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?
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.
My Overdrive is 2 Boss OD3's. My amp right now is a Fender Frontman 2x12. I will try an EQ pedal out.
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!)
Im thinking about trying out some Behringer Pedals. I dont have $200 to spend on pedals let alone 1 pedal.
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
Quote from: Brian27 on January 14, 2012, 12:45:28 PM
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.
The Timmy has Bass and Treble knobs. They work great.
Quote from: Brian27 on January 14, 2012, 11:46:44 AM
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.
Transparent OD or CO2?
Quote from: Brian27 on January 14, 2012, 08:04:13 PM
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.
Im getting 2 Transparent OD's
Quote from: Brian27 on January 15, 2012, 05:59:39 AM
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.
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 (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 (http://www.cmatmods.com/super-signa-drive.html)
Worth checking out anyway.....
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.
Quote
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.
I remember recommending you ditch the sustainer pedal crap and getting a nice hollowbody and good tube amp! ;)
And that you did!
A good rig sort of makes pedals a moot point.
After much consideration i have decided to get a Boss SD-1 as a clean Boost and The Cmatmods Signa Drive for main overdrive. I love the 3 way toggle switch and the ability to choose anything from Clean Boost all the way up to Marshall crunch and anywhere in between. As far as Tube amps go when Income taxes get here im getting a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Thanks for the advise and the criticisms as well.
That hot rod sucks. Even after you mod the shit out of it. You can swap speakers, but your much better off, getting something else. How much are you looking to spend? You should be looking used.
Hot Rods are fine for the money, if they suck then why are they the highest-selling tube amp?
I would argue there are plenty alternatives! ive owned 2 of them (had at the same time), modded the hell out of 1. My old guitar player still uses the torress modded one. I can attest to them being pretty reliable for a pcb amp, but something about the master volume, the way the enclosure is constructed, something about it made it my least favorite for fender cleans. And I think I spent enough time and money chasing it with that amp to share my opinion. Those things suck, I dont give a shit how many of them have sold. Most people dont have good tone.
I think any newer combo amp is constructed poorly. You can stick whatever speakers you want in that piece of shit, and its just going to be close to a really cheap open back cabinet. Just go get a chinese open back 2x12, load it with deville speakers and plug in. I prefer the opposite, separate enclosures for heads and cabs, with really heavy construction. I didnt used to feel that way, until my amp builder checked me, but he was really weird about the cabinets/head philosophy, and ever since I got into really matching speaker compliments with different heads.
And that's why I like your posts. You actually have experience to back it up. Nice. I love my amp but by the time you spend all the mod money, I could have just bought a vintage fender.
I'm gonna have to agree with Poster here! I used to own a Fender Hot Rod DeVille. It was the first tube amp I owned. And I spent about 8 or 9 years trying to find a tone I liked! Never was happy with it. Since then I've owned an Egnater Rebel 20, Blues Jr - Humboldt, and Mesa Boogie MkIII, all of which I've been much happier about my tone. And believe it or not got each of them for cheaper or the same price than you'll pay for a new Hot Rod Deluxe!
And Happy O is very correct about getting a vintage fender, which if you bought and didn't like, you can sell and get all your money back quickly!
What lots of you kids like to forget when tinkering around, is that big red is ripping through a million bucks in front of house on any given night. If you like some of those Huge tonal avenues he explores at some enormous show, you have to really decide what you want to do, how often you need to do it, etc. A guy like steve kimock sets his own shit up every night. That was Jerry Garcias favorite guitar player... Anyway, hes got some creative means to an end tonally. Ive tried to mesh a little bit of Kimock, Red, Knopf, and Even Petes rigs to get my tone where I like it live in these bars/clubs.
My big pet peeves are always
-will it work everytime
-does it make sense why it sounds the way it does
-how many bases can I cover
-can i make my cleans as loud as triple throwdown distortion
-can i do every sound i need without looking down and interrupting my train of thought
I cant always do all of those things, but thats what Iam shooting for on any given gig, with any little rig I put together, as each gig will not work with the same gear. Sorry, thats just reality. Pods, emulation, solid state computer douche, all that shit just plain sucks.
These last two posts, by Poster and Wilson make great sense. I think The Blues Jr is a better tone for $$ proposition than the Hot Rod Deluxes, hell until I modded my Nomad, the Jr had me sick with tone envy. Its why I got my Express, smaller, lighter, killer cleans, smooth creamy distortion, It goes on. Lets just say I like Mesa's features. I modded the Nomad and its like I have a Fender-Mesa. Thick/Creamy/Chimey cleans with the Mesa drive to boot.
A quick search shows that you can get a MkIII for like $900, that's $200 more for a killer amp that blows away the HRs.
One think I have to keep in mind is that I constantly have to take OD/Distortion discussions with a grain of salt. I love my amps and while I have a complement of effects, I rarely use pedals because the OD/Distortion/Compression/ --- TONE of my amps/guitars are so good and versatile. I use pedals for a specific effect or sound.
Really ... start with an amp that has killer tone and the rest is easy.
Quote from: Poster on January 22, 2012, 11:10:41 AM
....Ive tried to mesh a little bit of Kimock, Red, Knopf, and Even Petes rigs to get my tone where I like it live in these bars/clubs.
.....
Help me with the influence...
I know Kimock, Red=Trey, Knopf=Mark....
Pete? Pete Who?
A used Tube amp is the only kind of Tube amp i am getting. What about a Fender Super Sonic 22? Those things look badass and have just the right amount of Distortion
Quote from: manicstarseed on January 22, 2012, 12:55:14 PM
Really ... start with an amp that has killer tone and the rest is easy.
This is so true. A simple, yet profound statement. Hell I know my amp is just a stepping stone in my journey.
Quote from: Brian27 on January 22, 2012, 01:52:59 PM
A used Tube amp is the only kind of Tube amp i am getting. What about a Fender Super Sonic 22? Those things look badass and have just the right amount of Distortion
Although better than a HRD (I've owned both) I found that the construction wasn't anything to write home about, and many, many people have complained about the reverb and other reliability issues. Why not check out a silverface amp? Seems like a Twin would be in your price range judging what amps you suggested. What are you looking for in the amp? FX Loop? OD Channel?
A silverface Twin would have 3 band EQ on both Channels right? Im not looking for a Amp with no mid EQ on both channels
Quote from: Brian27 on January 22, 2012, 02:47:00 PM
A silverface Twin would have 3 band EQ on both Channels right? Im not looking for a Amp with no mid EQ on both channels
I believe it does, my 65RI twin had them on both. However, the Twins are crazy loud and heavy but you get a US made, hand-wired amp with 2x12 speakers. No OD channel though.
They made a Supersonic Twin that has a mid knob.
Sorry but any fender with a mid control is really just a volume control at the tone stack location. The only way to get a true mid control is to do a Baxandall mod or use an eq pedal. So I wouldn't let that knob enter your shopping equation. I've been researching this for a year. Still considering modding my amp this way.
http://www.duncanamps.com/technical/baxandall.html (http://www.duncanamps.com/technical/baxandall.html)
"A silverface Twin would have 3 band EQ on both Channels right? Im not looking for a Amp with no mid EQ on both channels"
I'm still wondering why you want an amp with 2 channels if you are gonna use a boss sd-1 and a signa drive as your distortion? You can find a used Blues Jr on craigslist for as low as $300 (hell I was tempted to pick up an older usa made one for $280 a couple weeks ago when I saw the ad). I don't even know if there is an affordably priced amp out there that will make you decide you don't need any of the overdrive pedals.
"A quick search shows that you can get a MkIII for like $900, that's $200 more for a killer amp that blows away the HRs."
I was really patient in my search for one of these. At one point in May I almost got an Mk III head(purple strip/simulclass, reverb, eq,) from a guy in Oakland for $850 w/ shipping included and decided to hold off. In December I just bought a like new condition MK III blue stripe combo with all the bells and whistles for $700 off of CL. The guy selling it was an older hippy/musician who works at a music store and repairs gear, and was selling it for this price because he had a bad back and needed surgery and wasn't gonna lug it around any more. I had been wanting one of these for 2 years! Actively searching fairly regularly for the last year, and finally came across it!
So here's my advice. KNOW WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO GET, and WHY you want it. Make sure it can do all or most of the things you want it to do (kinda like Poster's list above, that is some great advice), and then BE PATIENT!!!! I can't express that enough. I've been very patient about most the gear I get and even got an '81 ts808 for $300! (I see them go for at least $500 whenever I follow some auctions.) It was beat to shit and abused throughout the years, but bought it on Ebay from another touring musician who had to bond the broken case back together. Nobody else wanted to bid on it. I took a chance, and ended up with the best overdrive pedal I can ever imagine wanting, except when my GAS tells me I should spend more money for something different.
What is the difference between a Twin and an Evil Twin?
Quote from: Happyorange27 on January 22, 2012, 10:57:09 AM
And that's why I like your posts. You actually have experience to back it up. Nice. I love my amp but by the time you spend all the mod money, I could have just bought a vintage fender.
I saved up and bought a Blackface '65 Princeton Reverb. The tone is just heavenly. Bought a replacement cabinet (beefier) to house a 12" speaker and it's all I need for gigs. Our drummer got really excited last night and was beating the shit out of his kit and the little 12 watt Princeton w/1x12" could hang.
On a side note I just bought a Carol Ann OD2r that I am really excited about.