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Dynamic Punchy Overdrive Pedal with a Vintage Amp Possible???

#41
gregmon79 said:
Yeah even with that little treble addition mod he did it was still pretty mushy for me as well. I loved it at home by itself through my Ampeg B50R but with at bumpin levels it just fell apart. It’s just the nature of that circuit I think. I could see how it can fit in many other genres though. Great OD.

You know the Ictineo may be a great thing for you too. It’s on the pricier side but for what it is, it’s a steal. This pedal could also add clarity and punch to your existing setup although I don’t think it’ll give you “drive” per say, it would def drive your tubes hard. In fact, it could be better that the GK Rails for this possibly. See, this is what I ended up with after I got an all tube head:

DOD fx10 > Rusty Box > Darkglass B7K Ultra > Ictineo. Plus I have my onboard preamp with a 3 band EQ. That is my whole tone shaping/EQ/preamp section. I run my onboard almost flat with the bass bumped a tad and the treble a little higher depending on string condition.

Now I know that is a lot. Most likely too much for some. But it’s what worked for me and I love my tone these days. But all these layers come through those tube singing a glorious song of bass nirvana ;) add all my drives and dirt, I’m very happy, let’s just leave it at that. But It took me a while to settle on combos and certain dirt pedals. Hell I’m still open to trying new things of course. But my tube head changed a lot of things for me. In a great way. All by itself the Electric has a wonderful, full, tube sound. But the EQ on it is minimal which leaves a lot of frequency to be covered. So it’s perfect for a bassist with a pedal fetish haha So that’s why I can relate to your situation so much because I always need that treble bite, that high end sheen. And without some key components I would be missing that. But as far as dirt goes, the ones I named worked really well for me. Albeit my setup is most likely a little more in depth than yours, I feel those can help you get to where you want to be in the end.
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Yeah that sounds like a great rig. Leave your tube amp at a neutral tone and let some of your different drive pedals color the tone based on what kind genre or mood your in.

Btw, my head is actually a solid state head. It's made in the 70s, but it's still solid state. It can get dirty, and it honestly sounds pretty tube like when it breaks up. But like I said, I run it clean. So the ictineo could drive my amp if I set it right, but I'd rather get a rusty box or perhaps OCD clone. The GK rails pedal can definitely drive my amp too. It can stay clean or get very dirty. Probably as dirty and punchy as your darkglass pedal. I've owned one way back in the day and really regret selling it. I sold it to pay for the acoustic 370 power amp pedal which was a mistake. Couldn't afford that
 
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#42
Sorry, did not imply that different cabs would be feasible, just trying to get your creative thought processes stoked. Oh, I play thru either 2x Berg NV115's or an AG Whappo Jr. Nothin' but small drivers for me! ( I.e. Do not listen to my advice! )
 
#44
gregmon79 said:
Yeah even with that little treble addition mod he did it was still pretty mushy for me as well. I loved it at home by itself through my Ampeg B50R but with at bumpin levels it just fell apart. It’s just the nature of that circuit I think. I could see how it can fit in many other genres though. Great OD.

You know the Ictineo may be a great thing for you too. It’s on the pricier side but for what it is, it’s a steal. This pedal could also add clarity and punch to your existing setup although I don’t think it’ll give you “drive” per say, it would def drive your tubes hard. In fact, it could be better that the GK Rails for this possibly. See, this is what I ended up with after I got an all tube head:

DOD fx10 > Rusty Box > Darkglass B7K Ultra > Ictineo. Plus I have my onboard preamp with a 3 band EQ. That is my whole tone shaping/EQ/preamp section. I run my onboard almost flat with the bass bumped a tad and the treble a little higher depending on string condition.

Now I know that is a lot. Most likely too much for some. But it’s what worked for me and I love my tone these days. But all these layers come through those tube singing a glorious song of bass nirvana ;) add all my drives and dirt, I’m very happy, let’s just leave it at that. But It took me a while to settle on combos and certain dirt pedals. Hell I’m still open to trying new things of course. But my tube head changed a lot of things for me. In a great way. All by itself the Electric has a wonderful, full, tube sound. But the EQ on it is minimal which leaves a lot of frequency to be covered. So it’s perfect for a bassist with a pedal fetish haha So that’s why I can relate to your situation so much because I always need that treble bite, that high end sheen. And without some key components I would be missing that. But as far as dirt goes, the ones I named worked really well for me. Albeit my setup is most likely a little more in depth than yours, I feel those can help you get to where you want to be in the end.
Click to expand...
Hey gregmon79, sorry to bother you again, but I have one more question and I believe you could help me out here. Having owned both the Rusty Box and the GK Rails pedal, could you compare the two? I have been reading various other OD threads today, and I'm thinking I should look into a distortion that emulates a solid state amp distorted tone rather than a tube amp distorted tone. Most tube amp sounding overdrives color the tone in a muddy way by compressing the low end and rolling off the high end. It sounds like I could use a pedal that emulates a solid state amp that keeps the low end uncompressed and keeps all the high end presence and attack still. When it comes down to amps with great solid state sounding distorted tones, I think of the GK 800RB (GK rails pedal), Traynor S50B (Rusty Box), and the Peavey 800B (Big Game CVLT/Solace).

One more thing, would you say the Rusty Box is similar to the Darklass B3k/B7k? The more I think about it, they seem awfully similar.

Thanks for your help! I have come to appreciate your input on OD
 
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#45
jaroh24 said:
Hey gregmon79, sorry to bother you again, but I have one more question and I believe you could help me out here. Having owned both the Rusty Box and the GK Rails pedal, could you compare the two? I have been reading various other OD threads today, and I'm thinking I should look into a distortion that emulates a solid state amp distorted tone rather than a tube amp distorted tone. Most tube amp sounding overdrives color the tone in a muddy way by compressing the low end and rolling off the high end. It sounds like I could use a pedal that emulates a solid state amp that keeps the low end uncompressed and keeps all the high end presence and attack still. When it comes down to amps with great solid state sounding distorted tones, I think of the GK 800RB (GK rails pedal), Traynor S50B (Rusty Box), and the Peavey 800B (Big Game CVLT/Solace).

One more thing, would you say the Rusty Box is similar to the Darklass B3k/B7k? The more I think about it, they seem awfully similar.

Thanks for your help! I have come to appreciate your input on OD
Click to expand...


I can't really say that the rusty box and B7K are that similar only in that they are both or can both be and excel at high mid clank. You can of course do many other things with these preamps. They can both do the same type things but they sound different. If that makes sense. If you want to get into their dirty sounds, now those are totally different.

As far as wanting an SS drive, you're on the right track. But let me ask you something, are you just wanting a barely there drive? Or an OD with some serious hair or a dist? Because all the pedals you named do these things quite differently IME. The rusty box will give you more of a wider sweep of gain, the F800b will give you some serious muscle then will go into dist from there pretty quickly. The rails, if I remember correctly, doesn't give a lot of hair. It'll give you plenty of muscle, but not much gritty drive. So it really depends on exactly how much hair or grit you're wanting. I've found that when you start stacking SS dirt it can get kinda nasty (not in a good way imo) kinda fast. Have you given any thought to the GK diesel dawg? This is a drive/dist circuit ripped from the 2001rb and put into a pedal. It's not easy to find I don't think, but they are out there. I use to have a clone. That one had a pretty decent sweep on the gain range.

I guess what I'm trying to get at, if you want actually OD with hair, this will change your view on the rails I feel. You may want to ask over in the big game thread about the solace having a wider gain range. He may have tweaked that one when he built it. I've never played that one. Another one you should look at in any case, the Southampton fifth gear. It feels to me like it's a combo of tube drive sorta with SS muscle behind it.
 
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#46
jaroh24 said:
Hey gregmon79, sorry to bother you again, but I have one more question and I believe you could help me out here. Having owned both the Rusty Box and the GK Rails pedal, could you compare the two? I have been reading various other OD threads today, and I'm thinking I should look into a distortion that emulates a solid state amp distorted tone rather than a tube amp distorted tone. Most tube amp sounding overdrives color the tone in a muddy way by compressing the low end and rolling off the high end. It sounds like I could use a pedal that emulates a solid state amp that keeps the low end uncompressed and keeps all the high end presence and attack still. When it comes down to amps with great solid state sounding distorted tones, I think of the GK 800RB (GK rails pedal), Traynor S50B (Rusty Box), and the Peavey 800B (Big Game CVLT/Solace).

One more thing, would you say the Rusty Box is similar to the Darklass B3k/B7k? The more I think about it, they seem awfully similar.

Thanks for your help! I have come to appreciate your input on OD
Click to expand...
Gonna butt in here and say that IMO the Rusty Box is NOT similar to the B3k; I once compared them side-to-side. I vastly preferred the Rusty Box, though I can see the value in combining with a B7k for post-EQ (the eq on the Rusty is pre-clipping). Perhaps I would have liked the B7k stand-alone given the nice EQ on it.
 
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#47
gregmon79 said:
I can't really say that the rusty box and B7K are that similar only in that they are both or can both be and excel at high mid clank. You can of course do many other things with these preamps. They can both do the same type things but they sound different. If that makes sense. If you want to get into their dirty sounds, now those are totally different.

As far as wanting an SS drive, you're on the right track. But let me ask you something, are you just wanting a barely there drive? Or an OD with some serious hair or a dist? Because all the pedals you named do these things quite differently IME. The rusty box will give you more of a wider sweep of gain, the F800b will give you some serious muscle then will go into dist from there pretty quickly. The rails, if I remember correctly, doesn't give a lot of hair. It'll give you plenty of muscle, but not much gritty drive. So it really depends on exactly how much hair or grit you're wanting. I've found that when you start stacking SS dirt it can get kinda nasty (not in a good way imo) kinda fast. Have you given any thought to the GK diesel dawg? This is a drive/dist circuit ripped from the 2001rb and put into a pedal. It's not easy to find I don't think, but they are out there. I use to have a clone. That one had a pretty decent sweep on the gain range.

I guess what I'm trying to get at, if you want actually OD with hair, this will change your view on the rails I feel. You may want to ask over in the big game thread about the solace having a wider gain range. He may have tweaked that one when he built it. I've never played that one. Another one you should look at in any case, the Southampton fifth gear. It feels to me like it's a combo of tube drive sorta with SS muscle behind it.
Click to expand...
I'm not wanting to achieve a full distortion sound. I'm wanting a pedal that can do a slightly dirty boost and then when pushed a little harder, can open up and start to clip. For example, this clip of the GK Rails has three tones: the signal run clean, the pedal engaged running slightly dirty, and then he stomps on the boost channel to push the pedal into an overdriven muscular tone (solid state sound overdrive)



This is why I am really looking at the rusty box and GK rails because they both have 2 footswitches. So when set correctly, I'm thinking they can be a dirty boost once engaged, and then when the boost section is engaged become a little bit overdriven. That would cover all my needs ever. But I still don't mind looking at other pedals that have just one footswtich.

Here's another soundclip of the rusty box that shows a slightly driven tone. This is probably as driven as I would get, because most of the time I prefer to dig in with my fingers or pick to get a thicker tone, rather than dime the overdrive knob. Hope this clarifies!

 
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#49
jaroh24 said:
I'm not wanting to achieve a full distortion sound. I'm wanting a pedal that can do a slightly dirty boost and then when pushed a little harder, can open up and start to clip. For example, this clip of the GK Rails has three tones: the signal run clean, the pedal engaged running slightly dirty, and then he stomps on the boost channel to push the pedal into an overdriven muscular tone (solid state sound overdrive)



This is why I am really looking at the rusty box and GK rails because they both have 2 footswitches. So when set correctly, I'm thinking they can be a dirty boost once engaged, and then when the boost section is engaged become a little bit overdriven. That would cover all my needs ever. But I still don't mind looking at other pedals that have just one footswtich.

Here's another soundclip of the rusty box that shows a slightly driven tone. This is probably as driven as I would get, because most of the time I prefer to dig in with my fingers or pick to get a thicker tone, rather than dime the overdrive knob. Hope this clarifies!

Click to expand...


It sounds to me like you've answered your own question at this point ;)



I think you'd be more than safe with the rusty box. I think it also has the most control, added functionality and tonally pleasing drive tones for what you want out of all the others you're showing interest in. The rusty box rules anyway! :D
 
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#50
Another thing to keep in mind, is that my amp is constantly just waiting to be pushed into overdrive haha. That's why I usually have a compressor on, but the moment I take the compressor off and start playing the strings hard, I'm in the overdrive territory I like. I'm wanting a pedal to be able to do that for me (obviously not perfectly but get me in the ballpark)
 
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#51
gregmon79 said:
It sounds to me like you've answered your own question at this point ;)



I think you'd be more than safe with the rusty box. I think it also has the most control, added functionality and tonally pleasing drive tones for what you want out of all the others you're showing interest in. The rusty box rules anyway! :D
Click to expand...
I think so too. Are there any other pedals that have similar ideas to the Rusty Box? I just can't seem to think of many. I still want to try the GK Rails as well because it can be powered with 9v and is smaller than the RB, which makes it more convenient
 
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#53
jaroh24 said:
I think so too. Are there any other pedals that have similar ideas to the Rusty Box? I just can't seem to think of many. I still want to try the GK Rails as well because it can be powered with 9v and is smaller than the RB, which makes it more convenient
Click to expand...

Not that I know of. There are other pedals that are SS based I guess but the RB is pretty unique. Here is one based off of a Peavey
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/ampl...9121082-sku^J09549000000000@ADL4MF-adType^PLA

LA2-P2.jpg
 
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#54
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#55
jaroh24 said:
Gotcha, well thanks for all the help! I'll hopefully be selling my Barbershop soon so I can pick up either a RB or GK rails
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You're very welcome. Hopefully I helped more that I confused! haha ;) That's what we're all here for anyway, share our exp and help when we can. Why not get both! You shouldn't have an issued selling either one of you decided to. Both are great regardless.
 
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#56
gregmon79 said:
You're very welcome. Hopefully I helped more that I confused! haha ;) That's what we're all here for anyway, share our exp and help when we can. Why not get both! You shouldn't have an issued selling either one of you decided to. Both are great regardless.
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I will probably get both and then sell one. I'll post on here which one I ended up with so that anyone with a similar problem to me can see what I used to fix it. Gotta love talkbass
 
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