bonnybilly wrote:Hey,

I be using a vox bulldog 'valve' (9v, yeah right) pedal, actually sounds very good. Also 2 line 6 delay modellers (1 ain't enough). The rest of gain/tone comes from my Mesa f50, which is very un Mesa like...if you keep the gain below halfway!

i've found that with a good guitar and good amp, you've got a lot of room for a weak link in the chain.

mr.arrison wrote:Xotic RC Booster for Guitar. Love everything about it, except the "Comic Sans" typeface on its dials...

they make them in "copper":

so cool, to look.

mr.arrison wrote:Xotic RC Booster for Guitar. Love everything about it, except the "Comic Sans" typeface on its dials...

Nice stuff, this xotic, but they don't make distortions, right? These are only boosts - sort of like a boutique Micro Amp.
Do you just use this to push the amp? Any other distortion/OD in line?

-A

I've been using my DOD Graphic EQ pedal extensively to push my Hiwatt Lead 100 into overdrive/distortion. I like it a lot.

I think I'm going to knock up a proper boost pedal when I have the time and money for components. So easy.

I really like the old beige Ross Distortion. If you can find one, the old AC-powered MXR Distortion II is an excellent pedal.

I get most of my distortion through my Park Lead's inherent sound, but I frequently use a Maxxon compressor to boost the signal.

I also have two old Foxx Tone Machines that come and go in the pedalboard, for hideous noise.

Currently in rotation are

Marshall Guv'nor
Electro Harmonix Little Big Muff Pi

In the retired rack are

Pro Co Turbo Rat
Sovtek Big Muff Pi
Fuzz Face
DOD Overdrive

I've gone through a bunch of distortions in the last month.

Ross Distortion (black Taiwan version) ($40 used): Sounds like a less noisy MXR Dist+ with more gain to spare. Less shrill high end. less overall tonesuck. Still love the MXR though.

Boss SD-1 ($35 new): Didn't like this one at all. Good amount of gain, but has a nasty ultra-generic mid hump thingy. Makes your amp sound like its playing through a telephone speaker. Definitely not as cool as it sounds. Bad in a bad way. SOLD.

Ashbass Fuzzbrite ($70 used): This pedal slays. Its a clone of the Mosrite Fuzzrite. Nasty, ear-splitting treble boost fuzz. Cuts through well for the leads. Pretty cheap, very very worth the $$. Point to point wired.

Frantone Sweet ($100 used): Sounds like shit. Tons of gain. Sounds like a big muff tweaked for a nu-metal edge. Avoid this pedal. SOLD.

Fulltone 70 ($100 used): I didn't like this pedal at all either. Muddy, Hendrix fuzz. You can mess with the bias pot to get it to sound crazy, but still too bassy. SOLD.

Fulltone OCD ($130 used): This pedal sounded like total crap through my amp. Tons of bass, not enough gain. Completely unusable as a distortion. I couldn't find anything redeeming about it, regardless of all the internet hype surrounding it. Big let down. SOLD.

Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster ($40 new): Was cool at first, but now I am realizing that it doesn't do that much except raise the volume a little. I think mine is broken already.

General Guitar Gadgets Shin-Ei FY-2 Clone ($45): Took about 6 hours to build this thing, pretty fun actually. This pedal makes everything sound like its broken. Fuzz control knob doesn't do that much, it is going to sound nuts no matter what. There is a touch of volume loss when you switch it on. I've read that it sounds better when you leave off the filter at the end of the circuit, but I have no idea what this means. Imagine what a corroded, half-burnt metal zone sounds like and this is it.

I'm not the best judge though as I have a total bias against excessive mids. I'm kind of a treble whore I guess. I also play a telecaster through a super reverb, if that helps. Seems to me that Fulltone is pretty overrated. I've tried the 69, 70, fulldrive II, and the OCD, none of which were usable with my setup. The FD-II was okay, but a tad expensive for an OD.

alex maiolo wrote:

mr.arrison wrote:Xotic RC Booster for Guitar. Love everything about it, except the "Comic Sans" typeface on its dials...

Nice stuff, this xotic, but they don't make distortions, right? These are only boosts - sort of like a boutique Micro Amp.
Do you just use this to push the amp? Any other distortion/OD in line?

-A

Yeah I suppose technically this is not a "distortion" pedal, but a boost as you described. Luckily the "clean" sound I use is nearly overdriven, so kicking this pedal on produces a nice transparent harmonic distortion with the amp that suits me fine. No other "pedals" in tow other than a tuner. I've tried a Rat, a Marshall Shredmaster and a Big Muff- each of which color the sound too much for my tastes..

I generally tend to like a clean amp and ten d to overdrive with pedals. most of these were played through a twin.

Boss Super Overdrive - kinda thin, but passable. Built like a tank (natch). nice for surf-type guitar. used this for years, though.

Bozz Hyper Fuzz not in production, but not that hard to find. almost unusable for chords, so I used it on my acoustic all the time. so crass. 2 fuzz settings and an extreme gain boost (loud). bass and treble eq on a concentric pot. good for guitar, great for bass.

Danelectro Mini Distortion (red) - got it for free. that's about what it's worth. thin and quiet. better off just running your guitar though a four track and turning up the "line in".

ProCo Rat I hate these things. I don't know how I ended up with one.

Fender "Rad" and "Princeton" Amps - both of these amps have awesome distrtion. the Princetons w/the footswitch distortion are incredible. I don't know why I sold either of these...oh yeah, I got laid off...fuck.

EHX Graphic Fuzz super, but huge footprint. very flexible when recording, but not so much for live use. the six band EQ is good just on it's own, too. sustain for days. more of a distortion than a fuzz, though.

EHX Hot Tubes - my favourite (still). seems fragile, but if you're not dumb with them, they're plenty sturdy. Great for solid state amps, b/c the tube overdrive is so choice. extremely versatile. I'd imagine popping two telefunken (or other nice) tubes into it would be so primo. I've tried lots of different sounds on this, and have always been happy. right now, it's really growly and murky, but brightens when you crank the volume.

most expressive pedal I've played. WF: the proprietary jack and huge wall wart are pretty weak, but it's absolutely worth it. I played it through a Marshall at the store. it sounded positively righteous with the Marshall gain stage added.

Z. Vex Fuzz Factory - holy moly. not transparent at all. I love the compressor and gate knobs that most gain-type pedals don't have. it sounds like a snare, it sounds like hissing gongs, it sounds like tight pants with the velcro fly, it's a swarm of gnats buzzing in your ear, it breaks up so delicately when you roll down the volume, static and harsh clipping. Surprisingly stable for a pedal that creates insanity. great stacked with other pedals---it just disintegrates.

EHX Big Muff (Green) - it's okay! I borrowed one to save a show once. mine was dodgy, but it sounded pretty good.

EHX Big Muff (Black) good on keys and bass. My roommate seemed happy with his. I think he preferred his old green a bit more.

EHX Little Big Muff - my fave of the three. compact, nice and bassy to complement other, more trebly pedals. uses the -9v standard pins, so you can run it off a boss tuner or equivalent. stupid simple controls. just dial it in.

I think those are all of 'em.

zom-zom wrote:I really like the old beige Ross Distortion.

Yes, the baby poop brown ones.
SO GOOD.
Still cheap too. Maybe 60 bucks on Ebay.
One day I'm going to put an LED in mine. I don't use mine because I use a lot of effects and the absence of the LED is a problem.

-A