What is your favorite Overdrive ?

I like the BJF / Bearfoot Honey Bee. Especially with single coils. There isn’t one here but Aion has a pcb, and I built mine on vero.

the Fairfield Barbershop is also great. But it’s pretty bright so I don’t personally consider it that “bluesy”.
 
Big fan of the Hermida Zendrive-based Mahayana Drive. My favorite OD pedal at the end of my pedal chain. Great on its own, or really great after fuzzes or distortions to give a nice thick creamy boost to the dirt. The way I like to use it is with the Tone pretty low (around 10 o'clock) and the Voice quite high (around 3 o'clock) - not bright, but still very clear. And the Drive also quite low - between 9-12.

I built mine on vero, but the PedalPCB layout looks really neat.
 
mdma, ethos, paragon, xotic bb preamp, tommy, les lius, zen drive
 
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For me, it's the MDMA. I use two of them! I've tried the Ethos, Paragon, and Tommy, but they didn't stay on my board for long.
 
Oh well too many choices... (yes it's possible!).

I think I will go with the Mahayana Drive (Hermida Audio Zendrive) and MDMA ( Wampler Ecstacy/Euphoria) and see what happen next.

I really feel that those "not too heavy OD" are so dependent of the guitar being used...
 
These days I tend to prefer the ones that DON'T have opamps. Try the Aldrin or one of the variants, I posted info in the Modifications forum on how to build a Screw Driver or a Hybrid Fuzz Driver on the Aldrin board. The Pink Purple Fuzz is also worth a listen. What I like about all of these is they have a large tonal range and they don't overwhelm your guitar's tone. The HFD in particular does a good job of emulating that tube amp breakup sound. The JFET-based distortion units are pretty sweet too. I have the Covert and the Corduroy and they have some great tones. Have you checked out the demos of the "real" pedals on YouTube?
 
I use an EQD Dunes (or "Oasis", as the kit is called) on my board, feeding my Jet City 50H and my Orange Dual Terror.
It is a beautiful sounding OD with a lot of options. My LP with a P90 on the neck position and Volume dialed back a little sounds just glorious. Hairy, greasy, crunchy. My favourite OD ever.
 
Chuck D. Bones said:
Have you checked out the demos of the "real" pedals on YouTube?
Click to expand...
Since I'm not an encyclopedia and pedal connoisseur, I always listen to demos from "the original" before deciding to go with a PCB or not.

I finally settled on Mahayana and MDMA and will probably build them in January once I got all the parts. I will report as usual on the Build Report forum.
 
My favorite overdrive is and has always been a Turbo RAT set for lower gain. Runners up would include the Expandora, VFE Alpha Dog, and Honey Bee Overdrive.
The op-amp Muff Fuzz (not Big) is also great for worn speaker type blues overdrive tones
 
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