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Strange Question: "Colorful" OD/Dist Pedal?

TMFoodBass

TMFoodBass

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Feb 24, 2012
155
76
Adamstown, PA
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#1
I'm running a pretty typical Royal Blood type setup, but for a lighter musical styling: Split signal, line A through pedals to bass rig, line B through octave up (T Rex Quint - might use the 5th as well) and to a guitar rig.

Here's my strange question: I am so used to looking for effects that don't color the tone for my bass rig. But for the "guitar" side, I'm looking for a decent OD/dist pedal that WILL color the sound and maybe surpress some of those harsher digital overtones left by the polyphonic octave pedal. And, do all this on a budget. Are there any reccomendations?

My initial thoughts were Way Huge Pork Loin, EHX Hot Tubes or other tube emulating OD...
 
#2
I'd chose whichever "foundation" pedal from Catalinbread that emulates the kind of guitar sound I'm looking for.
I went through the same kind of research as you do right now.
I ended buying a small Laney guitar all tube amp and it really helped me get there as far as the tone I was going for. I found that a tube amp and a guitar cab added enough color and were way less harsh than the solid state bass amp and cab with piezos I had. Also It's got a distorsion channel.
On the cheap side, you should try and find some kind of Tube Screamer style pedal. After all, the charm of the Screamer is all about the color.
 
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#3
The majority of guitar OD pedals should work, since the entire purpose of the average OD is to emulate tube amp distortion. There's a reason that "transparent" OD pedals tend to focus their marketing on emphasizing that they do not color your tone (as opposed to typical OD pedals).

Keep in mind that the OD pedals you reference are fairly low-gain. That's cool if it's what you need, but there are plenty of pedals that will do the job at both lower and higher gain settings.

My favorite all-around OD's (useful on both guitar and bass, and useable at a wide variety of gain ranges) are the Marshall Jackhammer (only on the OD setting) and the Fuzzrocious Demon. The Marshall has a bit more gain on tap and has more bass response, while the Demon is a little warmer and more coloration in the midrange.
 
#4
Thanks for the input!

I do have 2 guitar rigs at my disposal to try as well: Dual Terror into orange 1x12 cab (belongs to my church), and a Hughs & Kettner Edition Blue 30R (I own). I will see what those give.

Yeah, mostly what I am looking for is low to medium gain. Guitar demos of the EHX Hot Tubes run around 60% gain are a good match to the sound that I am looking for.
 
#5
EHX Hot Tubes may be a good choice but many folks really like the more affordable Joyo pedals, I ready dig the California Sound that pairs nicely with my UniBass taking some of the digitalness.

How is the tracking on the Quint? Is the fifth up above the octave up or the fundamental? I might dig something with a smaller foot print than the UniBass.
 
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#6
bassbrad said:
EHX Hot Tubes may be a good choice but many folks really like the more affordable Joyo pedals, I ready dig the California Sound that pairs nicely with my UniBass taking some of the digitalness.

How is the tracking on the Quint? Is the fifth up above the octave up or the fundamental? I might dig something with a smaller foot print than the UniBass.
Click to expand...
I was actually considering the Joyo California, but I wasn't sure if it would totally fill the bill.

Quint is currently enroute, so I haven't had teh chance to try it. I was actually going to get either the EHX Pitchfork or the Nano POG, but when I saw the Quint with its fifth, it was too good to pass up. Bought it from prymaxe, so if it doesn't work out, I can always return it. Fifth is above the fundamental. Tracking and "naturalness" sound good too.
 

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