Guitar distortion pedals question

[Special K]

Last year I bought a Boss MT-2 and it was great for what it was, but now I am into playing more classic rock and was wondering what pedal would be best for a distortion to play things like hendrix, zeppelin, etc.? The MT-2 doesn't seem capable of giving a mild distortion, and its the same with my Marshall MG15CDR amp's distortion, so I was looking at Boss's other pedals and saw these:

BD-2 blues driver
OS-2 overdrive/distortion
DS-1 distortion
DS-2 turbo distortion
OD-1 overdrive
SD-1 super overdrive

Does anyone know which of these would be best for the sound I'm looking for? Is it possible to get the sound out of my MT-2? I have tried and so far have not been able to. I listened to the sound demos for each of those pedals on musician's friend but was wondering if anyone here has any recommendations. I have a fender mexican strat, if it matters. Would the guitar (or amp) hold me back from getting the most out of one of those pedals? The MT-2 is nice but honestly it doesn't seem THAT much better than my amp's distortion, unless I just don't have it tweaked right or something.

Oh and one more thing, what exactly is the difference between overdrive and distortion?

 

[Platypus]

Are you set on Boss pedals?

Out of those listed, the BD-2 will give you a creamy tube distortion.

The MT-2 is brittle and shrill by default, I put some germanium transistors in it and it's an amazing pedal now.

Honestly that amp would probably do the trick but you'll need to crank the hell out of it. If that cranked sound gives you waht you want, get an overdrive pedal and adjust the volume that way, it will give you the same sound your amp has at loud volumes with a volume attenuator.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Originally posted by: Special K
Last year I bought a Boss MT-2 and it was great for what it was, but now I am into playing more classic rock and was wondering what pedal would be best for a distortion to play things like hendrix, zeppelin, etc.? The MT-2 doesn't seem capable of giving a mild distortion, and its the same with my Marshall MG15CDR amp's distortion, so I was looking at Boss's other pedals and saw these:

BD-2 blues driver
OS-2 overdrive/distortion
DS-1 distortion
DS-2 turbo distortion
OD-1 overdrive
SD-1 super overdrive

Does anyone know which of these would be best for the sound I'm looking for? Is it possible to get the sound out of my MT-2? I have tried and so far have not been able to. I listened to the sound demos for each of those pedals on musician's friend but was wondering if anyone here has any recommendations. I have a fender mexican strat, if it matters. Would the guitar (or amp) hold me back from getting the most out of one of those pedals? The MT-2 is nice but honestly it doesn't seem THAT much better than my amp's distortion, unless I just don't have it tweaked right or something.

Oh and one more thing, what exactly is the difference between overdrive and distortion?

The SD-1 would probably give you the sound you're looking for. You use it in combination with distortion, like your Marshall's distortion. The other pedals you mentioned are not very classic rock sounding. The DS-1 is Nirvana, that's pretty much all Kurt Cobain would use.

Overdrive is when tubes are driven to a certain point that they start distorting. Distortion is usually an effect done with solid state circuitry.

 

[cjgallen]

SansAmp

 

[Rudee]

I'm currently playing with a Keeley modded Boss DS-1 ultra. I can't say enough good things about this pedal. Awesome output and tone. You can also look into the Fulltone OCD pedal. If you're looking specifically for distortion you should be looking at amps, cause that's where your main distortion comes from.

 

[SirBrass]

distortion is running the signal through a chebyshev type I filter, where ripple is relatively nill in the stopband and there's a ripple in the passband. it's this ripple that causes the distortion.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Boss makes a pedal called the v-wha, and it has almost all, if not all of the boss pedals listed in the op. Its not a pedal board, just a wah pedal. You have to pre configure which distortions you want, but you can have up to three presets. And its primary reason isnt even the distortions, thats just a bonus. It has about 6 different wah emulators on it. All the wah sounds are decent if not great. It even has a voice box emulator and a "univibe" effect. Found on eBay for less than $150

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: SirBrass
distortion is running the signal through a chebyshev type I filter, where ripple is relatively nill in the stopband and there's a ripple in the passband. it's this ripple that causes the distortion.

care to elaborate?

 

[SirBrass]

in what way? what do you need explained?

btw, the distortion I'm talking about is the kind of distortion you use to get that crunchy rock sound from an electric guitar. pedals that did this used to be called "fuzz pedals" back in the day.

 

[Rudee]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK

Originally posted by: SirBrass
distortion is running the signal through a chebyshev type I filter, where ripple is relatively nill in the stopband and there's a ripple in the passband. it's this ripple that causes the distortion.

care to elaborate?

Think of 60's sound. That's fuzz.

 

[SirBrass]

and it's also quite cool how just the passband ripple will make that nice fuzz distortion that makes rock so distinctive.

 

[mitchafi]

Anyone ever used Dan Electro pedals? I was thinking about getting a few but I'd like to hear some opinions first.

 

[davestar]

The Ibanez Tube Screamer (TS-9) is regarded as a definitive blues/rock overdrive pedal. Check out the reviews at Harmony Central: Here

...and distortion for guitar is achieved by running transistors/tubes past their linear operating limits.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation
Are you set on Boss pedals?

Out of those listed, the BD-2 will give you a creamy tube distortion.

The MT-2 is brittle and shrill by default, I put some germanium transistors in it and it's an amazing pedal now.

Honestly that amp would probably do the trick but you'll need to crank the hell out of it. If that cranked sound gives you waht you want, get an overdrive pedal and adjust the volume that way, it will give you the same sound your amp has at loud volumes with a volume attenuator.

Can you elaborate on that MT-2 mod you did? I might be interested in doing that at some point.

Also what did you mean about my amp? Even if I set the gain at 1, it still has a pretty "hard rock" sound to it, not really the lighter classic rock distortion. If I turned the gain up more, it's just going to sound even more like metal/hard rock. Unless I'm missing something here.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim

Originally posted by: Special K
Last year I bought a Boss MT-2 and it was great for what it was, but now I am into playing more classic rock and was wondering what pedal would be best for a distortion to play things like hendrix, zeppelin, etc.? The MT-2 doesn't seem capable of giving a mild distortion, and its the same with my Marshall MG15CDR amp's distortion, so I was looking at Boss's other pedals and saw these:

BD-2 blues driver
OS-2 overdrive/distortion
DS-1 distortion
DS-2 turbo distortion
OD-1 overdrive
SD-1 super overdrive

Does anyone know which of these would be best for the sound I'm looking for? Is it possible to get the sound out of my MT-2? I have tried and so far have not been able to. I listened to the sound demos for each of those pedals on musician's friend but was wondering if anyone here has any recommendations. I have a fender mexican strat, if it matters. Would the guitar (or amp) hold me back from getting the most out of one of those pedals? The MT-2 is nice but honestly it doesn't seem THAT much better than my amp's distortion, unless I just don't have it tweaked right or something.

Oh and one more thing, what exactly is the difference between overdrive and distortion?

The SD-1 would probably give you the sound you're looking for. You use it in combination with distortion, like your Marshall's distortion. The other pedals you mentioned are not very classic rock sounding. The DS-1 is Nirvana, that's pretty much all Kurt Cobain would use.

Overdrive is when tubes are driven to a certain point that they start distorting. Distortion is usually an effect done with solid state circuitry.

But if my amp's distortion sounds pretty "hard rock" even at a gain of 1, is adding the DS-1 really going to alter the overall sound to make it sound more like a classic rock distortion?

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: davestar
The Ibanez Tube Screamer (TS-9) is regarded as a definitive blues/rock overdrive pedal. Check out the reviews at Harmony Central: Here

...and distortion for guitar is achieved by running transistors/tubes past their linear operating limits.

That's what I thought distortion was, driving the amplifier past its linear limits. Which is it, that or the ripple in the filter that causes the distortion?

 

[davestar]

Originally posted by: Special K
But if my amp's distortion sounds pretty "hard rock" even at a gain of 1, is adding the DS-1 really going to alter the overall sound to make it sound more like a classic rock distortion?

the "cranking" that he's referring to is cranking the volume, not the gain. that'll provide a more subtle overdrive than the gain knob, even on a solid state. so you're probably best off with a distortion pedal up front if you don't want your ears to bleed

 

[davestar]

Originally posted by: Special K

Originally posted by: davestar
The Ibanez Tube Screamer (TS-9) is regarded as a definitive blues/rock overdrive pedal. Check out the reviews at Harmony Central: Here

...and distortion for guitar is achieved by running transistors/tubes past their linear operating limits.

That's what I thought distortion was, driving the amplifier past its linear limits. Which is it, that or the ripple in the filter that causes the distortion?

it's non-linearity. chebyshev polynomials can be used to model distortion in a DSP environment, but any non-modelling pedal/amp is simply going to use and abuse the non-linearities of its active components.

 

[Special K]

bump.. anyone else?

 

[trinketsummoner]

I have a Zoom 707 box and its pretty good, you can get some nice bluesy tones out of it. For the bedroom guitar player its nice anyways

 

[Platypus]

I had this long ass reply typed up but fusetalk blows ass so I'll just say you should look into a new amp if you can afford one, other than that try the overdrive pedal with the volume all the way up, not gain.

 

[Special K]

I was reading the reviews for the tube screamer and they look pretty good. Is the TS808 worth the extra $ over the TS-9?

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: Special K
I was reading the reviews for the tube screamer and they look pretty good. Is the TS808 worth the extra $ over the TS-9?

No.

To expand on that, don't read reviews of gear and then just buy it. GO PLAY IT. I can make the biggest POS sound like pure tone but in practice it's hardly the case. Personally I think the tube screamer is overrated albiet a good pedal.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation

Originally posted by: Special K
I was reading the reviews for the tube screamer and they look pretty good. Is the TS808 worth the extra $ over the TS-9?

No.

To expand on that, don't read reviews of gear and then just buy it. GO PLAY IT. I can make the biggest POS sound like pure tone but in practice it's hardly the case. Personally I think the tube screamer is overrated albiet a good pedal.

Yea I was planning on going to play it, just wanted to get a starting point before I went to the store. I was doing some reading and apparently the only difference between the TS808 and the TS-9 is just a little $2 op amp? Can anyone confirm this?

 

[Lithium381]

I have the Boss Blues Driver pedal, and its' great for me. , i enjoy mostly classic rock, and this is good for me, i got it for 79 retail it's a nice little unit but no comparison for a real amp with decent overdrive