Have you ever had a pedal that sounds flat into a clean amp, but somehow creates a magical tone when pushing an overdriven tube amp? I can assume the answer for a lot of you is yes. I guess that’s kind of the nature of OD pedals, but let me tell you a bit about what I’m experiencing.
I have a few pedals that I like to use to push my amp from light drive into different flavors of heavy drive. My two favorites end up sounding very similar into my 1987, so one of them needs to get kicked off the pedalboard, in the interest of saving space. So, I’ve been doing A/B testing to help me choose between them.
Into a clean amp, they’re quite different. One is a JFET based pedal I designed and built myself. It’s an amp-in-a-box style pedal that, on its own, sounds very much like a good tube preamp. It has a nicely balanced frequency spectrum from bottom to top, nicely dynamic, and cleans up well.
The second pedal is a modified Nobels ODR-mini, which is a fairly traditional op amp and clipping diode overdrive. I modified it to streamline the low end and give it a little more air on top. Into a clean amp, it has a very round and juicy midrange, but a somewhat rolled off treble, and the kind of boxy, stiff feel op amp based overdrives tend to have.
You’d think the more amp-like pedal would have the advantage over the very ordinary overdrive, but this is really a tough choice. When played into the driven 1987, the custom pedal has slightly better note definition and clarity, but the ODR gives a slightly thicker, rounder, rougher grind. The craziest difference between the two is what happens when you roll down the guitar’s volume. Despite the clarity of the custom pedal at higher distortion levels, it sounds woolier than the ODR with the guitar volume down. The ODR sounds more glassy and shimmering. They both clean up well with the driven amp, though.
Right now I’m leaning toward the ODR. I like the idea of having the custom pedal on the board in case I have to play through a very clean amp at some point. But, I’m not a pro musician for hire, so I’m most likely going to be playing through my own amps. Because of that, I don’t really *need* an amp-in-a-box.
It’s just crazy how a pedal that sounds so uninspired on its own can drive an amp to such a great tone. It’s like the sum is greater than the parts. I know some guys swear by sticking to all-tube, amp-only overdrive, but these are IMO the best tones I’ve ever had. Thanks for reading! Cheers!
I have a few pedals that I like to use to push my amp from light drive into different flavors of heavy drive. My two favorites end up sounding very similar into my 1987, so one of them needs to get kicked off the pedalboard, in the interest of saving space. So, I’ve been doing A/B testing to help me choose between them.
Into a clean amp, they’re quite different. One is a JFET based pedal I designed and built myself. It’s an amp-in-a-box style pedal that, on its own, sounds very much like a good tube preamp. It has a nicely balanced frequency spectrum from bottom to top, nicely dynamic, and cleans up well.
The second pedal is a modified Nobels ODR-mini, which is a fairly traditional op amp and clipping diode overdrive. I modified it to streamline the low end and give it a little more air on top. Into a clean amp, it has a very round and juicy midrange, but a somewhat rolled off treble, and the kind of boxy, stiff feel op amp based overdrives tend to have.
You’d think the more amp-like pedal would have the advantage over the very ordinary overdrive, but this is really a tough choice. When played into the driven 1987, the custom pedal has slightly better note definition and clarity, but the ODR gives a slightly thicker, rounder, rougher grind. The craziest difference between the two is what happens when you roll down the guitar’s volume. Despite the clarity of the custom pedal at higher distortion levels, it sounds woolier than the ODR with the guitar volume down. The ODR sounds more glassy and shimmering. They both clean up well with the driven amp, though.
Right now I’m leaning toward the ODR. I like the idea of having the custom pedal on the board in case I have to play through a very clean amp at some point. But, I’m not a pro musician for hire, so I’m most likely going to be playing through my own amps. Because of that, I don’t really *need* an amp-in-a-box.
It’s just crazy how a pedal that sounds so uninspired on its own can drive an amp to such a great tone. It’s like the sum is greater than the parts. I know some guys swear by sticking to all-tube, amp-only overdrive, but these are IMO the best tones I’ve ever had. Thanks for reading! Cheers!
