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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Re: Sweetest pedal..

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9/10/1999 5:32 PM
F Yang	Re: Sweetest pedal.. If I understand David correctly, he's looking for something to generate some more even harmonics, without necessarily adding more gain - this is what I'd consider 'sweetening' the tone. Make it more harmonically complex. I don't have any ideas off-hand, but maybe some others here do. Frank

9/13/1999 2:42 AM
Blues Lyne	This may not be what you are looking for, but if you just want to color your tone, have you tried a good graphic EQ? They can make amazing differences in distorted tones. Blues

9/13/1999 10:53 AM

have you tried a good graphic EQ? They can make amazing differences in distorted tones.

Try a reasonably good 3rd octave graphic eq if you can get hold of one. These usually come in stereo format; why not hook one between guitar and amp, and one between preamp and poweramp - if that 2203 has a loop. Takes a LOT of fiddling, but has enormous potential in soundshaping. The downside of this is the potentially uncool "I use rack-effects" image.

I do think EQ-ing is the way to go (even if you do it by changing caps in the Marshall), even harmonics sound very smooth, but only on single note stuff.

9/26/1999 6:03 PM

I also like my '69 pedal as my overall fuzz/dist/OD pedal.

I set vol and contour at middle, and bias and fuzz full. Sometimes I will back off the volume if the next pedal or amp input seems overloaded, and sometimes i'll back the fuzz off from full for the "clean country" tone

I may get up the guts to sell off some of my seldom and non used pedals -- FullDrive II, DODs, TS9, but keep the DS-1, it's got that mega compressed distortion sound.

9/27/1999 4:48 AM

Re: Sweetest pedal.. thickness/dynamics

The real problem I have with distortion pedals is
that 90 percent sound so thin.. and if they dont
you only get an unholy amount of gain out of them..
I'm looking at the big muff or the fuzzface.. I've
heard the muff cant be set to mellow distortions..
all extreme... I might be leaning towards fuzzface
or a fuzzclone because of it.. anyone went through
a good few of these boxes?

9/27/1999 5:38 AM

I know what you are talking about. Most pedals make your amps sound small. On the designs I like, they don't do this.

The pedals I like (and I am biased) are:

The Shaka 3 - it does NOT thin out your amp with the tone control set appropriately. You do not lose bass and in fact, there are many settings that allow you to click in and out and hardly notice any change (other than distortion). It is very dynamic as well.

The Minibooster 2 - although not as transparent as the Shaka 3, it does not thin out your amp. It's more for a mild to medium drive but it does sound good.

Jack Orman's unreleased MS-1 - fat, sustainy, versatile pedal that can do lots of things and it doesn't make your amp sound small.

I think a properly voiced CD4049 pedal ala Tube Sound Fuzz will be able to do this although I don't have one yet. The ones I made have a distinct slight bass loss even after I compensated for it.

Perhaps even a cheap tube screamer with the feedback loop capacitor value increased will stop the annoying TS midrange hump and make it sound bigger.

Aron

9/27/1999 7:05 AM
David Manson	has anyone built a tubescreamer pedal from geofex.. wanted to know if it sounded thin or not... I remember trying a ts-9 a year ago but it just sounded like all the other distortion buzzboxes...

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