Time for some total newb observations.

Pyroman

  Alright, so I'm sure most of you guys know all this already, but what the hell.

  I had a go at an MXR Classic Distortion again that I picked up cheap a while back.  I remember being fairly unimpressed with it's range when I first tried it out. ( not very much distortion on it's own, which I thought was the point?  Hell, my Blues Driver gets MUCH hairier...)  Into a clean amp, it really doesn't do much.

  However, when added to an already driven amp, wow!  Now THAT'S what I expected from a distortion.  I was using the '70s Brit model on my SC X2 ( it's a Plexi, I believe.), which I love already.  When I turned the pedal on, it just added all this mojo to the tone!  Never took over the tone, just added more crunch and enhanced the heck out of it.  What I got was all this warm growl that put a huge grin on my face.

  Same goes for "goose-ing" a '78 Distortion with an overdrive pedal.  ( Mustang amp this time)  The dist pedal seemed to absorb all the level boost I could feed it, and just get better and better w/o getting too over the top.  My Strat was sounding mean as hell, and I'm sure the neighbors were NOT happy, as the master volume just magically kept turning itself up...   I always figured the boost would be cumulative going into the amp, but the Mustang handled it w/o even flinching.  I was pleasantly surprised at how far I could turn up the level on the distortion, w/o hitting the limiter in the Mustang.

  On the other hand, the fuzz pedal sounded like absolute shit.  Just fizzy and nasty sounding.  Not at ALL what it sounds like in front of the Super Champ, or my class D Markbass amp.

ThePrettyDamned

The dist iii is one of my favourite drive pedals. I like the sound on its own, too, but it really comes alive when going into an already dirty amp.

daveyh

I have the '78 and push that with a FDII. Apparently it was designed to work in tandem with the Modified OD in just this way.

Dave_Mc

^ That possibly is true. They leave out the "designed by Boss" bit, though. Far as I'm aware the 78 is a glorified DS1 while the od is a glorified SD1.

daveyh

Dave_Mc said:

^ That possibly is true. They leave out the "designed by Boss" bit, though. Far as I'm aware the 78 is a glorified DS1 while the od is a glorified SD1.

They state somewhere they're designed to work together. Yes the '78 is a modified DS1, they haven't hidden that it's a modified 'classic circuit'. Don't know if the Mod OD is a SD1, but I have heard that it's similar to a Green Rhino. Over on freestompboxes.org someone has traced the circuit and it's apparently very similar to the the Zakk Wylde overdrive.

Pyroman

  The Mod OD has a two band eq - Tone and 100hz.  This, and the Green Rhino are the only ones I've seen like that.   Full Tone's Secret Freq has something similar.

  I wish more pedals had something like that.  There's a HUGE eq difference between my Strat and my Solo Special.  Esp when using the P90 neck pickup.  An already bassy guitar with a bassy pickup.

ICBM

daveyh said:

I have the '78 and push that with a FDII. Apparently it was designed to work in tandem with the Modified OD in just this way.

'Designed' as in "we know the SD-1 into the DS-1 is a great combination, so we'll nick *both* circuits"?

Dave_Mc

Yeah that's what I meant. ) To be fair- both are "glorified" versions. I haven't tried either, but the od has a bass control which is pretty handy, and presumably it also solves the sd1's bypass bleed problem. I think the distortion also has an extra wee switch on it for some extra tones.

But yeah, "designed to work together" is pushing it, if you ask me.

Pyroman

  Yep- the '78 Dist has a crunch switch on it.  I haven't noticed much of a difference, so I normally leave it on.   I almost always play at low volume, though- perhaps it has a greater effect when you open the amp up more.  MXR says it adds more dynamics and harmonic content- it's not a boost.

 Be that as it may, and whatever circuit it's based on, it sounds good and responds well to being pushed with an OD.