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Hello all, first-time post from a long-time lurker.

I would love some overdrive recommendations. My current drive section is a Sweet Honey Overdrive into an EQD Hoof. Depending on my mood, I'm either going to be playing roots-style rock/slide in open tunings (Shakey Graves, R.L. Burnside, etc) or making loops and doing swells, oscillations, etc (This Will Destroy You).

The Hoof is great for both styles. I turn the fuzz way up for open tunings/slide, and I dial it down close to zero for the other stuff I play and use it like a distortion. The SHOD, on the other hand, is not great. It's just too sterile, and I can't find any sound I particularly like with it. To my ears, it sounds too thin to use as anything other than a boost for the Hoof.

I'd like to keep my drive section down to two pedals, so I don't want to add anything in front of the SHOD (though I'm GAS-ing over the EQD Bows at the moment). Pedals I'm currently looking at are the Smallsound/Bigsound Mini, JHS Twin Twelve, and Solid Gold FX Zeta.

Any additional suggestions?

I would not buy the JHS.

I would definitely buy the mini.

somebody say JHS.....oh boy

Uncle Grandfather wrote:somebody say JHS.....oh boy

Cardinal sin in my first post! Dang it. The "Enemies" section of my profile page makes sense now.

The OD's listed are either ones that I'm interested in but have never been able to try (Mini), or are currently available and could be bought/traded for this afternoon if I wanted. I'm just wondering if anyone else out there might have similar tastes and a good recommendation.

The Mini is definitely going to be more versatile than the Zeta. I definitely dug the Zeta but the mini really crushes a lot of overdrives in its price range.

weebles wrote:Cardinal sin in my first post! Dang it.

i was just havin a laugh at the hate JHS gets on ILF. I personally don't have any problem with JHS or cults in general Not much of an OD fan myself, but the Lastgasp Art Laboratories Steriod O.D sounds pretty darn good as far as that goes. I like the SS/BS Fuck OD for the crackle feature, from what i've read its kinda similar to the Mini which has a lot of fans here but i've never tried one.

Here's a demo of the LAL Steroid OD i made, for what its worth
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHRdEqW-tw0[/youtube]

Mini out of what you listed.

Others i'd suggest are ARC Soothsayer, a Cornish P2 clone from Make Sounds Loudly or a Buffalo FX Evolution. I love all three of those.

weebles wrote:

Uncle Grandfather wrote:somebody say JHS.....oh boy

Cardinal sin in my first post! Dang it. The "Enemies" section of my profile page makes sense now.

The OD's listed are either ones that I'm interested in but have never been able to try (Mini), or are currently available and could be bought/traded for this afternoon if I wanted. I'm just wondering if anyone else out there might have similar tastes and a good recommendation.

Haha there are no cardinal sins here. This is ILF, and all reverse snobbery/'serious' discussion of pedals is bogus. JHS does inspire a lot of hatred here, they have some shady practices....Anyway, the Mini does get a lot of love 'round these parts. Other drive pedals du jour: Anything Infanem, Dwarfcraft, a lot of EQD, SS/BS, Dr. Scientist...

Fuck Overdrive.

*drops mic*

Mini would be your standard answer around here. Whether you ask for advice on a new paper weight, a missile defense system, a toaster,...the answer is: Mini.

There are finally quit a few decent demos of it on the net these days, and they all make the mini sound raspy and midsy and scratchy/fizzy/lo-fi to me
Not that far from what got out of my old gorilla amp, when the battery in my ds-2 was about to die

If it sounds like I'm going against the opinion of 99% of this forum regarding the mini...I'm not, I just can't seem to find anyone who'll sell me his mini for less than a couple bucks under the new price. I'm dying to find out for myself what the big deal is and make some sort of judgement that's based on actual first hand experience

In my humble opinion you don't need to look much further than boss/way huge/mxr/ibanez/dod to find a great overdrive pedal
I bought more booteek overdrive peds than I care to remember, only ot find out that nobody can re-invent the wheel, and that in the end yer tone will depend on your amp and guitar more than anything else.

Otoh, there's nothing against something with a couple more controls and a nice paint job. So if you insist on spending a little bit more: The peeps at EQD are incapable of making a pedal that doesn't sound stellar imo. Or if you don't mind versatility (as in fuzz/dist/od all in one compact peddle): Dr Scientist elements. Though that one might be overkill for what you're describing.

I know Wampler doesn't get a lot of mension on ILF, which is understandable given their meh graphics, hefty prices, and ever changing mess of a product line up...
But I know for a fact that they have an overdrive or two that can hang with the best of 'em.
Zvex is another brand that doesn't quite have the same forum cred as ss/bs, but all the sho variations are excellent imo.

I like how you talk about how the Mini is the standard answer and then say he should get an Elements .

D.o.S. wrote:I like how you talk about how the Mini is the standard answer and then say he should get an Elements .

Yeah that used to be the standard "which dirt pedal" answer, right?
I only mensioned it cause the OP seems to be set on going booteek, and the Elements is actually one of the few dirt peds in that category that I tried that I kinda almost regret flipping. Just cause it was capable of doing the same job that now need at least 4 other boss peds for

I'm personally not really that into overdrives that can't go fuzzy/gainy, but if I were...Imo A good old OD-1 is a great tubescreamer-like low gain od pedal for anyone who doesn't like tubescreamers The rest of the Boss OD stuff isn't too shabby either imo, and neither is the BD-2.
Another one that stuck by me and als happens to be rather unknown/unloved around these parts: H&K Tube Factor. Too bad it's not more eq-able and takes up that much board space though...

Lee Ranaldo has used one for like 100 years, that's enough endorsement for me!

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