"We forgot to call Dylan" "Who the F*ck is Dylan?" "oh, I mean xDylanx" " oh yea we forgot to call him"
overdrive before distortion?
Okay whats all this stuff i've heard about puttign an overdrive pedal before distortion to better the tone or something? i am on my tone journey and looking for ways to better it
# 1
http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19810
There's a link to a Boss page in there that allows you to download a very very helpful .pdf file about specific pedals. It only deals with the Boss line of pedals but it will give you a very good idea of how they work and how to tweek them...
As for distortion and overdrive. It's been an age old question: "Should I overdrive the distortion or distort the overdrive?" It's up to personal perference... A lot of people, professionals and the like, Use a dirty amp rather than a single amp with a distortion and overdrive pedal on a certain channel. They will find an amp with a really good dirty sound and an amp with a really good clean sound, since it's reaaaallly hard to find an amp that does both superbly. It's just one of those compromises that you have to make...
In relation to a non-professional setup: Most people tend to overdrive the distortion. I do it, Zakk Wylde does it, plenty of others do it as well... What I do is dial in a tad bit of distortion in my dirty channel on my amp. Then I put my overdrive pedal in front of it. Of course, the overdrive pedal makes a big difference in the sound... A cheap Danelectro overdrive isn't going to sound like an Ibanez TubeScreamer-808. TubeScreamers are about all I will ever use... I have a TS-808 and I love it. However, they're mostly designed to work with a tube driven amp rather than a solid state amp.
But I guess before I can offer you specific advice about how you should set yours up, I should ask what specific tone are you looking for??
I prefer a nice smooth tone with a very very tiny bit of break up when I really lay into the strings. My tone is probably too bluesy for most, but I like it and that's what matters.
There's a link to a Boss page in there that allows you to download a very very helpful .pdf file about specific pedals. It only deals with the Boss line of pedals but it will give you a very good idea of how they work and how to tweek them...
As for distortion and overdrive. It's been an age old question: "Should I overdrive the distortion or distort the overdrive?" It's up to personal perference... A lot of people, professionals and the like, Use a dirty amp rather than a single amp with a distortion and overdrive pedal on a certain channel. They will find an amp with a really good dirty sound and an amp with a really good clean sound, since it's reaaaallly hard to find an amp that does both superbly. It's just one of those compromises that you have to make...
In relation to a non-professional setup: Most people tend to overdrive the distortion. I do it, Zakk Wylde does it, plenty of others do it as well... What I do is dial in a tad bit of distortion in my dirty channel on my amp. Then I put my overdrive pedal in front of it. Of course, the overdrive pedal makes a big difference in the sound... A cheap Danelectro overdrive isn't going to sound like an Ibanez TubeScreamer-808. TubeScreamers are about all I will ever use... I have a TS-808 and I love it. However, they're mostly designed to work with a tube driven amp rather than a solid state amp.
But I guess before I can offer you specific advice about how you should set yours up, I should ask what specific tone are you looking for??
I prefer a nice smooth tone with a very very tiny bit of break up when I really lay into the strings. My tone is probably too bluesy for most, but I like it and that's what matters.
# 2
well the tone im trying to get is a smoother more petrucci..ish lead tone im already usign an EQ and a BBE sonic stop and they made the tone great but im wondering if overdrive will make it even better because i thought my tone beofer these pedals was good and now that i look back at it i would never get rid of these pedals
"We forgot to call Dylan" "Who the F*ck is Dylan?" "oh, I mean xDylanx" " oh yea we forgot to call him"
# 3
I have a VHT amp which is quite expensive, however by itself I can't get a smooth sustaining lead tone. What I use in front of the amp is a Boss DS1 distortion pedal with every knob at 12 o'clock. This tone is my dream tone!
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Stuck in a rut and not getting any better? - Amazing Licks
Stuck in a rut and not getting any better? - Amazing Licks
# 4
Ok lets clear one thing up. Overdrive causes distortion to a degree so overdrive will come first.
Try this if you don't beleive me. Put your stereo on pick a fave track and play at your normal volume, then whack the volume up full and listen and you'll hear the sound is distorted. What a distortion pedal does is distort the natural harmonics in a note so they are pushed through they are based on the orriginal fuzz face pedal for the most part. Overdrives increase the output of the guitar signal so if you increase the amp gain you'll get natural distortion with the overdrive. As for tone. Go overdrive all the way and forget the distortion pedal all together unless you are in to grunge or really dark metal. Distortion does have it's place but i would allways go overdrive first for that slightly distorted sound and to increase sustain.
Try this if you don't beleive me. Put your stereo on pick a fave track and play at your normal volume, then whack the volume up full and listen and you'll hear the sound is distorted. What a distortion pedal does is distort the natural harmonics in a note so they are pushed through they are based on the orriginal fuzz face pedal for the most part. Overdrives increase the output of the guitar signal so if you increase the amp gain you'll get natural distortion with the overdrive. As for tone. Go overdrive all the way and forget the distortion pedal all together unless you are in to grunge or really dark metal. Distortion does have it's place but i would allways go overdrive first for that slightly distorted sound and to increase sustain.
:eek: [FONT=Century Gothic]Just groove, ya know ya wanna?????[/FONT] :eek:
# 5
Originally Posted by: BluegrasslimeyOk lets clear one thing up. Overdrive causes distortion to a degree so overdrive will come first.
Try this if you don't beleive me. Put your stereo on pick a fave track and play at your normal volume, then whack the volume up full and listen and you'll hear the sound is distorted. What a distortion pedal does is distort the natural harmonics in a note so they are pushed through they are based on the orriginal fuzz face pedal for the most part. Overdrives increase the output of the guitar signal so if you increase the amp gain you'll get natural distortion with the overdrive. As for tone. Go overdrive all the way and forget the distortion pedal all together unless you are in to grunge or really dark metal. Distortion does have it's place but i would allways go overdrive first for that slightly distorted sound and to increase sustain.
In short of what he's saying.... Overdrive is the point where the amp is "overdriven" but not breaking up..... Distortion is the point where the amp is breaking up. Generally overdrive is smoother sounding than distortion, not quite as harsh.
# 6
hmm... guess again.
Overdrive is what happens when the front end of an amp is fed a signal that is strong enough to saturate one or more of the gain stages. The incoming signal can be clean or already distorted; doesn't matter. The point is, that the level is high enough to cause the amp to distort. Usually, an overdrive pedal pushes a strong, clean signal. The resulting distortion is produced within the amp. If the amp has smooth distortion characteristics, you'll get smooth distortion. If you overdrive a transistor amp that was not designed for 'nice' distortion, it won't sound smooth at all.
Distortion pedals deliver a distorted signal. Yeah, really! The output could be turned down so that it was nowhere near strong enough to overdrive an amp, and the sound would still be distorted. This is useful in situations where you can't crank a tube amp up enough to get it to distort on it's own. Or it can add extra crunch when fed into a cranked amp.
There are differences in the sound of distortion generated in a pedal or in the preamp, and distortion generated in the power stage of a tube amp. A distortion pedal can't generate power-stage distortion without also creating preamp distortion. An overdrive pedal will cause the most sensitive stage of the amp to distort. What stage that is, depends on the amp design and the control settings. Which setup you prefer, depends on what you're playing, and what you want it to sound like.
Overdrive is what happens when the front end of an amp is fed a signal that is strong enough to saturate one or more of the gain stages. The incoming signal can be clean or already distorted; doesn't matter. The point is, that the level is high enough to cause the amp to distort. Usually, an overdrive pedal pushes a strong, clean signal. The resulting distortion is produced within the amp. If the amp has smooth distortion characteristics, you'll get smooth distortion. If you overdrive a transistor amp that was not designed for 'nice' distortion, it won't sound smooth at all.
Distortion pedals deliver a distorted signal. Yeah, really! The output could be turned down so that it was nowhere near strong enough to overdrive an amp, and the sound would still be distorted. This is useful in situations where you can't crank a tube amp up enough to get it to distort on it's own. Or it can add extra crunch when fed into a cranked amp.
There are differences in the sound of distortion generated in a pedal or in the preamp, and distortion generated in the power stage of a tube amp. A distortion pedal can't generate power-stage distortion without also creating preamp distortion. An overdrive pedal will cause the most sensitive stage of the amp to distort. What stage that is, depends on the amp design and the control settings. Which setup you prefer, depends on what you're playing, and what you want it to sound like.
# 7
