High Gain Distortion Recommendation

[Whitestrat]

Whitestrat - Perhaps something a little more high gain?

More high gain than the Tonebone??? What are you exactly aiming for?

 

[ikan]

Just sold my ever-faithful EHX Metal Muff with T/B and grabbed myself a Hardwire TL-2. I dig the TL-2, A LOT!!!

Eager to try & get a Dirty Bomb. And like rackenstein said, the AMT Legend Amp series looks promising:

P1 - 5150ish
B1 - Bogner Sharpish
R1 - Mesa Triple Recish
M1 - JCM800ish

 

[faizal_rocks]

Agree with MrBukka, the 7thheaven is THE pedal to get. Very versatile from blues vintage Marshall crunch to modern sounding Mesa sounds. Seriously, this is the pedal to get, the tones are just phenomenal and every note rings out sweetly. And its true, its a pedal that is meant to be stacked with other OD pedal if u desire more oomph.

I'll get this one for sure but I heard Goose's request list for it is overwhelming, so will wait a little longer

 

[MrBukka]

Hahaha so i guess we r the lucky few who pounced early huh faizal keke. But honestly i still had to wait alittle for mine back then, but goose never lets his customers down especially those that appreciate his work cause he is very dedicated to give the best to his customers lah. So for those who r still waiting patiently, pls dun be disappointed cause the wait is damn worth it!

 

[dudelove]

More high gain than the Tonebone??? What are you exactly aiming for?

i'll speak on ryan's behalf. hehe

he's looking for an all out trash metal tone. a very heavy scooped crunching distortion

he's shared with me that the metal pedals he's tried, like the hardwire and keeley mt-2 are way too nasal. i can understand. but to my ears its fine. but we all have different preferences and he prefers not to have that "nasalness" to it

 

[ryancrl]

MrBukka - Alright thanks for your recommendation. I will look into the 7theaven. Perhaps it might just work for me!

Whitestrat - A stand-alone metal distortion with strong and full tones. Much like the Tonezcar Openhaus.

ikan - My TL-2 is not reaching its full potential i believe, due to my amp.

faizal - Another 7theaven supporter! I need to find one for a test hah.

dudelove - Thanks Jon haha.

Thanks to everyone for your replies! I'm sure this thread will help other people in their search for metal tone too. Keep the recommendations coming!

 

[velvetrevolver]

hahaha will a simple, decent and humble metalzone cut it?

 

[superpotato_30]

hahaha will a simple, decent and humble metalzone cut it?

Hes tried one, even owned one modded by keeley. And no. not this thing.

 

[MrBukka]

Hey ryan, no prob man, since dudelove said that u didnt like the nasalness of those metal pedals, try out the 7theaven or the openhaus cause both pedals do not have anything nasal abt them. Try them to believe it!

 

[j_m_s]

7th heaven fo' sure. With a TS infront to add some saturation. I'm sure Faizal can attest to what I'm sayin'. Nice meeting you bro!

Ryan, you could email Goose to arrange testing.

 

[velvetrevolver]

i'll be honest, i'm a big fan of the metalzone, despite it being the scapegoat of most! i dunno. i dont see the negatives that ppl share in my particular pedal.. maybe mine's spoilt somewhere but nevertheless its doing great! anyways, haha, hmmmm sorry la. this thread is bout the TS looking for recommendation, not for me to display my affection for the MT2 but oh well. . . tompang thread ah! its still metal pedal wat!

 

[Lifehouse]

You can try Digitech Hardwire Metal Dist.

Edit: Since you have it, play around with it. The settings are quite amp dependent so sometimes tweaking from the amp helps. Ease up on the gain if you find it too nasal.

I would not recommend the Openhaus in your case. It's preferably used with an amp with excellent headroom such as a Fender Twin Reverb, AC30 or any of the classic amp designs. In short, loud tube amps that will make you go deaf when you crank-em-but-still-wont-break-up kind of loud. Small wattage transistor amp won't work well. Also, the wait-list is minimum 3 mths last I check.

GT2 should work well. Anyone taking lessons with Justin would probably tell you the same thing.

Just re-read your thread. I think ultimately if you don't want your tone to sound pedalish, you might want to find another amp since it appears to be your bottleneck at the moment.

 

[MrBukka]

Good suggestion lifehouse, it is very important to get a good amp to bring out the best from one's gear and guitar. But in retrospect if it's for home practise then those kind of big/loud amps would be out of question cause it will blow the neighbours' heads off, perhaps a gd small tube amp would be better.....Sadly, the search for the holy grail tone is a long process that cant be rushed.

 

[THOA]

Somehow I can understand what the threadstarter wants: a "metal" pedal that does not sound like the usual metal pedal tone. Something that is more meaty rather than trebly.

In this case, a "metal" pedal (like MT-2 or the Hardwire Metal) will not cut it.

I would still say Barber Dirty Bomb. Or maybe even this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pYHTmlxlsQ

^ My current gas :mrgreen:

 

[Whitestrat]

Somehow I can understand what the threadstarter wants: a "metal" pedal that does not sound like the usual metal pedal tone. Something that is more meaty rather than trebly.

In this case, a "metal" pedal (like MT-2 or the Hardwire Metal) will not cut it.

I would still say Barber Dirty Bomb. Or maybe even this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pYHTmlxlsQ

^ My current gas :mrgreen:

Not even the Krank will cut it?

Then I think the problem doesn't lie in the pedal...

I've used the TL-2 from Hardwire. It's nice, and can be tweaked to remove that nasal bit, much easier than the MT-2. (Here's a tip: I actually boost the mids rather than cut it...) I no longer use it because I have no need for metal tones in my band.

The SC2 will not cut it, because it's not compressed enough for him. The Trimode isn't high gain enough??? I'm stunned. And honestly, I don't even think the OpenHaus will cut it for him is all he's thinking about is getting that compressed non-nasal tone from a pedal.

I think he should just go get a different amp. It sounds to me like what he needs is power amp distortion, and not pre-amp distortion...

No pedal to deliver that...

 

[THOA]

Heh, nice to see how everyone is trying to decipher his distortion needs.

I very much agree about the power distortion. A pedal that does not sound "pedal sounding" as stated in his first post is hard to come by. If there is, it simply comes with the cost.

But the suggestions on this thread are aplenty. Hopefully he can find something of use.

 

[ryancrl]

velvetrevolver - Thanks for your view! I don't really like the MT-2 though. Glad it works for you

MrBukka & JMS - I see. I'd try to get to goose, hoping he's not busy hah.

Lifehouse - Thank you for your detailed explanation. However, i'm looking for a solid state amp for home use. One with a solid clean channel with which i can build my distortion upon. I'm not looking for a tube amp due to maintenance, and the fact that you have to cook the tubes to get good tones = loud volumes = not too good for home. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

THOA - YES. Meaty is the word. Ahh the valve distortion. Perhaps i should try the route of boosting a distortion rather than a stand-alone metal distortion?

Whitestrat - Okay. However i'm looking for a solid state amp. After i get my new amp, i'd be sure to use and tweak my TL-2 again.

THOA - Yes you're right. That's the thing about tone. You just can't have everything hah. Or can you? Heh.

 

[Lifehouse]

Lifehouse - Thank you for your detailed explanation. However, i'm looking for a solid state amp for home use. One with a solid clean channel with which i can build my distortion upon. I'm not looking for a tube amp due to maintenance, and the fact that you have to cook the tubes to get good tones = loud volumes = not too good for home. Please correct me if i'm wrong.

I agree with Whitestrat. It seems like what you are lacking is in the power amp section. THOA's suggestion on small tube amp might be a feasible choice. Something with a good base clean tone will be good. And you might be able to sculpt the drive channel to your liking. Some amps that I've seen people here and in TGP suggest: Orange Tiny Terror, Vox Night Train, Egnater 20. These amps are relatively easy to drive.

Actually, tube amplifier maintenance is not as tedious as you would presume. Apart from the changing of tubes which may cost say $30 to $200 (certain 4 channel amps) every 2 years (?), the only thing that should dissuade you is the fact that tubes need to warm up for at least 5 minutes for them to sound good. And not all amplifiers with tubes are golden.

Also, a walkaround for manageable volume good tube tone is to use a good attenuator. In my case, I use the Dr.Z Airbrakes. I don't perceive audible tone loss. But you'll need to weigh the cost effectiveness of such an approach.

Again, just my humble opinion.

 

[THOA]

THOA - YES. Meaty is the word. Ahh the valve distortion. Perhaps i should try the route of boosting a distortion rather than a stand-alone metal distortion?

Yes, I would personally say, try that cos that's my way of getting that tone. Most metal pedals just won't do it for me.

The most common type of stacking would be to use a TS type pedal to boost a good distortion pedal. But having tried TS type pedals, it still hasn't done anything to me.

However, I recently acquired the Cool Cat Transparent OD vers 1. Everything else just falls into place. Stacking the Trans OD into a TS type pedal gave me a nice blues and hard rock (with some tweaking, of course). Stacking it into a non-distortion type pedal gave a meatier tone without the characteristics that a TS type boost would give, which I found to be annoying.

The thing about the Trans OD is that it is transparent to the point that I wonder that perhaps a simple EQ pedal BEFORE the distortion pedal may have done it for me as well. But it is cheap, it has an extra drive knob, and it does well enough, so I didn't bother experimenting with that EQ option.

In either case, I would have an EQ pedal after the stacked drive chain to further sculpt.

Whitestrat pointed out a good point when using metal pedals, though:

I've used the TL-2 from Hardwire. It's nice, and can be tweaked to remove that nasal bit, much easier than the MT-2. (Here's a tip: I actually boost the mids rather than cut it...)

That's EXACTLY what I do with my Uber Metal :mrgreen:

 

[theunknown]

same here. i boosted the mids of my beta aivin hm200, but i cut the mid freq, it sorta cancels out the nasal tone, giving me the heavy chugga that i desired. for even more fatness, i boost with a low drive ts type pedal. this with the neck pickup of a lespaul, makes me happy enough. heh.

downside of the valve dist, u cant actually control the mids. more of a mode function. not my type of pedal. and the video bro THOA posted, the amp has alil drive in its clean channel, so expect something different.