The best dirty clean tone overdrive?

[DRodriguez]

I like clean sounds, but with dirt in them. I can generally dial one in at the amp or finagle a clumsy way with my existing pedals. But I kind of want a great dirty clean tone in a pedal. The two I'm mainly looking at are the Fairfield Circuitry Barbershop and the smallsound/bigsound Fuck. Which one do y'all like better? Are there any others that should be on my radar? Should I Voltron them to make a Fuckshop?

[goroth]

I have all the ones you're looking at and honestly, they're all great. Work great at volume and they record nicely too. It more depends on the exact feature set you are after as to which to choose, or perhaps what "secondary" or "extended" features you want.
Fuck - crackle
Mini - eq, gets fuzzy
Fairfield - simplicity

Heisenberg - 3 very different flavours of od with some fancy tech and very simple interface
Elements - clean blend, insane gain range, clipping and eq options
Demo tape - huge volume. Super clean to tape input blowing up.

Turn you have fuzzes that do lofi od as well.
Fuzzhugger Arc Flash - goes from clean to amp melting. For real. It sounds like an amp melting. A very true name.
Fuzzhugger suneater - with low gain mod this is a lovely od, but doesn't get as clean as the others.

All of them can do hifi or lofi. All except the barbershop get real dirty.
All are great.

Easy choice huh

[Eivind August]

Should I Voltron them to make a Fuckshop?

Yes.

[weed_killer]

obviously I'll vouch for ss/bs 'til I die, but as boring as it sounds, I picked up an early 80s distortion + a couple months back and it does that 'dirty clean' sound really, really well, going through my ampeg v2. Never tried a newer one, but you can still get a deal on an old one pretty easily. Only downside is that the bypass signal sucks (I use it in a loop).

[CyaNitrate]

This is exactly what I'm using the Algal side of my Twin Bloom for. Algal Bloom v2 with clean blend. Perfect. Yes on guitar.

[HeavyXIII]

Anything with a clean blend is amazing.

[fcknoise]

Modele B might be perfect for this. Graphic fuzz is kinda cool for this too, plus obviously the EQ is handy.

[DRodriguez]

lots o' stuff

That was exactly what I was looking for. Definitely leaning towards the Fuck and very interested in Fuzzhugger Arc Flash since I love my Algal Bloom.

obviously I'll vouch for ss/bs 'til I die, but as boring as it sounds, I picked up an early 80s distortion + a couple months back and it does that 'dirty clean' sound really, really well, going through my ampeg v2. Never tried a newer one, but you can still get a deal on an old one pretty easily. Only downside is that the bypass signal sucks (I use it in a loop).

I have an 80's DOD distortion, but I don't break it out enough because of the noise and because I'm usually too lazy to find the power adapter. I should try it out again.

This is exactly what I'm using the Algal side of my Twin Bloom for. Algal Bloom v2 with clean blend. Perfect. Yes on guitar.

Love me my Algal Bloom v2, I got it before the clean blend on it was a thing though . I generally have it set to be on the heavier side though because it is amazing set to crazy distortion.

Anything with a clean blend is amazing.

Yes! I often make my own clean blend through other means. Especially on bass, but frequently when I mess with massive otherworldly guitar fuzz tones, I'll throw some clean in there to give it some clarity.

Modele B might be perfect for this. Graphic fuzz is kinda cool for this too, plus obviously the EQ is handy.

I believe the modele B is an always on Barbershop minus the tone, right? I have like this completely unreasonable subconscious hesitation buying Electro-Harmonix pedals. I have no idea why. I have a Muff and like it, but for whatever reason I always hesitate when looking at buying one of their pedals. I'll give the graphic fuzz another look.

Thanks all!

[Inconuucl]

The DOD Boneshaker is great for this! The parametric eq makes it so you can get any texture ever. DOD shouldn't have marketed it as a metal distortion, as it doesn't really work too much for super metal tones unless you play bass. But on low gain settings you add a great sag and slight growl to your clean tone and at mid/high settings you get a great Sonic Youth tone that's fantastic.

[fcknoise]

What you said about modele B is correct man. Ya, alot of people won't buy newer EHX. I mean general consensus is that old EHX is okay and new is pretty bad and shouldn't be supported, right? Talking about the old big box version, haven't tried the new one. Also, for the sake of sounding like a broken record, check out the lower gain barber pedals. The LTD SR been my favorite overdrive for two years now, since before ILF times. I realize they might be considered TGPish, but whatever ima rebel

[repoman]

infanem driving notion is another thats good for this, doesn't have a lot of gain, is the drive is kinda gnarly and you can set it so it's clean top, dirty bottom, or dirty top, clean bottom and then blend those.

runoffgroove supreaux

[Chankgeez]

Didn't Sonic Youth use Klons?

[rustywire]

Tubescreamers with a touch of OVERDRIVE knob seem to be popular

Didn't Sonic Youth use Klons?

Was wondering how you would mention Klons. 10/10 did not disappoint.
But personally I'm more of a Harmonic Percolator set to low-input, high output kinda guy

[penelope tree]

The Fingerprint might be another option although I'm not sure whether they're readily available at the moment. An interesting pedal that is unlikely to be mentioned is EHX's Germanium OD.

[D.o.S.]

Mellowtone, duh.