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I'm interested in getting a smooth singing sustain in my tone from time to time.
My Fulltone Plimsoul does a nice enough job, but I'm wondering if there's something better out there . . .
Do I need a different distortion box, or maybe a compressor/sustainer?
What do you guys like?
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01-05-2017 11:29 AM
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I've tried a few things with that "smooth singing sustain" in mind myself - I may even have used those very words when asking for ideas on other forums. At the moment I have an inexpensive TC Electronic Dark Matter distortion on my board, that I would actually say gets the closest of those I've tried. I used it at a gig a few weeks ago, and was surprised at just how good it was - I think playing at gig volume did help. Maybe it's because I use a solid state amp (usually a Polytone Minibrute 2), but I do tend to find that "distortion" pedals work better than "overdrive" pedals for me.
Another one I've found that has a certain something is a Turbo RAT pedal (more so than the standard RAT). Actually, the one I have is a cheap Chinese-made RAT "clone" in mini-pedal format, which has a switch to go between standard and turbo clipping modes. But anyway, don't go too high on the gain, and get the filter control just so, and I find good, characterful sustaining tones are to be had - a pleasing thick, strident, beefy kind of sound.
I've just bought a second-hand UK made DopeFX Black Lotus, which is a Zen Drive based circuit, but with some additional controls to give more tone options - I'll see how I get on with that. I tried a standard Zen Drive pedal (again a clone I'm afraid - I'm not rich enough to justify an original) and found that quite nice, but with a bit of a nasal quality I wasn't too keen on. Still, I'm now going back and trying a similar pedal again, so perhaps there was something good there as well.
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I have a Maxon OD9 with the Analog Man mod. It's what I've used forever. I've used it for everything from a light overdrive for bluesier stuff to a boost for high gain metal.
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ZVEX Box Of Rock
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I like the tubescreamer kind of thing. Best I tried so far is a Keeley Red Dirt. Very organic and transparent. You can use it in front of a ss amp with pleasing results.
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I love the ZVex Super Duper 2-in-1 for most OD type stuff. It's a 2 stage OD that can be stacked so you end up with a few different levels of drive.
I also really like the Seymour Duncan 805 pedal. It's a little TS-ish, but uses a different chip. And it has EQ, which can be very handy, especially to dial out some the woofiness that I get from thumb strumming with drive. I also use that one a lot with my lap steel. The EQ helps to roll off some of the Hawaii.
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A pedal that I've recently acquired that is great for this purpose is a Zendrive. It's neat because you can get a sweet singing quality without even dialing the gain up that much.
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I recently got an MXR Modified OD, and it may be the best I've played through in decades. It's a very nice pedal.
Dunlop Manufacturing :: Electronics :: MXR :: Custom Badass™ Modified O.D.
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I find that it really depends on your guitar,pickups, and amp choice, to which od pedal I choose. So I have several, as well as booster stacking options like my Luxury Drive, or Timmy Pedal. I use humbuckers and mainly Quilter amps!
1.) Lovekraft Mojo Drive
2.) Jetter Red Shift
3.) One Control Strawberry Overdrive
4.) Tone City Sweet Cream
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I generally find not dialing up the gain all that much is a good idea, with you on that one.
Originally Posted by VinceMGuitar
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BJFe Baby Blue Overdrive ? ? ?
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I have:
- Fulltone OCD -- My overall favorite. Gain goes from very light, basically clean boost to "Marshall stack in a box" with tons of usable settings in between. I've used it with both humbuckers and single coils, and tons of different amps and always been happy with the tone.
- BK Butler Real Tube - uses a 12AX7 Tube. Basically the same as a Tube Driver but with the power supply built-in instead of a wall wart. Sounds great -- very smooth, lots of harmonics, but the pots tend to get dirty/scratchy, can't run on batteries, and it's bulkier and heavier than other pedals, so I don't use it much anymore.
- T-Rex Crunchy Frog -- tubescreamer-type low gain pedal with an additional clean boost channel. Got it about a year ago, but haven't used it that much yet, TBH.
Danelectro Daddy-O -- supposedly the exact same circuit as a Marshall Gov'nor pedal, but a lot cheaper. It's OK. I like it more with single coils than humbuckers.
John
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Mesa Flux Five is great for the old Boogie tones.
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Check out the foundation distortion series from Electro Harmonix.
You have quite a collection of different styles of distortion and overdrive.
A lot of people rate the Soul Food but I liked The Glove coz it gives a Marshall type overdrive with a voice selector.
What's more they're low priced.
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being a lifelong plug and play straight ahead jazz player I'm probably not the best person to answer this question.
that said a band I've been working w/plays some R&B, so for Isaac Hayes "Walk On By" I recently bought a Boss FZ-5 Fuzz. Seems to the job and only cost me $45.
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I've been wondering about those! Originally Posted by Woody Sound
They have a Big Muff Deluxe model with some interesting mid controls that looks intriguing . . .
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ProCo RAT
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I like a Tube Screamer wth two mods 1) a 1M gain pot which gives a lot more gain 2) a bass switch, that cuts less bass than the stock TS. With these two mods, it's a great pedal.
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I have a Free the Tone "MS-SOV" pedal I like. One of my students just purchased the Mad Professor "Simble," which looks cool.
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Another interesting pedal is the Catalinbread Katzenkonig ("Cat King" as it's a Rat killer). It's a Rat and a Tone Bender Mk II fuzz in a single pedal. It's got quite a range of usable tone from edgy breakup to over the top fuzz.
Having a distortion circuit and a fuzz circuit it can get a bit noisy when the Input and Gain are turned way up, but at 'singing' drive levels it's not too bad.
Reverb's price guide has them used at $95 - $120.
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Interesting indeed. There's a couple of very nice singing tones in that vid! Originally Posted by MaxTwang
Another interesting pedal is the Catalinbread Katzenkonig ("Cat King" as it's a Rat killer). It's a Rat and a Tone Bender Mk II fuzz in a single pedal. It's got quite a range of usable tone from edgy breakup to over the top fuzz.
Having a distortion circuit and a fuzz circuit it can get a bit noisy when the Input and Gain are turned way up, but at 'singing' drive levels it's not too bad.
Reverb's price guide has them used at $95 - $120.
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I have settled on an Ethos Overdrive/Preamp and an Okko Diablo... my retirement dirt pedals.
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Possibly of interest:
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Originally Posted by Longways to Go
Interesting indeed. There's a couple of very nice singing tones in that vid!
And the Katzenkonig is on sale at Vintage King for $109.99
Catalinbread Katzenkonig - Vintage King Audio
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