Your OD/DS Input -- Just Curious

[Eric]

I've been thinking about a simplified setup that I would use for the basics, all in an attempt to clean up my pedal setup. What I've kind of concluded is that with a volume and tone pot on a guitar, it's probably possible to make most dirt boxes sound pretty decent. Perhaps not optimal, but good enough for what I do. My proposed setup is tuner -> OD -> delay. What I have right now is this:

Proco Turbo Rat
Digitech Bad Monkey
Marshall Jackhammer
Crowther Audio Hotcake
Tech 21 Sansamp GT2

I have found over time that a bit of focus when it comes to tone does me a lot of good, because I can quickly become overwhelmed by options if I have too many potential avenues. So what I'm asking is which pedal you recommend I focus on making sound good. I don't promise I'll stick with that always, but input is welcome. For reference, this will probably be either going into a Tech 21 Trademark 60 or direct to a PA. I'm not yet 100% sure what my DI setup would be if I was going to the PA, but assume this is to be the designated 'channel 2,' if you will.

[bcdon]

Connect them all and click the one you want. Nice and simple. This focus on minimalism has no place on this forum! :)

[marnold]

I guess that of the choices I'd pick the Bad Monkey. Since I got my Jet City, I'm a big fan of guitar->OD->delay->amph. Now that I've got a pedal tuner, I'd put that at the beginning, but that really doesn't count. I've been using my "Thesis 96" OD/Boost mainly to "turn it up to 11," if you will. I've also been trying to use it to act almost like a second channel for my amp. ~95% of my distortion comes from the amph. I probably wouldn't use any gain on the OD except that it dirties up the delay some. I break my EX-7, fuzz, and chorus out occasionally, but mainly they gather dust.

[Spudman]

My vote is for the Rat. It covers a pretty broad spectrum...




...but it stacks nice with another pedal.

[FrankenFretter]

I couldn't do just one dirt pedal, but if my life depended on it, it would probably be my Washburn Soloist Distortion. I'm not familiar with your pedals, except for the Bad Monkey, which I've had before. From what I've read, the Jackhammer may be closest to the Soloist Distortion. If you really wanted to be minimalist, but still have some flexibility, you could get a dirt pedal modeler, yeah?

[guitartango]

Eric

Not sure about the hotcake but i would scrap them all and buy a decent OD pedal, spend some money as cheap pedals really do suck your tone. I love the Bad Monkey pedal but add more pedals and it soon sucks your tone. Fulltone, lovepedal wayhuge all are good pedals so look for something which is quality rather than cheap, some of you on this forum have great guitars and amps then are let down by cheap quality pedals.

Good luck in your search for tone.

[rkwrenn]

IMO the Fulltone OCD is the best OD pedal I have found. I have tried plenty of others - Boss, Fulltone Fulldrive & Plimsoul, Barber, Delta Labs, MXR, Digitech, etc. OCD cleans up real nice and responds well to pick attack. I have a 2nd as a backup. Dirt and OD are very personal things and opinion is quite subjective. Try as many as you can - bedroom will be different than bandroom.

I use Fender amps (Deluxe Reverb -or- Prosonic) for a great clean sound and kick on the OCD for overdriven Marshall tones.

But, of the pedals given, I'd have to go with the Bad Monkey. I had a Tech 21 but it didn't sound all that great. At least with the 'BM' you have adjustable EQ. No experience with the other pedals you have.

Cheers and HTH

[Perfect Stranger]

Forget about buying all those over-priced, expensive pedals. Start buying the Joyo pedals
before you can't anymore. Hands down some of the best sounding pedals I've ever heard.

http://stores.ebay.com/KDM-Distributors?_rdc=1

Go ahead, you're not going to believe me until you try it for your own! Start with the
Ultimate Drive, then try a Dyna Compressor, then either an American Sound or a
California Sound. You'll see what I mean.

[markb]

Joyo Ultimate Drive = OCD clone. Not saying the Joyos are bad, just that I'd say Eric already has that covered somewhere between the Rat and the Jackhammer.

From your selection, Eric I'd go for either of those into channel 1 of the TM60. I wish I still had my big box Rat. They're wonderful into a Fender amp but, hey, that's what they were designed for ;) Into the PA, same choice with the GT2 for cleans.

[Eric]

From your selection, Eric I'd go for either of those into channel 1 of the TM60. I wish I still had my big box Rat. They're wonderful into a Fender amp but, hey, that's what they were designed for ;) Into the PA, same choice with the GT2 for cleans.
I've been thinking about this some more and I've come to roughly the same conclusion. It's kind of moot now, since I don't need a DI rig this instant, but I'm leaning in that direction.

[tunghaichuan]

I'm going to offer another opinion:

I voted for keeping the Tech21. It is a great pedal and does very good Tweed, Mesa, and Marshall impressions. It may be a bit more complex than you want with the three amp models. But you do have some flexibility in that you can use it as a pedal, or you and use it as a DI device if you ever record, or go amp-less. IMHO, the other pedals you have try to approximate various amps: Bad Monkey = Tweedish amp; Jackhammer and Rat = Marshally amps. Never heard the Hot Cake, so I don't know how it is voiced.

But the Tech21 does all three of the amps simps very well, and you get some additional flexibility over dedicated pedals.

Just my $.02.

[Eric]

Much appreciated. I think I'm really itchy because I haven't been playing at all over the past 1-2 months, which has really been taking a toll on my mental health. Lately however, I've been coming around to the idea that the best solution is probably roughly how I had it before, albeit with specific roles for the pedals and a bit more tweaking.

When I think back to what tones I actually use, it's like this:

-clean with reverb, occasional chorus or delay for more textures, but using those sparingly
-transparent overdrive for giving a tad more grit and providing ample distortion when I dig in
-more chunky crunch to distorted tones with good low-end thump
-lead boost

And this is pretty much what I have on my board right now:

Korg Pitchblack (tuner, duh)
Crowther Hotcake (transparent OD)
Turbo Rat (more crunch)
Bad Monkey (strictly as a lead boost)
Sansamp (for cleans, since a guitar through a PA sounds way too flubby)
Tech 21 Boost DLA (really unneeded, but can be used as a chorus)
Boss DD-6 (nice for when I might want some ambient delays on arpeggios)
Digitech Hardwire RV-7 (always-on hall reverb for clean parts)

My problem before was that the dirt boxes didn't have very defined roles, so I ended up stepping on anything and everything and not really knowing what I wanted and not being happy with the results. It will be a while before I can try out this new philosophy, but I have renewed optimism about my old rig. I know it's weird, but I just don't use delay all that much, so those two pedals are probably the ones I could most easily remove. But if I have the space and I already own them, I suppose it's kind of a 'why not,' right?

[sunvalleylaw]

If I had to go with just one, I would do a Rat, but not the one you list. It would be the Rabid Rodent, as DVM built (and someone he is associated with still does I believe) from the BYOC rat clone kit. It has some sweet distortions settings, and some sweet OD settings, and the reutz mod. A really nice "swiss army knife" of an OD/Distortion. Some claim that OD and Distortion are the same thing, just a matter of degree. If so, the Rabid Rodent has plenty of range.

The ZYS and the Bad Monkey are awesome too, but not as versatile as the Rabid Rodent.

[piebaldpython]

+10 for the Rabid Rodent. The way it was designed from BYOC, it was 6 different stages of distortion. DVM modded it (there's a surprise :thwap) to be 3 OD and 3 distortion stages......and then added the Ruetz mod that works on the above 6 stages. Fabulous.

If you don't need the distortion, his OD II is great for overdrive with a boost.

[Eric]

Thanks for the input, but the poll was kind of designed with the implication that I'd like to use one of my existing pedals, not buy a new one. I don't think I stated that explicitly, so I apologize for that.

[sunvalleylaw]

Or I just missed it. Cool. Then I am torn between the Turbo Rat and the Monkey.

[piebaldpython]

Monkey.....a remarkably versatile pedal just so long as you don't need scads of distortion.

[Commodore 64]

Once I start practicing or rehearsing, or gigging, I don't mess with knobs on my pedals. It's just on or off. I can't see I'd ever be tweaking the Tech 21, for example, during rehearsal or gig. So it would mainly be for one sound. Extra models or settings are pretty much useless to me. Similarly, the Marshall Jackhammer is too complicated, too many knobs, and you can't see where the indicator is in the light let alone the dark of a stage. I can never really find anything worth leaving it on. In fact, I tried to give it away a couple weeks ago and the dude was like, "no thanks, I don't need another one of those." I'd kinda like to run it over with my minivan, if that gives you an indication of how much I like that pedal.

I had a Bad Monkey, it was nice, use it for a lead boost or little OD, but I traded it for a useless loop pedal (not looper, a single loop pedal, completely worthless). Have never used a rat or rat clone yet. I keep a Lovepedal Amp 50 and my Allum Blues Stack BD-2 and a tuner on my board. Both those pedals work great for lead boost with a little OD, if you dime the Amp50 you'll get a good dose of fuzz, too. I've been rehearsing with my 5E3 Deluxe amp, and I get scads of distortion just by picking hard, so I don't turn the Amp50 or BD-2 past 12-o'clock. The only time I stomp on either pedal is for the main riff in Satisfaction or an occasional lead break. I like the BD-2 and Amp50 about equally, and I think the closest pedal in your list to those is the Bad Monkey. Less knobs the better IHMO, which is why I love the Amp50. It's just got 1 freakin' knob.

[bcdon]

Forget about buying all those over-priced, expensive pedals. Start buying the Joyo pedals
before you can't anymore.

Are Joyo pedals going away or did that guy at FB buy them out? ;-)