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Your Top Overdrives at Various Price Ranges

J

jufros

Nov 24, 2008
1,082
0
#1
For under $100
Boss ODB-3. Totally inflexible, only does one or two things well, but those few things are pretty unique and sound interesting to my ear. The next time I revamp my dirt setup, I'll probably have one light OD, one or two fuzzes, and an odb-3 in my PT-2. It's like there's overdrive, distortion, fuzz, gated fuzz, fuzz obsession, and then the odb-3 in a camp of its own. You either love it you hate it or can't figure out how you'd you use it I think.

For $100-150
Humprey Audio modded "Badder" Bass Monkey - This is a well-tuned tubescreamer machine designed to properly voice the overdrive and give you limited but thoughtfully chosen 2-Band EQ. Bumps your mids a bit and really cuts through with no low end loss. You can boost the bass if you like but I find exceeding unity bass to be unnecessary.

Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive - I've played the Keeley modded Sparkle Drive and while I thought it was excellent, I wasn't wowed enough to go out and have mine modded.

Going to try the MI Audio Blue Boy Deluxe this week and am hoping to try the Xotic BB at some might as well.

For $150-250+
Electronix Gemini Drive - Everything I could ever want out of a high gain OD and then some. Gorgeous pedal. I like mellower TSes for low gain but that's just my personal preference.
 
#4
I've not had a ton of overdrives (at least compared to fuzzes!). I'd go

< $50 - Bad Monkey ($49.95)
$50- $99 - Penny Pedals Modded DS-1 (79.99)
$100-$149 -
$151+ Tie: Dredgetone Angler ($160) for Cut, BJFE BBBoD ($346) for Grunt
 
#10
bigchiefbc said:
Are we talking street price here, or what we paid for them?

If its what I paid for it (always used), then it goes like this:

under $100 - EHX Germanium OD
$100-200 - DHA VT1
over $200 - BJFE Blueberry
Click to expand...

i really like the sound of the ehx Germ OD but I wish they'd given it more useful controls

i don't own one, but the barber LTD SR sounds awesome. I like it better on bass than the regular LTD (have never missed with the trimpots of either), which makes little sense to me since my understanding is that the regular LTD is somewhat bassy by design, while the SR is flatter... Excellent sounding "subtle"/natural OD that is very dynamic. If you think the Cream Pie sounds "warm and tubey" then you really should explore other low gain textures like this one.

available used for 90-110ish
 
#11
I haven't had a lot of experience with O/D but I was amazed at how good the stock Bad Monkey sounded, given that I paid £25 for it new. I probably would've stuck with that if I needed O/D, but I don't. I sold it and didn't replace it.
 
#13
Under $50 - DOD 250
$50-$100 - Humphrey Badder Bass Monkey
$100-$150 - Barber LTD SR or Jacques Tubeblower
$150-$200 - English Muff'n or Urso Splinter
$200-$250 - Zvex Vexter Box of Rock ($199 but who's counting)
$250-$300 - EBS Valvedrive
Over $300 - BJF Blueberry Bass Overdrive

There are a number of other Tubescreamer pedals (Fulltone Bassdrive, Xotic BB Bass Preamp, Moolon Bass Drive) which are all very good, but I think I'd go with the cheaper Jacques if I went that route.

And my Holy Fire should be arriving soon. I'm hoping it will be my favorite OD in the $199 dollar range. ;)
 
#15
RCCollins said:
i don't own one, but the barber LTD SR sounds awesome. I like it better on bass than the regular LTD (have never missed with the trimpots of either), which makes little sense to me since my understanding is that the regular LTD is somewhat bassy by design, while the SR is flatter... Excellent sounding "subtle"/natural OD that is very dynamic. If you think the Cream Pie sounds "warm and tubey" then you really should explore other low gain textures like this one.

available used for 90-110ish
Click to expand...

You are pretty spot on here and it is awesome!
 
#16
The Fulltone OCD is about $150 US. I paid $175 Canadian and could not be happier. It walks all over the Fulltone Bassdrive which is kind of ironic.

My wife noticed my OCD pedal the other day and said that it describes me perfectly!

After I protested that I am not obsessive over my pedal board, I spent 3 hours re wiring it! haha
 
#19
varunkapahi said:
~150$ sansamp vt bass :D
Click to expand...

Even though I sold mine (didn't work well for my specific purposes) I think the VT Bass is a great pedal. But I wouldn't consider it an overdrive per se and wouldn't recommend it to people on that basis. To me it's an amp emulator above all else. Not the kind of pedal I'd kick on to add some grit to my sound but rather for copping Ampeg tones which it does remarkably well.
 
#20
From what I've played (I have yet to actually own an OD aside from the BDDI)

$50-$99 - None (still need to demo a Bad Monkey and Polish Love)
$100-$149 - Barber LTD, Ibanez Turbo Tube Screamer (great sound; I'd have one if it weren't for the horrible low end loss. Anyone know any modders besides Analogman?)
$150-$199 - EHX English Muff'n, SansAmp BDDI (for a DI; I might sell/trade it for a Muff'n, though)
> $200 - BJFE Blueberry. One of my neighbors has one and if money were not an option I'd be all for getting one.
 

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