefe and tell me if it is good as folk say

You haven't had one? Must be the only one.............

 

You could do a *lot* worse than the Hardwire Tube overdrive and Tube Distortion for a pair of drive pedals.

For the low-mid gains MXR do some nice drives. The Distortion3 and/or Custom Badass distortions are excellent low-mid gain pedals.

tone1

Bit of a curveball but I love my Palmer Solid metal to bits! Love it for AC/DC, Gary Moore and loads more beyond and it's cheap as chips

joeyowen

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, so far we have:

TS - Used one before, I guess not for me

DS1 - Used one before, I guess not for me

SD1 - Used one before, I guess not for me

Soul Food - Tempting, but I'd most likely get an Arc Effects or Archer

Timmy - Tempting as well, seem to be the must have over at TGP

Blue Note - Not actually heard this pedal, so will check it out cheers

Riot - Love the sounds this pedal can get, not sure if it is versatile enough though

Liquid Sunshine - Will check it out

Badass OD - Sounded ok, but heard that it can sound fizzy (at TGP)

Nobels ODr1 - Love the sound, the XTS imperial is an improved version supposedly

Rat - The rat model on the M13 sounded good, but there are sooooo many difference versions
Crowther Hotcake - The gigRig demo of the Radiohead board made this sound great, and I was tempted for a while

Tech21 double drive - Never heard it, will check it out

OCD - Like the hotcake, I've heard good things and was tempted for a while (must have been skint at the time)

JHS Morning Glory - I like what i've heard from JHS, so I'll listen to some demos

The Pearl - I like the guys stuff, but his general attitude really puts me off... Someone said their overdrive was making noise when he wasn't playing, so he replied with, well turn it off then.  He then bragged about said reply on Facebook....

Palmer Solid metal - Haven't heard, so will check it out!

Thanks for the suggestions some great stuff to listen to here