Fender Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive

[nigelpkay]

Anyone ever tried this pedal? This is the newer red one by Fender.
I grabbed one just to give it a go and holy hell, talk about “more is more”, this is the strongest overdrive I’ve ever tried in terms of boost power. Gives you killer pick attack and articulation.
What the heck is it based on? I know it’s a DOD-type, but how does it differ from a typical TS-type pedal? It sounds like pure boost across the spectrum and no mid hump. My SD-1 sat wimpering beside it based on the sheer power alone, however it was definitely a less refined eq.
How it translates musically, I don’t know, I’ll have to try a few recordings, but man was it fun to play in front of my JCM 800. I put the pedal knobs on full and dialed my amp gain back to around 6 and whoah.

 

[JMP2203]

great, i like the YJM308 better than a SD1 too, but its more noisy than than TS type pedal

i heard this new fender red have more gain than the DOD`s, how the noise and bass cut?

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

It is essentially based on the old DOD grey or yellow OD's that Yngwie used in his old days. They are noisy but deliver the goods when you play with single coils into a broken up amp. I guess any overdrive is a variation of another but these are supposed to be along lines of his old DOD 250 or Grey boxes. I have a YJM 308 that as the circuit mods of an old grey DOD pedal that was offered by a guy named Outlier years ago. He posted a lot on the Metro forum. Anyway, it is an awesome OD. Feels like an extension of the amp to me and it is for me, as close as i can get to the early Malmsteen tone through a Marshall and with single coils on a strat. I figure who cares about the noise when a lot of single coils were noise as hell anyway. Bit more noise from the pedal won't kill me.

 

[nigelpkay]

great, i like the YJM308 better than a SD1 too, but its more noisy than than TS type pedal

i heard this new fender red have more gain than the DOD`s, how the noise and bass cut?

Noisy as f***! I don't notice much of a bass cut, it's almost like taking an equalizer and moving all the sliders to the top. Like your amp but 10x more, but it's glorious! I wish knew more about it's EQ curve because it doesn't sound like a TS at all.

 

[nigelpkay]

It is essentially based on the old DOD grey or yellow OD's that Yngwie used in his old days. They are noisy but deliver the goods when you play with single coils into a broken up amp. I guess any overdrive is a variation of another but these are supposed to be along lines of his old DOD 250 or Grey boxes

Yeah I wish I knew what it was actually doing compared to say a TS. It didn't sound anything like the SD-1.

 

[D-Rock]

They are loud because they are preamp pedals, not just a simple overdrive.

 

[nigelpkay]

Yeah it actually makes my JCM 800 sound more 70s Marshall than 80’s in a weird way.
At the pedal’s extremes it gets into fuzz territory. I was just floored by how much power it has. I can see why Yngwie uses it to boost a plexi. I didn’t realize the original DOD was called a preamp overdrive pedal.
Definitely wild and noisy but a lot of fun.

 

[ElectricVoodoo]

I have one as well as a YJM strat and used to have the 87x. It was very easy to nail the tone. An NS-2 is absolutely necessary due to the noise of the pedal.

With the pedal maxed, the ns-2 works great and there's basically zero tone loss with the ns-2 going in front of the amp...as YJM uses as well. It's a fun tone to play with for sure.

 

[_actual time_]

Yeah I wish I knew what it was actually doing compared to say a TS. It didn't sound anything like the SD-1.

it's a much simpler circuit than the TS/SD1 family of circuits. it uses only one (half) of an op amp, no EQ except simple filtering from caps, and clipping that's symmetrical, from two diodes. it's very similar to the MXR Distortion +. there's lots of info about those circuits and modding them online. the TS/SD1/etc uses another op amp and has the Tone EQ, and IIRC has asymmetrical clipping, from three diodes.

i have a DOD YJM that was modded with asymmetrical clipping, by the Bodenhamer Bloody Murder pedal guy. i like that sound better than the stock symmetrical (although i play humbuckers mostly, not single coils); it's less round or bloaty and a bit sharper or more grindy.

the 90s/00s DOD YJM and 250 reissue both use a through-hole circuit board (the same board in both pedals), so they're easy to mod and play around with.

 

[Alex_S]

Has anybody compared the Fender to the YJM308? I love the 308a lot better than any 250 I tried (contrary to most others it seems), so I wonder where the Fender one sits...