Pedal geeks i need u (help jjjusten make decisions about awesome pedals for his store)

Define "good"

Idiot Box D4 has a really unique sound that's difficult to explain but is organic and smooth like pretty much no other.

Death Metal Distortion is a classic but I always think it's more like a 3 band eq that also clips like crazy.

Rocktron Silver Dragon is tremendous with guitar but useless with everything else.

Nine of Swords Funeral Party is a superb lofi grind/crust box.

Danelectro Black Liquorice is much better than you'd think, as is the Black Coffee.

All distortion pedals sound better with a Greasy Tool in the chain imo.

As an admirer of pedals and an observer of other people's use of them, I feel like the Rat still has something to offer. Personally I am less fond of Tube Screamers, but there are so many flavors of TS out there that maybe there is one for you.

As a guitar player I rarely have a pure distortion pedal on the board - I have a couple ways of getting to overdrive and to direct amp crunch, and that's usually all the dirt I need.

Happy to see the Danelectros getting some love from aldo; I have a bunch of el cheapo Fab pedals that I still like.

i've been through a ton of distortion pedals and tbh the one you'd have to pry from my cold dead hands is my whiteface Rat reissue

obj if you nee something for like downtrend metal there may be better options, and there are a ton of different awesome flavors, but fuck if god didn't get it right the first time with the rat

fkn autocorrect! *downtuned* metal obv

i just got my first rat the other day. always wrote them off for some reason but boy was i wrong. rat into muff is amazing.

I've got a bootleg clone from China that does Rat/TurboRat/YouDirtyRat via a toggle switch and I need to experiment with it more.

well you guys saved me some money at least

I mean, if you want to mess around with all the flavors in the ice cream store there are lots of good ones :)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/69/ad/7c/69ad7ceec72253785541cac2bf90742d.jpg

The rat is awesome (well, the lm308 based ones at least) but it's very much it's own thing. Store was a madhouse today so I didn't get a lot of time to think about distortion options, but I'll throw some fun ideas your way soon.

does anyone have any of those tc electronic pedals with the toneprint thing where you can dial in custom sounds from your smartphone? my sister has one and i briefly played around with it and it seemed kind of awkward but maybe it's cool?

I've always wondered about those.

i've used a couple of them (the flashback and the phaser) and it's a cool feature with some interesting sounds but my impression was it was a bit of a gimmick. maybe it's cooler when you're using one of the cut-down mini versions of the delay or reverb or whatever so you can add new sounds?

i don't have either of those pedals anymore btw, make of that what u will

I think Source Audio does it better.

Yeah I've been slowly getting rid of our tc stock - being bought by behringer didn't help

Did not know that! About tc being bought by Behringer, I mean.

RAT question got me thinking, what is borad loving for distortion these days?

I don't do modern high-gain so i'm pretty happy running a Rangemaster type boost into a Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret

I've come to the conclusion I'm a fuzz guy not a distortion guy.

i'm enjoying the stone deaf pdf-2 at the moment

goes all the way from a nice light overdrive to dooooooom but i think you really need the accompanying expression pedal (which i don't have) to get the most out of it

I am still using a 25-year-old hot pink DOD Thrash Master and a Sovtek Big Muff so I could probably do with something a bit more modern.

pdf-2 with expression pedal is actually one of the few things on my current temptation list. that and believe it or not the strymon DIG delay

Before I get into this, I want to say that I don't really care much for so-called "transparent" drive pedals. I want tone coloration. I want the pedal to be noticed when it's engaged. If I want a clean boost, I'll either turn my amp or my guitar up.

In the past little while, I've been really into two absolutely classic drive pedals: the Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer and the Boss BD-2 Blues Driver.

The Tube Screamer was picked up because I found that many of the drive boxes I've liked in the past have been labeled as either Tube Screamer clones, or Tube Screamer-inspired pedals. And that thing is just super dope. I guess there are variations within each generation of the pedal, but I'm totally fine with how this one sounds.

The BD-2 is actually a reacquisition for me, as it's the Waza version. When I first bought a Waza Blues Driver a couple years ago, I did so simply based on the fact that I knew Robert Smith used one of the originals frequently throughout the 90s and I was chasing his tone. At that point, the only other drive pedal I'd ever owned was an MXR Prime Distortion, which I did not like (it's essentially MXR's version of the DS-1). I knew absolutely dick about drive pedals and was playing through a bass practice amp, so no amount of awesome pedals would really do much for how mushy that amp made me sound. Fast forward to now and I've got a better understanding of what my needs and expectations for drive boxes are and an amp that I very much love and the Blues Driver came back onto my radar as an article of interest. Saw the Waza one in the used case at Guitar Center and didn't even think twice. I remember, in my initial experience with the pedal, I did not find the difference between the "Standard" and "Custom" modes offered by the Waza version to be that distinct from each other. Again, running into a crap amp, I have no idea what I expected. Now, the difference between them is clear as day (and the "Custom" mode is the money one). Overall, it's a much more diverse pedal than I remember. It can do everything from a clean, transparent boost, to a totally dynamic crunch. I can honestly say now that it's one of my favorite drive pedals.

All that, and I'm still super into that MXR Custom Shop Shin-Juku Drive. That thing is kind of my ideal type of drive pedal. Super dark, super smooth. Just lovely.

My two favorite distortions (excluding od/Fuzz/amp sims despite the deeeeeply blurry lines there) at the moment are the Caroline Wave Cannon MK II and the criminally under praised DOD Gunslinger.

Oh shit, and the Greenhouse Nobrainer. And the Greer Southland (yeah they call it an overdrive, whatever). And the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Fault.

That's it. For now. Probably.

I love a Blues Driver. Been using it a lot for evil mandolin.

But must reapectfully quibble on this:

I don't really care much for so-called "transparent" drive pedals. I want tone coloration. I want the pedal to be noticed when it's engaged. If I want a clean boost, I'll either turn my amp or my guitar up.

For me the point of clean boost - I generally use an EH LPB-1 - is that I can do it with my feet. I am a live performance guy. I can't very well walk over to the amp midsong, turn it up to play a solo, then walk back and turn it back down when the solo is over. And yes I know the knob is there on the guitar but I lack the coordination to turn it up exactly the right amount, then turn it down exactly the right amount, all while still playing.

Overdrives add distortion when they add volume - I need the aviliry to turn a clean sound up, but have it remain clean.

avirly = ability

Though it might mean something like partying with Avril Lavigne.

Plus clean boosts can drive pedals like fuzzes and muffs into very cool sonic territory. Gotta have that boost!

I like a comp for that too. boost + sustaiiiiiiiiin

this looks sweet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i3UzU-4PGc

Hologram Dream Sequence sequencer/arpeggiator/pitch shifter/etc

― na (NA), Monday, October 17, 2016 5:33 PM

what do ppl make of these? was just looking at an infinite jets on cl. weird pedals are good but i can't fully get on board w/ these for some reason. maybe just the results don't justify the price but lets slap some retro grafx on it the kids love that nowadays

Dude, I just got the Xotic EP Booster and that thing is fucking sweet. It's not really transparent, but it has a very mild tone coloration and it sounds so full. It is such a simple, but damn fine pedal. The internal EQ switch really fattens up the low end, making for a very dark, murky tone that's just huge. I'm having a hard time not using it as an "always on" pedal.

why not just use it as an "always on" pedal then?

I don't know. For some reason, I have this belief that relying too much on one pedal is "cheating" or something. . . ?

However, I have always had at least one "always on" reverb, so I don't know why I would view a drive pedal any differently.

Something something purist, or whatever.

I resist having anything "always on" for equally amorphous and abstract reasons, I suspect.

One sometimes has this notion that if it's taking up space on the board, then it needs a reason to be there - a reason to stomp on it or leave it in-stomped-upon. If sonic variety is the goal, and board real estate is scarce, you want everything there to change the sound if you step on it.

My goal is to like the sound of the amp so much that nothing is "always on"; every time you stomp on something it gives you something new. That said, I am in a complicated love-hate relationship with my amplifiers. We agree on many things, but reverb is kid of a contentious area right now. So I do sometimes lean on an always-on reverb. But honest, I could quit any time.

i use the xotic ep booster as an always on pedal

BBE Boosta Grande is a nice inexpensive clean boost pedal. I like that one. I think a boost pedal works pretty well with an amp like say most Mesas or say a JCM800 where you are going to get the distortion from the amp and not a pedal. Overdrives and distortions compress the signal quite a bit more where the boost just gives a lift and maybe a bit of high end rise.

It's not unusual in some rigs to have a clean boost at the end of a long pedal board and/or before long cable run as last pedal before an amp, running it as a buffer on the signal.

The just announced Meris Polymoon delay looks amazing.

sorta cross post from the synth zone but this thing

http://www.bastl-instruments.com/instruments/thyme/

remember joysticks? remember cartridges? remember iran-contra?...

https://www.eltamusic.com/console

huh. it's like what devi ever was trying to do but they went ahead and actually made it.

that looks cool but i guarantee if i got it i'd lose half the cartridges immediately

They are just about pick-sized.

i lose my picks all the time!

Have you checked the laundry or perhaps the soundhole of an acoustic? That's where mine end up usually.

nothing cooler in the middle of a show than bending down and replacing the tiny cartridges in your pedal

Also remembering stuff like "Is it left left up that gives me the cool bloopy blippy sound? Or is it right left down? Wait, no, that's the sound that goes zowie blippity bloop."

I see things in the Synth Zone thread with wacky tiny patch bays and a zillion knobs, and have the same thought. This seems like the kind of thing you want if you're committed to one-time unrepeatable experiments, or you're simply a noyz dood. Which is fine if that's what you're into!

Personally when I perform I kinda want to know what is going to come out of the speaker. It's hard enough just to remember what I'm supposed to be playing! Even Kaoss pad type things are a bit much for me.

I guess the difference is the Devi Ever pedal can have discrete circuitry, whereas this must be DSP-based.

Surely the joystick is just like two pots (X axis and Y axis)? Not too complex...

guys, nothing devi ever turns out well

well, she did sell me a Little Big Muff and that worked out fine

currently loving:
- MXR reverb
- Strymon DIG
- Catalinbread Katzenkönig

current objects of curiosity:
- Alexander F.13N neo flanger
- Hudson Broadcast (but there are so many different versions it makes me dizzy)