My other guitarist commented that "it's a little muddy" last night when we were geektalking. I've been noticing that a bit myself lately, or my toan's thinning out with the tone up. Hmm...

Recommend me dirt boxes.

In other news I love how the pics of Boss pedals are always intrusively large.

Own. Also, nae enough gane in stock form. I need distortron, not an overdrive.

And yeah, for whatever reason the pictures of Boss pedals are always gigantic.

Oh, Doktor S.- what do you think of that Suhr box you've acquired recently?

Three things that rule: Paul Cochrane Timmy, Crowther Hot Cake, Z Vex Distortron/Box Of Rock.

My favorite dirt of ever is the Paul Cochrane Timmy.

It has way way less dirt than the OCD, but it is way way better dirt that it has.

I have to say, i built a clone of the OCD, and i did not get along with it. I don't like the way it clips, it sounds very unnatural to me. Actually, recently someone posted a clip on HC of a JCM45, and i heard that clipping sound and thought to myself, "oh shit, does the JTM45 really sound like that? maybe i was wrong about the OCD?" And then i read the description and the dood said he was using an OCD on it.

So my initial thought stands.

Anyhow. The Paul C Timmy is awesome, and cheap, but has a waiting list. You have to call paul to get on the list. His number is here: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuse ... =443214939

The waitlist is months and months, but he doesn't ask for a downpayment so just get on it, and one day you will get a call and pay for it, and have the pedal.

NOW. While you wait, the instant gratification option would be to locate a used Danelectro Transparent OD CTO-1. They basically stole Paul's design straight up, and they go used for $30-40. It doesn't sound 100% like the Timmy, because they changed a few things, but it still sounds very good. The CTO-2 is NOT the same circuit and i don't know anything about whether or not it sucks either.

Okay, so that is my favorite OD circuit.

Another one, with a bit more fuzz innit, the the old Zvex Box Of Rock. It has what is to my ears a very natural distortion sound, with none of the nasty clipping i hear in 90% of popular ODs. The only problems with it are 1. The price of all Vex stuff, and 2. It can be a flubby piece of shit if it doesn't like your amp.

A good option would be the Z. Vex Distortron though. Basically it is the Box Of Rock, but without the SHO boost side. And in addition, it has a switch for the capacitors inside that make the BOR flubby. You can set it to be like the BOR, or you can set it for two other tighter bass settings.

It is a really nice circuit though. Very natural and full distortion/boost sounds at low volume, very nice response to touch and volume manipulation, and also a nice almost fuzzlike quality with the distortion knob cranked and the bassiest caps in place.

Actually, my favorite distortion of ever, is the one i built, that is the Timmy, and the Box Of Rock, in one pedal. So i can do either by itself, the Timmy for a sweet light OD, the BOR for a thicker light distortion, or turn them both on at the same time for a nice full distortion, formed by the Timmy boosting and tightening the BOR into a nice sound.

Actually, if i had the parts needed lying around, i would suggest the third option, which is: i would build one to send it to you to check out. If i wasn't using the one i built all the time, i would just send you that to try out.

But anyhow, you should see about checking out i would say the CTO-1 and the Distortron. Your local GC might actually still have some Transparent OD V1s in stock still. Whatever decent/boutiquey music store you might have there could very likely have the Distortron in also.

The Crowther Hotcake is a great pedal also. It was originally designed for the AC30, to boot. The old style that i built a clone of has a very good buffer when bypassed, really actually the type of buffer you want in your signal. It has a very nice clear sparkling OD throughout most of the range, but then right near the end of the gain range, it suddenly becomes strangely dark and wooly fuzzlike. So it serves three purposes, buffer, very nice OD, and interesting very thick fuzz. The fuzz sound is more the type of thing you might pull out for recording sometimes. It is a bit dark for expecting to be heard well, live, as most really bassy/fuzzy fuzzes are. But for bringing a bit of dirt to an AC30, it is a wonderful pedal. I have no idea what they cost new though., or who would be likely to carry one that you could try out.

Anyhow. I have built a lot of dirt pedals, and those three are really stand out good ones.

As an aside, a modded Rat can also be quite a nice thing, though, IMO, it is a little bit similar to the OCD, in the ground it covers, and the manner in which it covers it.

This has been very long. I will stop here.

Long, but useful.

There's a Timmy on HCFX in the Spam thread at the moment. Along with a Geiger Counter. I've seen the Distortron at GC around here. There's a nice boutiquey place that may or may not have Z.Vex stuff, I don't recall, but they do carry Pigtronix, so that's an option. And Fulltone, but... I'm talking about dispensing with the OCD, and I prefer it for my purposes to the Fulldrive, which my other guitarist has.

I do need a fair bit of gain unless I want to attenuate the AC30.

I am most pleased with it. It makes my totally clean amp (which is what it's designed to be used with) a high gain monster (in the more Marshally variety). Having owned a few decent high gain maps, I feel quite qualified to classify it as such. Loud quiet loud.

To surmise: You should most definitely try one of these out.

Duly. Noted. Thank you sir!

Somewhat as an aside.

I think a big part of the reason that i like the dual pedal i built so much, is because, like an amp, it does its clipping in multiple, relatively smaller amounts. Rather than just boosting the signal a ton and hacking off the peaks with some hard clipping diode/mosfet/whatever. This also is why even with both pedals on, i can roll back the guitar volume and get quite a decent clean.

Now, it becomes somewhat more difficult to switch from a clean sound to a distorted one if you need to click two pedals on to do it, but that is why i built my pedal like this:


So i can hit both buttons at once with ease. Which means that i can switch between one or the other being on at the same time as well.

Anyhow, lots of ways to skin the overdrive feline.

Now, as far as one pedal solutions to heavier distortion, well i have never really gotten along with any 100%. BUT. I have liked a couple.

One is the old Marshall Shredmaster. It has a specific voicing though, sounds slightly scoopy and "modern" to me. I love mine, but it is not for everyone. I also like mine best when boosted with the Timmy, FWIW.

Another good one, probably better than the Shredmaster actually, in that it is more flexible, is the Krank Distortus Maximus, which is a surprisingly good heavy distortion pedal. Its circuit is clever, a nice distorting chip boosted by a simple transistor setup. As a result of the two stage dirt, it also cleans up surprisingly well for how much distortion it makes.

My own personal and unsubstantiated feeling is that the Suhr Riot, sounds (in clips!) an awful lot like the Krank DM to my ears. It may be voiced a little differently, but it *really* seems similar to me in the clips i have heard of it. I am waiting for that one's guts to see the light of day so i can learn for sure, but i wouldn't be surprised if they were playing a similar circuit game.

Now, a big problem with that type of HEAVY distortion, is that you really have to run it into a CLEAN, LOUD, poweramp or else it will fall absolutely all to shit. Like 120w or more, really, IMO.

I would fear that the AC30 is not quite clean enough in its loudness to allow the pedal to do what it needs to. That said, i have not tried it. The Krank DM suuuuucked into my 20w voxy map though. Meaning, at band volumes. At really low volume, when the amp was deadsuperfucking crystal clean, it was pretty awesome. You have to run the amp a little dark for it to work best though, otherwise the heavy distortion pedals get a bit undefined/harsh/fizzy. Same thing as having a bright cap in a modded JCM800 in a way.

Even still, in the end i decided that i preferred the sound of the stacked ODs to the one stop distortion solution. It was just more flexible, and better sounding at more things fr my purposes.

OH ALSO.

How are you currently running your OCD?

HP mode, gain dimed- I'd like a little tiny bit more on tap, but I'm using single coils, mind you, and it's not a big deal if only I could push the amp a tiny bit more- tone and level both somewhere between 10-11:00.

I neither want nor need a metal sound, just a nice harder rawk gain.

Attenuation may be the answer, to dirty the 30 up a bit more.

Ah, the SCs are something i forgot aboot.

The LP is the darker mode? I think i preferred that one on my build also.

It has been a while since i used the one i built, but i do remember that i wound up liking it more as a dirty boost(like gain @ 11:00?) more than i liked it as a distortion with the gain all out.

A question. Could you point to a recorded sound that you would like to reproduce with the distortion solution that you seek?

ALSO. Have you tried boosting the OCD with an overdrive? Same as boosting an amp, lower the gain on the OCD, give the OD/boost slightly more level than gain, that sort of thing?

I have. I could go back to the dual boost solution with a tricked out SD-1 or another Sparkle Drive or similar.

I'll track down a clip when I'm more awake, methinks.

It occurs to me that what I'm looking for tone-wise is the sound of the amp cranked up to about 3:00 and boosted slightly. Attenuator may be my answer here.

Hmm. I would think that you would actually have more dirt than that if you had the OCD's gain dimed into a cleanish amp? The one i built had a fair bit of blast to it, anyhow.

Also, can you stand in front of the thing set like that with the single coils, and not have it wailing/squealing like a mofo?

Negative. The OCD set as a dirty-ish boost into the AC30 with the channels jumped has a slight bit more gain than the OCD straight in with the AC30 running cleanish. The OCD does have a good amount of dirt to it, but no more than a stock DS-1 really. The response is different- and the tone is better- with the amp up like that, which may give the impression of more gain than it actually has. Which I'm alright with. Again, I don't want monster saturation.

And yes. It's controllable, and no worse with humbuckers than singles. Obviously I don't care about single-coil hum. I never liked noise gates, either.

Thinking about it, it's back to the same problem where I need to push the AC30 just a bit more than the drummer won't kill me for, beyond which point it just gets dirtier, as such things are wont to do.

Hmm. Even the DS1 has way more than it needs, IMO, especially into a never-quite-clean amp like an AC30. You definitely use more scuzz than i do.

You could try to attenuate, but i don't know if that option could ever be expected to solve a muddiness or low clarity issue. Every attenuator i have ever met has made both worse, by the time it is cutting enough volume to do what i am looking for.

What about something like a plexiglas shield/baffle? That might cut enough for what you need. Easy enough to experiment with.

bitch

Ohhh I was thinking of cloning a Timmy for my OD/dirty boost. I am not as big of a fan of the TS (what I was going to originally clone) tones as I thought that I was.