Overdrive to complement B3K

[Shish]

B3K is the only od I have on my board now but I think about getting another one. B3K is awesome for heavy bass riffs and stacks amazingly with Emma Pizdiyauwot for some bleed-from-your-ears distortion. But I also need to play melodic lines and solos in higher register (one man band, yeah) and I feel like it's not B3K strong suit. So I'm looking for another flavor of overdrive for melodic parts and if it can do more things it would be even better. So far I'm considering Elements (had before, miss it, but I liked its high-gain stuff more), SS/BS Mini, EQD Talons or Monarch. Any suggestions?

[MSUsousaphone]

The Elements is always cool. They DO have the new Darkglass vintage thingy coming out. My OD of choice to compliment my B3K is the Swell B-Max. Those aren't be made anymore but that guy will be starting up Myco pedals, soon. Should be pretty similar.

[jrmy]

I don't have any experience with the B3K, but I got to mess around with a smallsound/bigsound mini last weekend, and was shocked at how sweet it was. It's hard to describe since I hate using the word "transparent" (especially in regards to a pedal that is clearly adding grit & drive & stuff), but the sound was very much "my bass sound," just, y'know, more badass.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I haven't tried any of the others, or many overdrive pedals in general, but I agree with jrmy about the mini, it's a really nice OD, the EQ and bias allow for quite a variety of sounds. Got it for guitar but I think I probably prefer it on bass, it just works so nicely on the mid-high register of a bass. Cool fuzz if you crank it too.

[Tendollarcat]

I'm pretty sure overdrive is my sound about 70% of the time. I always hear dirt as either treble oriented or bottom end oriented. I find its cool to use an overdrive that bumps up bottom end and thickness as you play in the upper register. You can then blend it with something which is brighter like a B3K and get a whole new dimension on the tone as well. That's why I dig overdrive. You can use it for stacking but it brings a flavor or with it.

I've been through a heap over the years. These are my top few -

1) EBS Valvedrive - not sexy, big, annoying to power, they just made an awful looking signature pedal for Billy Sheehan too.......Plug it in to a pbass in a loud band and it wipes the floor with any overdrive. It is ridiculously good.

2) Zvex Basstortion - I'm pretty surprised by this little pedal. It sort of cops the Valvedrive tone in a much smaller and cheaper box.

3) Fuzzrocious BDPG - Really cool pedal. It adds a dub vibe to the dirt sound. Doesn't do extreme overdrive really though.

4) Wren and Cuff Phat Phuk - Great and simple pedal. Seems to sound good on every setting. More of a dirty boost than a drive though.

On my bucket list is a Mountainking Behemoth. That thing looks awesome.

My main thing would be to avoid anything voiced with upper-mids like the B3K. Having two pedals in the same EQ ballpark always created problems for me. I like overdrive to be bassy, distortion to be grindy and fuzz to do wall of sound with no clean blend. That's what I spend all of my time chasing

[Shish]

Thanks, guys! Now I'm afraid that I'll end up with more than one new overdrive. Mini sounds very good on demos and this bias knob is very cool. I've decided that I need Elements again. And the new candidate is Caroline Wave Cannon, for all of the oscillation fun.

[Waterpilot]

Thanks, guys! Now I'm afraid that I'll end up with more than one new overdrive. Mini sounds very good on demos and this bias knob is very cool. I've decided that I need Elements again. And the new candidate is Caroline Wave Cannon, for all of the oscillation fun.

Love the Elements! I've never tried the B3K though... I have been curios about the Wave Cannon for a little while now (I keep forgetting about it), but I may look into it again.

[jrmy]

Yeah, I love my Elements. SO MANY OPTIONS!