EQ vs Tone

[Brian27]

We all know that one of the most important things we do before a gig, recording, or just playing your guitar is adjust the EQ settings on your amp. I run my Bass, Tebble, and Mids at 12:00 and depending on how loud i want to be my volume is between 9:00 and 10:30. I love my amp settings until i use my overdrive pedals and then i have to change my amp settings to be happy. I am starting to wish more overdrive pedals had a 3 band EQ on them instead of tone. Does anyone else have these issues?

[IamWILSON]

What amp and overdrive are you using?  Sounds to me like if you are happy with your amps clean tone, then your od pedal is coloring your tone negatively.  I would try adjusting the tone knob on the pedal and if you can't find something you like, you need to find a more transparent od pedal.  Or you can get an EQ pedal and stick it after your overdrive. 

Also, I don't agree with leaving your amp's treb/mid/bass knobs in the same position at different volume levels.  The volume you play at really will effect the balance or prominence of certain tones across the spectrum, and you should really be adjusting them accordingly.  For instance, at low volumes you will need to turn the bass up to make the amp sound bigger, but as you turn your volume up, you usually need to roll the bass off a little or it can be too boomy.

[Brian27]

My Overdrive is 2 Boss OD3's. My amp right now is a Fender Frontman 2x12.  I will try an EQ pedal out.

[the_great_lemon]

I second the option of checking out some more transparent ODs, ala a Silver Ts-9, Mad Professor SHO, Barber Direct Drive, Kalamazoo (It's in stock at PGS!)

[Brian27]

Im thinking about trying out some Behringer Pedals. I dont have $200 to spend on pedals let alone 1 pedal.

[the_great_lemon]

If your budget will allow, and you could spend $50 on a new overdrive, a couple of the guys were talking about the Danelectro Cool Cat OD, and apparently it's an OCD clone. Check it out! http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/danelectro-cool-cat-co-2-overdrive-v2-guitar-effects-pedal/502874000000000

[manicstarseed]

Im thinking about trying out some Behringer Pedals. I dont have $200 to spend on pedals let alone 1 pedal.

I do not know man....
If you are talking about the cheapo ones Behringer puts out... That may be an exercise of transient GAS..... you will be hard pressed to love a tone for very long before you find other glaring issues with them.

Had a delay and gave it away.... it wasn't out of the packaging for more than 5 min.   

[picture_of_nectar]

The Timmy has Bass and Treble knobs. They work great.

[IamWILSON]

My Overdrive is 2 Boss OD3's. My amp right now is a Fender Frontman 2x12.  I will try an EQ pedal out.

I don't wanna sound like a dick to say this, BUT, If you spend whatever dollar amount trying out low end gear, and have one thing that you don't like and then try another, now you just spent as much as you could have to get something better!  

Here's some things you should consider:

•Unless you really love the tone of your amp (by itself), and the tone of the OD (after you redial your amp) I wouldn't go out and get an EQ pedal just yet.  And let me stress "UNLESS YOU REALLY LOVE YOUR TONE," because I think if you really loved your tone, you wouldn't be having this issue.

•Why don't you invest in a decent compressor pedal and then use one of your od pedals as a clean boost, and leave it on at all times?  Dial in the knobs on the od pedal so the volume is high, gain is low, and tone where you like it (along with your tone adjustments on your amps knobs), then the other pedal (set to lower volume/higher gain) is turned on in addition when you want more gain.  If you have a compressor after these 2 pedals it will prevent your volume from spiking so much, then you can use your guitar's volume knob to also adjust how much gain you get (as you turn down the volume knob, your signal will clean up).  And this really kinda goes back to the statement about really liking your tone, that I previously made.  This is what Trey does with his 2 tubescreamers and Ross compressor, and it works really well!

•Behringer makes crap!

•What the great lemon said: "If your budget will allow, and you could spend $50 on a new overdrive, a couple of the guys were talking about the Danelectro Cool Cat OD, and apparently it's an OCD clone." I've never heard one in person, but the demos I've listened to sound great.  Also, I've read in some forums about this, and if I remember correctly it appeared to me that it's the older version (CTO-1) of the pedal, because I think Danelectro changed a little of the circuitry when the word got out it was a clone.

***Remeber this:  Your tone, from your guitar through whatever effects pedals you use, to your amp is like an ecosystem.  Every little change you make to any effect or amp setting, be it volume, gain, tone, mid, treble, bass, master, bright switch, will effect everything else.  There's a lot of balance you have to consider when you adjust these things.  

I've always had a decent to really good ear for figuring out licks and songs by ear, but I used to really suck at dialing in and finding a tone I was happy with, much less sounded good when playing with a band (especially when playing with another guitarist who has good tone).  When I was a music major, my jazz guitar teacher really stressed to me the importance of finding my tone within my gear.  I did this by listening to the musicians (guitars, saxophones, trumpets) I was transcribing solos for and adjusting my tones to try to make my guitar sound like Grant Green's guitar, Miles Davis's trumpet, or Dexter Gordon's saxophone, or whatever other solos I was learning.  This was how I learned how to find the tone I like.  After that experience it became much easier for me to emulate Trey's tone, or David Gilmour's or whomever I wanna steal the aspects of their tone I like and use it as part of my own.  

[Brian27]

Transparent OD or CO2?

[sour d]

Transparent OD or CO2?

Pm me. I can hook you up on a budget. Just let me know what you have for pedals already. I have a few of the dano pedals I bought to see if the rumors were true. They are great pedals. Both versions, transparent and drive. Another bargain is the new ibanez jet drive. Like a modded ts9 with 2 jrc4558d chips and a great mid control knob. They sell for under $100. I was playing with one earlier as my dirty screamer into a ts10 set to clean and a ross into my new prs sweet 16. I was very impressed.

[Brian27]

Im getting 2 Transparent OD's

[sour d]

Im getting 2 Transparent OD's

Those are both clean boost pedals. I would get one and then some sort of overdrive. Maybe a cool cat drive. Two clean boosts would be kinda redundant. I would look into a ts7 or ts5.

[ColForbin]

In terms of transparent OD pedals, and versatile OD pedals, I gotta throw the cmatmods Signa Drive into the discussion here.  It's $135.00, Chad has some of the best customer service around.  I went on the King of Tone waiting list and got a Signa Drive thinking, I like the SD and when the King of Tone comes along, I can sell it.  Well, I did eventually come up on the KOT list and I can not bring myself to take the Signa off my board.  I use it for Marshall, Duane Allman like tones and it kills.  I believe it's just as good as anything out there.  It has a three way switch on it that will do the Tube Screamer thing, be a boost or a Marshall Crunch.  It's really nice.

Check it:

http://www.cmatmods.com/signa-drive.html

Edit to add:

Also, the Super Signa Drive has a separate clean boost switch on it, and a three band EQ.  Still not breaking the bank a whole lot at $169, and you get your eq settings on your drive pedal.

http://www.cmatmods.com/super-signa-drive.html

Worth checking out anyway.....

[Happyorange27]

Yes there is great advice above. You must have awesome amp and guitar tone alone. If not you are never going to achieve your ultimate heroine high. Your chasing the dragon.
Remember the super shitty rig I had? I became a born again guitarist and put it all on eBay. I stared with a great amp, then guitar. Only now am I slowly adding one strategic pedal at a time. Yummy!

Think about it.