Randolf Arriola (embryo) Guitar Gear 101
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embryo
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Having multiple drives on board. Why? (Part 2)
Today I'd like to begin or rather continue from where I last left off. Sorry for the lapse ppl...Had my hands full over the weekend playing host to my boy's 1st birthday. Phew!
Let's focus about the using of multiple drive pedals, selecting, patching order and the settings on each of these individual pedals and the amp to achieve anywhere from mild to crazee gobs of gain. Interesting enuff to stay awake throughout I hope. Heh.
I'd like to begin with the Overdrive Pedal. The current most hyped about od pedal is either the Ibanez 808 or the TS9. In my observation over the years these greeny ods reached mythical proportions coinciding the unfortunate passing of the late great SRV. There are many interesting conflicting versions of the same story about what, when where and whys as to SRV's inclusion of the Tubescreamer which up till then was pretty much not more than a very cheap and readily available OD pedal. The tone fanatics together with much encouragement from publication hype magnified the signficance of the Tubescreamer pedal as an essential piece of equipment to achieve that "mojo" factor in each and everyone's guitar rig. So much so that it fueled a feud between Maxon and Ibanez who both raced against each other to rerelease the reissues to cash in. Hehehehe! Here I was observing with much amusement all the escalating hype surrounding this little fella whilst holding onto and staring at my early 80's Japanese made Maxon built TS9 which I remember quite vividly I payed abt S$35!
I remember being kinda dissapointed then because I originally wanted a Boss SD1 instead because my resident under the block guitar hero was playing his "Gibbon" brand of a strat through a mysterious yellow pedal. I asked him sheepishly if it's an overdrive and he replied "No la brudder! this one is a Super Overdrive!" Made in Japan some more! Ritchie Blackmore and Jimi Hendrix oso use wan! Ooooh! Reallleee?! Sure or not Ritchiie n Jimi... "Piak! Piak!" Ouch! ok ok ok stop! i believe u!
Under the block Guitar Hero to me "Ya Ok! I will lend you because u... i tink adah potentia babe! but you must jagah jagah good good for me ok! Here's the original box and plastic bag. Wow!!! (The scent of Boss factory or was it Swee Lee?) ... Nevermind! heheheheeh
I experimented alot with the overdrive pedal. At first like most I turned up both the drive and tone knobs and was mesmerized by how it morphed my guitar(Aria Pro II) into a strapped on fire breathing beast. I was of course very pleased with myself when I discovered through the pages of guitar magazines that Eddie Van Halen's choice of the Boss SD1 as his fav drive pedal. So I spent countless hours coppin his licks and songs but quickly discovered that as much as I tried I cud come pretty close but still distinctly different... from Eddie's tones. Eddie once remaked in a Guitar Player interview that he noticed that most of the modern upcoming players were relying more of their distortion tones from the pedals which in Sir Eddie's words "Sounds like mushy shit" Ooops I was lookin at my pedal's settings and realised Eddie would not approve of this so... tweak tweak tweak I went. I was kinda lost for awhile because with the dist knob anywhere less than max my guitar sounded kind whimpy. I then discovered about Drive stacking whenI popped in a fresh batt into my Tubescreamer and patched it after the SD1 and woah and behold what's this!!! Now this was all patched into a solid state Roland Jazz Chorus JC120 amp which alsohad a built in single knob Overdrive function. Switching this knob on and dialling in and out I discovered that together with my Tubescremer and Superoverdrive running at the same time I had a much wider range of gain than any one single pedal by itself! Eureka!
Over the years I continued to experiment further making new discoveries of new endless possibilities by simply thinking up and swapping different combinations of overdrives, distortions and fuzz pedals.
In my current pedal setup I use up to 3 drive pedals and the 1st slot is always an overdrive which I've modded and set the dials for light "there, not there" kinda saturation. Germanium and different combinations of Silicon clipping diodes work very well fr this setting.
Some of my favourite pedals for ovedrive mode to date include the following though not necessarily exclusively;
1. BOSS SD1
2. BOSS SD2
3. BOSS OD1
4. BOSS BD2
5. BOSS MT2 (Yes, secret's out! The Metalzone makes a wonderful, wonderful overdrive!)
6.IBANEZ TS808
7. IBANEZ TS7
8. IBANEZ TS9
9. BARBER DIRECT DRVE
10. VOODLABS SPARKLE DRIVE
I like to think of the overdrive pedal used alone as Gear shift no.1 of 3 plus the "Turbo mode" which engages all 3 drive pedals at the same time. I will explain more about the function of the other 2 drive pedals and hopefully within this year get to how to set these pedal to give you the most of tone and saturation with inimum of noise. Hopefully ya
Psssst! Shhhh! Almost all overdrive pedals out there except for the few weird ones are all all variations of the TS9/SD1 design. Oh! and Lastly, the Boss OS2 and MD2 and super rare Ibanez SM9 make great great drive pedals!
Today I'd like to begin or rather continue from where I last left off. Sorry for the lapse ppl...Had my hands full over the weekend playing host to my boy's 1st birthday. Phew!
Let's focus about the using of multiple drive pedals, selecting, patching order and the settings on each of these individual pedals and the amp to achieve anywhere from mild to crazee gobs of gain. Interesting enuff to stay awake throughout I hope. Heh.
I'd like to begin with the Overdrive Pedal. The current most hyped about od pedal is either the Ibanez 808 or the TS9. In my observation over the years these greeny ods reached mythical proportions coinciding the unfortunate passing of the late great SRV. There are many interesting conflicting versions of the same story about what, when where and whys as to SRV's inclusion of the Tubescreamer which up till then was pretty much not more than a very cheap and readily available OD pedal. The tone fanatics together with much encouragement from publication hype magnified the signficance of the Tubescreamer pedal as an essential piece of equipment to achieve that "mojo" factor in each and everyone's guitar rig. So much so that it fueled a feud between Maxon and Ibanez who both raced against each other to rerelease the reissues to cash in. Hehehehe! Here I was observing with much amusement all the escalating hype surrounding this little fella whilst holding onto and staring at my early 80's Japanese made Maxon built TS9 which I remember quite vividly I payed abt S$35!
I remember being kinda dissapointed then because I originally wanted a Boss SD1 instead because my resident under the block guitar hero was playing his "Gibbon" brand of a strat through a mysterious yellow pedal. I asked him sheepishly if it's an overdrive and he replied "No la brudder! this one is a Super Overdrive!" Made in Japan some more! Ritchie Blackmore and Jimi Hendrix oso use wan! Ooooh! Reallleee?! Sure or not Ritchiie n Jimi... "Piak! Piak!" Ouch! ok ok ok stop! i believe u!
Under the block Guitar Hero to me "Ya Ok! I will lend you because u... i tink adah potentia babe! but you must jagah jagah good good for me ok! Here's the original box and plastic bag. Wow!!! (The scent of Boss factory or was it Swee Lee?) ... Nevermind! heheheheeh
I experimented alot with the overdrive pedal. At first like most I turned up both the drive and tone knobs and was mesmerized by how it morphed my guitar(Aria Pro II) into a strapped on fire breathing beast. I was of course very pleased with myself when I discovered through the pages of guitar magazines that Eddie Van Halen's choice of the Boss SD1 as his fav drive pedal. So I spent countless hours coppin his licks and songs but quickly discovered that as much as I tried I cud come pretty close but still distinctly different... from Eddie's tones. Eddie once remaked in a Guitar Player interview that he noticed that most of the modern upcoming players were relying more of their distortion tones from the pedals which in Sir Eddie's words "Sounds like mushy shit" Ooops I was lookin at my pedal's settings and realised Eddie would not approve of this so... tweak tweak tweak I went. I was kinda lost for awhile because with the dist knob anywhere less than max my guitar sounded kind whimpy. I then discovered about Drive stacking whenI popped in a fresh batt into my Tubescreamer and patched it after the SD1 and woah and behold what's this!!! Now this was all patched into a solid state Roland Jazz Chorus JC120 amp which alsohad a built in single knob Overdrive function. Switching this knob on and dialling in and out I discovered that together with my Tubescremer and Superoverdrive running at the same time I had a much wider range of gain than any one single pedal by itself! Eureka!
Over the years I continued to experiment further making new discoveries of new endless possibilities by simply thinking up and swapping different combinations of overdrives, distortions and fuzz pedals.
In my current pedal setup I use up to 3 drive pedals and the 1st slot is always an overdrive which I've modded and set the dials for light "there, not there" kinda saturation. Germanium and different combinations of Silicon clipping diodes work very well fr this setting.
Some of my favourite pedals for ovedrive mode to date include the following though not necessarily exclusively;
1. BOSS SD1
2. BOSS SD2
3. BOSS OD1
4. BOSS BD2
5. BOSS MT2 (Yes, secret's out! The Metalzone makes a wonderful, wonderful overdrive!)
6.IBANEZ TS808
7. IBANEZ TS7
8. IBANEZ TS9
9. BARBER DIRECT DRVE
10. VOODLABS SPARKLE DRIVE
I like to think of the overdrive pedal used alone as Gear shift no.1 of 3 plus the "Turbo mode" which engages all 3 drive pedals at the same time. I will explain more about the function of the other 2 drive pedals and hopefully within this year get to how to set these pedal to give you the most of tone and saturation with inimum of noise. Hopefully ya
Psssst! Shhhh! Almost all overdrive pedals out there except for the few weird ones are all all variations of the TS9/SD1 design. Oh! and Lastly, the Boss OS2 and MD2 and super rare Ibanez SM9 make great great drive pedals!
neverconscious
New member
Awesome post as always, sir. Could almost hear the voice of the neighbourhood guitar hero echoing in my ears. Happy birthday to your lil' boy! 
p.s. my OS-2 is finally back in my possession and the DS-2 is going to go back to its original owner - my friend - who had lent it to me years ago. Will be in touch about coming over to check out your mods.
p.s. my OS-2 is finally back in my possession and the DS-2 is going to go back to its original owner - my friend - who had lent it to me years ago. Will be in touch about coming over to check out your mods.
suckasucks
New member
yeah it does. esp in fuzzes like the classic fuzz face, tonebender and big muff. even same type. eg. germanium OC44s, AC128s and NKT275s. there are also a wide range of silicon trannies. even the transistors themselves have an effect. eg. transistors have different amounts of gain etc, thats why in the fuzz circuits its popular to have a matched pair.
neverconscious
New member
lol suckasucks
That was on purpose, wasn't it?
If I'm not wrong some pedal makers like Fulltone - in the 69 and 70 fuzz pedals - intentionally use mismatched transistors.
That was on purpose, wasn't it?
If I'm not wrong some pedal makers like Fulltone - in the 69 and 70 fuzz pedals - intentionally use mismatched transistors.
embryo
New member
Hehehe Moo in a way it's true but really that's what we're supposed to be conditioned to believe.
It's interesting that we are at an age where we listen to music more with our eyes than with our ears.
There's a coupla sayings in X Files that come to mnd; "I Want to Believe" n "TRUST NO ONE!"
It's interesting that we are at an age where we listen to music more with our eyes than with our ears.
There's a coupla sayings in X Files that come to mnd; "I Want to Believe" n "TRUST NO ONE!"
suckasucks
New member
lol haha yeah its somewhat on purpose. but the mismatching is just slight, not so much i hear. like on tgp's '69 thread.
embryo
New member
The TS808 was originally designed for boosting tube amps. This was before a new kind of sound came into popularity in the late 70's into 80's. The Roland JC120. Alex Lifson of Rush, Andy Summers of The Police, The Edge of U2, Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew of King Crimson, Joe Satriani, John McLaughlin and Pat Metheny to name a few prominent users of this classic amp which even Zakk Wylde uses today.
The TS9 and SD1 came out at a time when the Roland JC120 was outselling every other amp around the world. In my observation the JC120 is kinda modelled after the Fender Twin Reverb. The JC120 being solid state has a higher headroom before distortion sets in which is way different from the way tube amps saturate. Tube Guitar amps when approaching saturation go into a kind of compression which affects the overall tone making it sound sweeter at the top end and thicker in the mids and compressed in the lows. This is also why a treble booster affects tube amps differently by pumping up the gain of the upper mids to kick in the inputs of the saturating tube amp the tubes saturate further with a combination of compression and introducing even order harmonis which is a phenomenon of tube technology. Transistors simply distort differently, bad or good really depends on what's your musical direction these days I feel
The TS9/SD1 stock pedals in trying to replicate the behaviour of a saturating tube amp had to have the lows and highs attenuated creating that characteristic mid hump we've all come to know so well today as the stock sound of these classic overdrive pedals. This sound is usually interepreted as sweet because the highs are not shrilly and the lows are not too boomy,perfect for the sound of that era.
Along the way some players figured out that they could use the TS9/SD1 to also kick the Marshall stacks into further saturation by dialling a little bit of drive from the pedal but maxing out the output. This way is almost like using a clean boost but having the option to feed in a lil bit of saturation from the pedal as well.
Along the way into the 80's, other than the growing popularity of Shred Metal a new range of hybrid metal sounds started emerging from the underground eg. Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Testament etc. These bands had a different approach in the tonal and amount of distortion and the classic way of using rectifiers and saggy sounding power amps and distorting speakers was hindering their need for massive low end thump and razor sharp highs. The distortion character throughout the 80' across most genres was predominantly PreAmp distortion which is how the ADA MP1 became the single most sought after piece of equipment in everyone's rack which went on to create interesting competition among manufacturers including Mesa Boogie who later responded with the massive All Preamp Distortion TRIAXIS. Power amps distortion was considered old school in the 80's so most power amps were solid state and for the short while hybrid. Speaker distortion was also considered old school as in the Neil Young "Hey Hey My My" era of torn speaker sound was considered old fashion. The guitarists of the 80's wanted a more compressed highly distorted scooped upper mids kinda sound which is like the sound of using the 1khz notch band of the eq pedal and sliding it all the way down.
Into the 90's a new sound or rather the retro sound of the late 60's into 70's era of Rock tones resurfaced with the rising popularity of Seattle based Grunge bands who were basically using equipments mostly acquired from pawn shops including Classic era tube amps, old pedals like Fuzz Faces and Big Muffs and also previously uncool guitars like Fender Jaguars and Mustangs. This was an interesting era because for th 1st time within a decade we saw the coexisting of many styles of music climbing up and down the top 40 charts. We had Jane's Addiction, GnR, Nirvana, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Smashing Pumpkins, Chris Isaak, Nine Inch Nails, U2, Pearl Jam, Steve Vai, Satriiani, Eric Johnson, Eric Clapton, let's not forget to mention the popularity of post SRV Blues etc. They all had very different sounds and styles in more obvious ways than any previous decade.
All this while throughout the changing times the Ibanez Tubescreamer and Boss Super Overdrive among other classic pedals still found their way to be included in the ever changing sound of rock guitar tones. So... to answer the question which OD pedal do I prefer and why is a pretty wide topic to address and pinpoint but if i have to my answer among many others to mention will still point to 2 pedals The Ibanez TS9 and Boss SD1... stock or modded with solid state or full tube amps
snuffleupagus
New member
Thanks for that, superbly informative.
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