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overdrive/fuzz quest

#423
johnk_10 said:
BTW, here's a pic of almost all of the pedals that i've built to date (4 others are not pictured):

28pedalclones-01.jpg
Click to expand...

Do you sell these or just just like to build em? Any soundclips available if your sellin?
 
#424
Zitch said:
Do you sell these or just just like to build em? Any soundclips available if your sellin?
Click to expand...

i'm not in the pedal building business (for me, it just takes me too much time for too little profit) so i made them for myself. a few TB members really had to have a 'Zeke' and others wanted a 'Fat-Tone' so i've made a few of them.

i've posted sound clips for most of them in this thread
 
#426
I have always found the Proco Rat to be my default bass distortion/overdrive. It sounds jsut dandy out of the box, and there are a few tweaks you can do to the cutoff frequency and gain to change the tone. Mine has a turbo mode and a thinner mode. Both of which have their place.
I also notice a lot of your pedals are kind of mainstream pedals. You shoudl check out some of the things Death By Audio is making. The Fuzz War is very nice.
Dwarfcraft and Malekko also make some neat toys. the B:Assmaster is pretty high up on my list of all time faves.
 
#428
Calaverasgrande said:
I have always found the Proco Rat to be my default bass distortion/overdrive. It sounds jsut dandy out of the box, and there are a few tweaks you can do to the cutoff frequency and gain to change the tone. Mine has a turbo mode and a thinner mode. Both of which have their place.
Click to expand...


for some reason, i've owned quite a few of them (i used to sell them when they first came out and then all thru the 90's) but rat's (all versions) just never did it for me on a bass. i liked them on guitar, but like Jimmy said, they just don't have much in the low end department.


Calaverasgrande said:
I also notice a lot of your pedals are kind of mainstream pedals. You shoudl check out some of the things Death By Audio is making. The Fuzz War is very nice.
Dwarfcraft and Malekko also make some neat toys. the B:Assmaster is pretty high up on my list of all time faves.
Click to expand...

i dunno. to me, many of them aren't that 'mainstream', i have a brassmaster, the foxxtone, the modded depth charge clone, & the mastotron (which are some pretty heavily & drastic fuzz pedals) and IMO, my modded pinnacle, modded direct drive and modded zendrive are anything but mainstream. that said, there is some similarity to what i look for in an OD/distortion/fuzz pedal. i look for them to have no low end loss, not be too fizzy/buzzy or midrangy, and work well with both fingerstyle playing, as well as a pick.
 
#429
Calaverasgrande said:
I also notice a lot of your pedals are kind of mainstream pedals.
Click to expand...

I think the TB Effects forum creates a very warped sense of what a "mainstream" pedal is.

;)

And nice work John.

If you had to pick one pedal as your always on, slightly gritty tone which would it be?

And if you had to pick one pedal for kicking on occasionally for some serious grind/dirt which would it be?
 
#430
Jared Lash said:
I think the TB Effects forum creates a very warped sense of what a "mainstream" pedal is.

;)

And nice work John.

If you had to pick one pedal as your always on, slightly gritty tone which would it be?
Click to expand...

that's a good question. it would probably be between the Wampler Ecstasy (Brian now calls it the 'Euphoria') and my newest build, the Wampler 'Black '65. it took me a little while to dial in the J201 transistor's bias but this pedal is absolutely amazing. i'm a big fan of the vintage fender tube amp tone, and IMO, he nailed it. here's a pic of it:

Black65-01.jpg


and the internals:

Black65-02.jpg


thru my SVT 7Pro, it basically turns it into a blackface showman, and you can run it anywhere from completely clean to heavily distorted.

Jared Lash said:
And if you had to pick one pedal for kicking on occasionally for some serious grind/dirt which would it be?
Click to expand...

probably the greedtone (or the Ecstacy), but the greedtone just has this raw, brutal & ballsy drive to it that's still hard to beat.

i also built a Catalinbread WIIO which is their hiwatt amp modeler. it sounds pretty beefy but can get a little spongy when using the heavier distorted settings. i'm going to mod it a little for bass to see if i can 'tighten it up' a little more, but i do like its huge & round low end. here's a pic of the WIIO clone:

WIIO-01.jpg


the WIIO and the RAH are pretty similar, but if i had to choose between the two (which fortunately, i don't ;)), i'd go with the RAH.

IMO, my modded wampler pinnacle can get the B3K tone and way beyond it since you get to voice the mids just about any way you want to using the tone, contour, and blend controls.
the funny thing about it is that while ir sounds really good with a p bass, with a jazz bass it's frickin' incredible. i'll have to post a clip of it with a j bass soon.
 
#431
on the WIIO, i just experimented with the negative feedback resistor and the associated cap and got it ALOT better for bass, and it sounds awesome now.

for me, out of the 30 that i've built, there isn't just one pedal that i would call my absolute favorite, since they all have a voice/character of their own but the Ecstasy, the Black '65, the Fat-tone/Greedtone, the Holy Fire, the Timmy ('johnny'), the WIIO (now with the mods), the modded Pinnacle, the Barber LTD, the modded Direct Drive, and the Zeke are all definitely at the top of the list. And the Distortron, modded Zendrive, and the Super Duper 2n1 hang right there with them, they just have a different flavor.

SuperDuper2n1-01.jpg


and here's a pic of all of them:

30clones.jpg
 
#437
Enjoying this thread. I have been through so many dist and od pedals, too many to count.

Right now, I have a JHS Lowdrive v1, VT Bass Deluxe and Amptweaker Bass Tightdrive. I'm really looking for something to give me a nice, tubey od/grit without switching to an all-tube head.
 
#438
those pedals you are building look amazing, I bet they sound fantastic too.
Currently for gigs im using a Providence Stampede DT
Its built for guitar but it has bass and treble eq as well as out put and gain controls.
it has HUGE bass and you can really tailor your sound from a little SVT drive to monster distortion.
I really love this pedal, before i used a stock TS9, which only worked with a mix pedal. I tried to use a Fulltone bassdrive but the low end drop made this pedal a bit thin sounding live for me.
I have to say i really love the Boss ODB-3 for a distorted slap sound as you can scoop the mids and have a brittle high end, it kind of works for that.
But at the moment this Providence pedal is really doing it for me, im gonna work now on posting up a pic.........
 
#440
For me, I've been using a Marrs Pedals Fuzz Light Year. That thing is extremely aggressive. It does a pretty good job of accomplishing some rash fuzz and giving me the option to go for full-on distortion. It has a built in "de-Voltaire" to give your sound as much of a sputtery mess as you want. I also like it because it leaves a lot of the gritty clean sounds in. I'm not really one for fuzzes that cramp tone, if that makes any sense.

I, personally, have found this to be the only good fuzz pedal for me. I use it with my Fender Deluxe P-Bass Special (passive), Jaguar Baritone Custom, and Peavey T-40 for delicious results on all involved.

If you're looking for a very angry fuzz, I'd suggest it.

I also play through an SVT-Classic, so overdrive has never been a big concern for me. That head just eats it up.
 

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