Low Gain OD: I'm a changed man
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:25 am
I've never been much for "Low Gain" style overdrives. I have built a few tube screamers, both of which I ended up modding for more gain, as well as a red llama. Those are about as low as I've ever gotten; my preference has always been for distortion and fuzz.
I had a pickup gig this week with a friend and his stuff was definitely of a lighter fare than what I'm used to. At first I was just using one of my distortion pedals and turning the gain down, but since I had a birthday coming up anyway, I decided to take the plunge and try something new, something that was dedicated to doing that kind of sound instead of taking one of my current pedals and adapting it. I needed two channels, so I decided to either try the ZVex Box of Rock or the Barber Half Gainer, which is a two channel version of their pedal the LTD. Since the hand made Box of Rock was way more expensive, I decided to go with the Barber.
The gig was Tuesday night, and needless to say I was totally floored, and I can totally see why so many players keep these types of pedals in their arsenal. I set up the first channel to be lower gain and the second medium gain. With the first channel on, using a tele and a Vox AC15, it just sounds like the amp but bigger. When I dig in, it gets dirty, with lots of really cool and musical overtones and a surprising amount of musical feedback; I had always associated feedback with gobs of gain, but that's not the case here. When I flip to my tele's neck pickup, it goes right back to being totally clean, but with a thicker low-midrange that helps the tele's usually slim sounding neck pickup cut through. Because of the variety of tones, based on how hard I played and whether I was using the neck, bridge, or both pickups, I actually spent most of the night on this first channel! Some songs required a bit more grind, in which case I'd kick over to the second channel. I could still go back to a cleaner tone via switching pickups or lowering my guitar's volume, never losing a bit of the awesome tone.
Needless to say, I'm going to be incorporating this pedal into a lot more of my regular band's material. I feel like I've got a whole world of new sounds at my fingertips that I never even considered before; I liken it to being underwater, and then breaking through and seeing the sun for the first time.
Any of you guys have a similar experience? Don't stick to strictly OD pedals, either: what's a good effect that you had misconceptions about that totally rocked your world?
I had a pickup gig this week with a friend and his stuff was definitely of a lighter fare than what I'm used to. At first I was just using one of my distortion pedals and turning the gain down, but since I had a birthday coming up anyway, I decided to take the plunge and try something new, something that was dedicated to doing that kind of sound instead of taking one of my current pedals and adapting it. I needed two channels, so I decided to either try the ZVex Box of Rock or the Barber Half Gainer, which is a two channel version of their pedal the LTD. Since the hand made Box of Rock was way more expensive, I decided to go with the Barber.
The gig was Tuesday night, and needless to say I was totally floored, and I can totally see why so many players keep these types of pedals in their arsenal. I set up the first channel to be lower gain and the second medium gain. With the first channel on, using a tele and a Vox AC15, it just sounds like the amp but bigger. When I dig in, it gets dirty, with lots of really cool and musical overtones and a surprising amount of musical feedback; I had always associated feedback with gobs of gain, but that's not the case here. When I flip to my tele's neck pickup, it goes right back to being totally clean, but with a thicker low-midrange that helps the tele's usually slim sounding neck pickup cut through. Because of the variety of tones, based on how hard I played and whether I was using the neck, bridge, or both pickups, I actually spent most of the night on this first channel! Some songs required a bit more grind, in which case I'd kick over to the second channel. I could still go back to a cleaner tone via switching pickups or lowering my guitar's volume, never losing a bit of the awesome tone.
Needless to say, I'm going to be incorporating this pedal into a lot more of my regular band's material. I feel like I've got a whole world of new sounds at my fingertips that I never even considered before; I liken it to being underwater, and then breaking through and seeing the sun for the first time.
Any of you guys have a similar experience? Don't stick to strictly OD pedals, either: what's a good effect that you had misconceptions about that totally rocked your world?
I definitely he SS/BS and the Fuck OD to thank for this change of heart. Good god that's one FAT sounding, badass OD!
my solo sound has been OD+Fuzz for what seems to be ages to me now