Distortion Pedal

  • Thread starter Thread starter stephen sawall
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stephen sawall said:
I pretty much rarely use overdrive or boost pedals. I use a noise gate when I do.

Lately I have started to use distortion pedals with some rigs.
I have come to really liking the Fulltone OCD pedal. I also like the RAT.

Curious what distortion pedals you use and how you use it ?
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I've tried a bunch of distortion pedals over the last couple of years. I have YT clips of most of them. As mentioned, the Englishman is a killer pedal for cheap. The JPTR FX Katastrophe was killer and I built a solid state stereo rig around it when I was tubeampless. I ran my distortion pedals into a AMT F1 "Fender" preamp pedal and used a Mosvalve power amp. The Teisco Distortion pedal was pretty awesome too.
 
stephen sawall said:
Definitely not using a clean amp. I'm thinking more in the RAT - Blues Driver gain range. I see the RAT as a distortion pedal that can do overdrive. I'm looking between overdrive and distortion.

The Decco 36 designed to be used as a pedal platform. THD amps have ton of harmonics all in phase. The amp overdrive comes on almost immediately on the volume. It blends really well with any pedals I have tried.
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The Rat can be used as a distortion pedal but I think you’d be shocked at how well it competes with a Tubescreamer or SD-1 at their own games if you set the knobs like Nuno sets his, gain 9:00 or less, tone at noon, level at 3:00 or more.
 
Bogner Burnley (version 1) works great into the low input of a JCM 800. The pedal itself can be a little dark, but I crank the tone knob on the pedal and the 800 has ample brightness so the two work together quite well.
 
@stephen sawall I think you might really get along with a RAT pedal.

Here are two clips of a Bogner Helios 100, the first one was guitar straight in and the second one is boosted by a RAT:






Here's a clip I did a while back of a RAT into a Peavey 5150 with basically the same Nuno-style settings I talked about a few posts above. I also did a very wide-Q mid scoop to highlight some sizzle and punch but the distortion character is all RAT into 5150.

 
The RAT is a classic. We all used one into a Marshall in the early 80's. Sounds as good now as it did then.
 
Band practice today. So probably going to bring a few pedals and see how they do with the band.
 
rat
hm2
evil ned
I think these are the only distortions i have. Have a ton of ods though.
A favorite od lately is the Eric Peterson od from protone with a jcm800.
 
It's interesting most of us have more overdrive than distortion pedals.
 
stephen sawall said:
It's interesting most of us have more overdrive than distortion pedals.
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Indeed. During the last 2 years I’ve bought maybe 12 or so pedals and a few of them were distortion pedals. I am just using the DOD YJM308 mostly in front of the Marshall. Maybe I should give the distorion pedals more time…
 
Jakem said:
Indeed. During the last 2 years I’ve bought maybe 12 or so pedals and a few of them were distortion pedals. I am just using the DOD YJM308 mostly in front of the Marshall. Maybe I should give the distorion pedals more time…
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The hard clip attack, saturation and feel is different. I'm trying to find the right balance of preamp / power amp / distortion or overdrive.
That crunchy attack of a hard clip / distortion pedals just sounds right for many things.
 
stephen sawall said:
The RAT is a classic. We all used one into a Marshall in the early 80's. Sounds as good now as it did then.
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For some reason I never owned one, and I literally had over a hundred pedals for a while, sold more probably... and back to 'only' 92 nowadays. :sneaky:

So, do you use it TS-style, with the level maxed, gain low and tone to taste?
 
Speeddemon said:
For some reason I never owned one, and I literally had over a hundred pedals for a while, sold more probably... and back to 'only' 92 nowadays. :sneaky:

So, do you use it TS-style, with the level maxed, gain low and tone to taste?
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I don't max the volume on anything.

Back in the 80's all knobs at 1 o'clock was the setting. I tend to use less gain and the tone darker now.

RAT can do slight fuzz with gain way up. I tend to use it more like a distortion than overdrive. ...or something in between.
 
stephen sawall said:
I don't max the volume on anything.

Back in the 80's all knobs at 1 o'clock was the setting. I tend to use less gain and the tone darker now.

RAT can do slight fuzz with gain way up. I tend to use it more like a distortion than overdrive. ...or something in between.
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Ok, but do you run it as a distortion/overdrive into a clean (tube) amp, amp with light crunch, or with even more drive?

The other way around usually works (loud clean boost/slightly overdriven pedal into medium/high gain set amp, but if you're running a truly distorted pedal into a not-clean amp, it's more of a mine field IMO...
 
The RAT works fine with a clean amp. I pretty much never use a clean amp with anything but a few fuzz pedals. It's just not a sound I am into. The amp is always point of breakup or more.
Because dynamics are a big part of how I play I avoid too much compression

Basically the RAT can do any of those things. Clean amp, point of breakup, medium crunch, high gain. Like every other pedal the voice isn't going to be for everyone.
 
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