Driven sound preferences?

[Ro3b]

It might be instructive to hear what kinds of music everybody is playing with their particular levels of OD and distortion.

Me, I'm all about the snarl. For the splashy low-tech garage rock I'm into now, I usually have the drive knob on my OCD set at around 2:00, running into a fairly clean amp. A great thing about the OCD is that it can do pretty high levels of dirt without losing clarity and definition.

If I'm using the Big Muff, I keep it set somewhere between "puree" and "rend asunder."

[deeaa*]

It might be instructive to hear what kinds of music everybody is playing with their particular levels of OD and distortion.

Me, I'm all about the snarl. For the splashy low-tech garage rock I'm into now, I usually have the drive knob on my OCD set at around 2:00, running into a fairly clean amp. A great thing about the OCD is that it can do pretty high levels of dirt without losing clarity and definition.

If I'm using the Big Muff, I keep it set somewhere between "puree" and "rend asunder."

Well I can offer a few clips here:

http://www.myspace.com/crankenhaus

- All of the songs (mine is the lead melodies/main rhythm guitar) I've played with an EL84 based 18W amp which is basically clean with a passive guitar, but with my EMG85 pickups and when playing hard/full chords it has a very convincing Powerage-era ACDC crunch. That I've on all these songs that have driven guitars boosted with a Marshall Jackhammer on OD setting with gain at about 0,3 i.e. very low and volume at a slight boost. That's it. Where ever it's cleaner still (Come December), I've just rolled off some volume on my guitar or simply played by picking very lightly, or when it's just crunchy not very driven it's just the 18W and the EMG (machinist girl).

The other rhythm guitar/small licks/solos is an Ibanez w/original pickups and the amp is JCM900 on a slightly over half gain, no pedals.

These days my sound is pretty much just the same, but instead of OD pedal I use a compressor set on boosting the amp a li'l. Downside is it's noisier, but even more definition.

BTW I almost always use all 6 strings for chords - if I played these songs with just 2-3 string 'heavy' chords it'd sound wayyyy less driven...for me most of the crunch and drive comes from hitting all 6 strings so they hrmonize and cascade and hitting them hard.

With any 'ultra' gain amp like my Pod Insane or some JCM2000 ultra gain etc. it all becomes simply a huge big mess and mush.

[Gutmann]

It might be instructive to hear what kinds of music everybody is playing with their particular levels of OD and distortion.

Yep, one moment....Here are some samples with the hotcake, the tech21 XXL and the pure amph
There's a difference between the left and right channel on those samples - I used a beam blocker on the left side..
The FretKing-soundsample is also played with the hotcake...
And here more of the tech21...

[Plank_Spanker]

With the Germino, I prefer the natural distortion and drive of the amp, but I do use a Radial Tone Bone Trimode with it for small rooms where I can't get the amp to it's sweet spot.

The Tone Bone can be set anywhere from clean overdrive to "split your atoms" gain. I prefer just enough distortion to add some growl, while retaining enough clarity to keep the amp punching and the sound present in the mix.