Vision Music

[woland99]

or rather - quest for great OD (pedal).
What do you guys/gals use?

I am about to help economy by buying decent OD.
In the past I had a few different ones:
1. Boss Blues Driver - can't deal with pedal without true bypass
2. Ibanez Tube Screamer - too "blanket'y" for me (and no true bypass)
3. SIB Varidrive - 12AX7 based - should have kept this one - huge
pedal - size of a brick and needed direct 110V power. But you could swap
the tube and get different sounds out of it. Not very jazzy - it was hard
to get "almost clean" OD but man that thing could sing.
4. Barber LTD - that one was supposed to be almost clean OD but somehow
I never liked it - there was something not very natural about EQ on it.
5. MI Audio Tube Zone - very flexible pedal. And on a downside - very
flexible pedal. Tweaker nirvana - all the controls seemed to depend on
each others so you could sit there for hours happily tweaking. Which I hate.
6. Xotic RC Booster - still have this one - not really OD - more like a
very musical boost altho at the extreme setting it will overdrive slightly.
Great booster pedal. Best EQ I seen on any pedal. Smal, relaible and
easy to work with - gain, volume, active bass and treble - all doing what
they were supposed to do.
7. ProCo Rat2 - I kindda like it - it was rather warm and not very harsh
even on extreme settings. But usable range for me was 0 to 1 tick and
to do any modding on newer (Chinese made) Rats Keeley charges $110
so I returned it after a day.
8. Xotic AC Booster - after RC it was natural to get a "gainier" brother.
It can be a bit harsh sounding on lower gain - but if you roll the volume
on guitar a bit it sounds nice. Seems better in front of tube amp than SS.
I only had it for a day so I did not explore higher gains much but it seems
to be good and non"blankety" tubescreamer like OD. Great EQ - ame as
RC. So I am pondering spending a bit more and getting AC+ (Plus) Booster
which is 2 channel pedal - and keeping RC on for clean tone then one
channel of AC+ for sortta "clean SRV" and the other one as lead.
BTW - here is decent review of AC+ by Jack Zucker - very able jazzer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-l5FX1x9s0

Any other OD suggestions to try? Or is it "no-OD" forum

[nylenny]

I have two overdrive pedals that I like -- a Fulltone and a Zen. The Zen gives great Carlton / Ford sounds. I am happy with both of them. Each allows the creaminess of the guitar to ring through, as a top end pedal should. You should also check out pedals modified by Keeley. I have a Keely digital delay that is excellent.

[woland99]

I know about Fulltone - almost bought it once - friend of my has their OCD
that he likes a lot. As for Zen - I remember they were reviewed in Guitar
Player and got good marks but I was not convinced by their audio clips and
there are no dealers here in town to check it.
Guitar Center/Musiciansfiend were carrying Fulltone for a brief moment
so it was easy to just buy it with no risk. But their local dealer .... - I do not
like that shop much - their prices are insanely high - and not too many OCDs
or Fulldrives end up on craigs.

[nylenny]

I buy all my pedals on eBay. Pedals are so personal, and if you bought it cheap, you can sell it cheap. I sometimes look at eBay as a rental shop. I buy a piece of gear, use it for a while, and then decide if it's a keeper. It's too hard to do that in a music store.

[woland99]

You are right about eBay - although you never know if stuff
that you bought was abused or not. I bought 2 guitars, amp,
couple pedals and 2 guitars synths there. Was really lucky with
all of those. But all of the purchases were few years back - nothing
recently - seems like it gets harder to get good deals there now.
So my first choice is usually craigslist.

[nylenny]

I think with the tough economy there are some good deals. I just saw a Fender 5-string custom shop jazz bass go unsold with a "buy it now" of $1500.

[corky4strings]

with the buy it know on ebay there are so many music stores on there now you could get some great deals on new equipment. i bought my new bass rig through one of the music stores that use ebay. ended up being $600.00 less then if i was to buy at my local music store.
_________________
corky




let your fingers do the walking i do

[woland99]

Well too late now I just sank money into AC+ - and from little that
I had a chance to play it it may be a keeper. Shop that I bought it at
was always very good at supporting everything I bought there - they
did tons of tweaking on (used!) amps that I bought there for free.
Plus that is first pedal I bought in almost two years so I guess I will
chalk it as my stimulus package.
Next stop I will look some sort of chorus/univibe deal and my pedal
board will be complete (RC Booster, AC+ Booster, Buddha wah, Ernie
Ball volume and whatever chorus I go with - gotta keep things simple -
I am complete anti-tweaker).

[Gorecki]

I've used the same thing for a long time now and can't match it. I have a old (now) modified ADA MP-1 and it's my tone machine. From mild dirt to OMG my brain is going to explode box. Pedals suck.
_________________

Forums Admin VisionMusic.com
Do you know where all of your F'n B flats are?

[Larry_DC]

When I got my Line6 a few years ago my pedals went to the dust bin. With all the amp and effects settings and the drive knob I have everything I need in one box.

[woland99]