What is your favorite Overdrive pedal?

[Eric***]

While I was looking for a distortion pedal I picked up a Marshall Jackhammer OD/Distortion and found it to be an excellent distortion and overdrive combined. This pedal is a sleeper IMHO.

Yeah I found one on ebay a while back too. I definitely do not like the distortion on it, but the OD into a clean amp seems to be good, better than a Bad Monkey anyway. It's loaned out right now.

[M29]

Eric,
What don't you like about the distortion side of this pedal? I actually like it but I have read many who don't. Just curious.

M

[Eric***]

Eric,
What don't you like about the distortion side of this pedal? I actually like it but I have read many who don't. Just curious.

M

IIRC, it has a lot of high-end fizz and not much muscle to it, kind of the tinny, fizzy, faux-metal sound you get sometimes when trying to imitate a very distorted amp. I guess I like a bit more low-end to beef it up if you're going to go in that direction.

If I had it and a guitar on hand I could give you a better description, but that's what I remember -- just too thrashy to be very effective in the distortion mode.

[M29]

Wow that is odd. What I like about the pedal is that it does not sound like that. I don't like fizzy distortion pedals. I like a beefy distortion pedal with a full range of chunkin bass. Maybe someone has modded my pedal.

[Eric***]

Wow that is odd. What I like about the pedal is that it does not sound like that. I don't like fizzy distortion pedals. I like a beefy distortion pedal with a full range of chunkin bass. Maybe someone has modded my pedal.

I don't have much faith in my ability to tweak appropriately to produce very good tones, so it's more than possible that it's that. What sort of settings do you use? Do you use it with tube amps or SS? Already driven or clean? I'll give it a whirl when I get it back eventually, so it would be good to know how you use it.

I find that actually owning the pedal is only part of the tone equation -- you need to know how to use it too setting-wise, which is still a pretty weak point for me.