NGD - Another Biyang (distortion/OD)

[deeaa*]

Having had great experience with the Biyang Analog Delay I got me an ODT-100 tube drive unit of theirs...got it today.

I have only played it with the Vox AD30VT for 20 minutes or something, but here's the rundown:

- Damned big, hogs pedalboard room
- Comes with it's own (6V) power supply, they weigh like 4 pounds together.

This unit has more gain than I ever expected. LOTS of gain. Even on 12 o'clock it's already past Metallica territory, at least with my EMG's. On top of clean AD30 (Boutique clean) the sound isn't anything particular; I could easily get a very similar sound to vox's own AC30 model, but it's debatable if I could even get as good a sound as the model. Straight EQ it is a bit middy and a bit too bright-sounding.

On harder drive sounds, though, this can certainly make the AD30 a real shred machine and yield total metal sounds with ease, which is something I haven't really gotten with it before.

It seems to me the unit doesn't really much color the basic sound as is, or have a 'voice' of it's own like a TS pedal or something, it just adds ample amounts of tube gain, and over a clean amp, doesn't do wonders.

Then I tried it over a dirty rhythm sound for lead boost and NOW I was smiling...it does a HELLUVA job kicking that rhythm crunch into marvellous singing thick yet aggressively screaming lead drive sound. I set the gain at around 1/4 and treble pretty much to zero and even then added some bass and that sound truly rocks for screaming leads.

So to sum it all - can't wait to test it with my Ceriatone, if it works anything like with the Vox, it'll work superbly for lead boost/drive.

Seems to me the unit is a very good distortion pedal for very thick saturated metal sounds, or as a booster to give an already slightly driven sound a definite tube scream on top.

Seems promising!

[Eric***]

Cool. I'm curious how this all plays out, having followed your tone unrest for a while now.

[deeaa*]

The thing that might make it work is that this could work well with the 'cleaner' channel on the Ceriatone.

See, I use the 'clean' channel for the first two of my sounds, and the 'grittier' channel for the last five.

I have been unable to use the clean channel for drive sounds, it just doesn't sound as good with OD's in front because there's no EQ available and it gets this overly bright ugly timbre if I try to run OD's with it - but it'd be much louder than the 'dirt' channel, on which I can't get a louder sound no more because there's no headroom left.

Now, since this has a nice EQ and LOTS of gain, I'm hoping I could use the 'clean' channel with this OD again for the last 2 - lead - sounds, and get rid of that ugly timbre with its EQ and get plenty of gain - proper tube preamp - instead of just chaining OD pedals. That way I could get a much louder lead sound.

So my channels would be (amp channel/pedal):

1. clean / delay (my cleanest sound)
2. clean / compressor (mellow ACDC crunch)
3. dirty / compressor (ACDC type OD)
4. dirty / jackhammer (my main OD sound for most stuff)
5, dirty / jackhammer, compressor (sound for single-string melodies/leads)
6. clean / Biyang (hopefully LOUD dry sound)
7. clean / Biyang, delay (hopefully LOUD solo sound)

[deeaa*]

Here's a quickie demo of the pedal & AD30: