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no..

amps like pedals

Ben Adrian is right!

The MXR and Rat have similar circuts with the differece being the MXR had gerainium diodes and the Rat has 2 silicon diodes for semmetrical hard clipping and it has a tone control - the tone control is actualy nice it this.

The tube screamer and origional 2 knob boss overdrive are the ones that are very similar. The boss has more gain and a sligtly different diode configurateion.

The turbo rat does indeed use leds but I have been told that it also uses a compression curcut that is controlled by a led more light more compression. This is what I understand as the only one I used was in a recording studio and the engineer who is pretty famious said he had done this mod to it. He could have been BSing me though.

Thanks Ben Adrian.

Just bought a Tech21 XXL for 60 bucks.
this is the OLD edition, with a metal-head chrome box. i played with the new XXL Guitar edition. THEY AREN'T THE SAME PEDAL. NOT IN ANY WAY.

in the guitar edition the sound is more similar to a rat, and the warp doesnt do much - i think it depends more with your picking technique and the hard you pick and how it responds to that.

in my pedal, the warp knob in the 'neutral' position sounds great, like a good cool messy distortion. with the warp down, it starts to REALLY fuck up until it sounds like your speaker is really blown up. the same happens with the warp knob all up. sounds like a really weird fuzz. so far, i´m loving it.

the only drawback is that, with my 335 and dimarzio pafs pro, the drive at zero is still LOTS of gain. i dont use mild overdrive much but i use it in a few songs. luckily, i have my ds-1 that does some decent overdrive but maybe i should seek a new overdrive pedal.

PD: Tech21 XXL... MagicStomp.. i´m going in your way, Big John.

Benny wrote:the only drawback is that, with my 335 and dimarzio pafs pro, the drive at zero is still LOTS of gain.

How high do you have your level set?

I love the XXL and I think the metal top ones are amazing. When you get your bass back try it through the XXL you will be very happy.

I don't know if you have joined the yahoo magic stomp groups but we have a new one called magic stomp pro. Some really exciting stuff is going on there. There were originally 3 magic stomps and a earl er box called a ub stomp. The three different ones one for guitar, bass and acoustic guitar are identical hardware wise, software makes all the difference so if you load the editor into your computer with a usb cable and editor installed you can make your magic stomp any of the three types by using the down loadable files from the group site. As well there are a bunch of really great echos from the ub stomp and being designed by people in the group. There is a fantastic Leslie sym and we are going about doing cloning of other stuff for each other like od's and I am working on cloning some of my box collection. I now have 2 one for echo and the other for flavor (modulation or fuzz) before the last one.

Now to the question at hand Overdrives.

I too have picked up ideas of stuff to check out from the EA forum. Lots of folks are crazy here for the effector 13 boxes. I saw one on sale on a trip to Tucson and picked it up. It is the "Sucka Punch" which is a 2 stage overdrive. I got it for $60 the store was closing out all the Effector 13 pedals it is really nice. It offers 2 stages of overdrive with two on off switches and you have a strait boost or sag switch. It sounds great but I would have trouble affording a new one at the over $200 price. I think she makes a one stage one now for $60 at her own on line site. Her older boxes are now made by another company which is mass producing them.

It is also true bypass to it does not seem to effect the front end of the xxl when off. The xxl and other fuzz boxes want to go first in your effects chain so that your guitar volume knob (tone too) gives you a lot of control over the sound. I also use a Yardbox in one band instead of the XXL it has the same issues (wanting to be first).

On the cheap side I also have used live and now use for recording a Ibanez LF7 which you might come by used for under $40. It has a couple of modes one makes it like a louder tube screamer with more tone controls for guitar, the second mode is very clear I use a lot and is for running drum machines through but it sounds great on guitar, and the third is like a boss fuzz which just has a preamp mode in position 3 I think it gives some insane amount of db though like 30db or more in this mode it is just a booster. It has tone knobs that cut as opposed to boost so you can get the transistor radio sound which I think is the main use generally for this box.

You may want to look arround though cause you will want to find a box that plays nicely with the xxl.

PM me if you want more info on the yahoo groups stuff for the magic stomp. The magic stomp has a couple nice OD modes in it too. More now at the group they are cloning some more there.

Big John wrote:Lots of folks are crazy here for the effector 13 boxes. I saw one on sale on a trip to Tucson and picked it up. It is the "Sucka Punch" which is a 2 stage overdrive. I got it for $60 the store was closing out all the Effector 13 pedals it is really nice. It offers 2 stages of overdrive with two on off switches and you have a strait boost or sag switch. It sounds great but I would have trouble affording a new one at the over $200 price. I think she makes a one stage one now for $60 at her own on line site.

The E13 Sucka Punch is now the Devi Ever 0525. I want one, and a Dark Boost.

I have a Tech 21 XXL which is the best pedal I have ever bought for the money. It lets you have a variety of sounds, and you can tweak the hell out of the thing.

I cant tell you how well the re-issues are but my original is fucking killer.

J. Burns wrote:

Benny wrote:the only drawback is that, with my 335 and dimarzio pafs pro, the drive at zero is still LOTS of gain.

How high do you have your level set?

VERY Low, like about 9 o clock or less. less level is less volume with about the same gain. this is with drive at zero.

Big John, thanks for the comments, i heard that the magicstomps were all basically the same circuit with different presets. i want to test those delays. actually i have about 9 presets ( some reverbs, delays, doubler and 12 string presets that i download) and is pretty great.

also i tried the tech21 with my jazz bass and is awesome, indeed.

i'm a strong supporter of the Radial "tonebone" Classic, it's an overdrive/distortion not a fuzz but man, does it sound good! Variable gain from a little driven to saturated tube stuff that makes you want to palm mute and so forth.