What's your favorite "Swiss Army Knife" dirt pedal

[steviejr92]

Well I guess I did modify the circuit pretty heavily. Didn't think about that before I posted lol.
Just to re-affirm what your looking for,
One overdrive for all purposes?
Not a fuzz, not a distortion?

I was talking about the MDMA in its own right lol If were talking about "versatile" in the sense that it can do boost/OD/Dist/Fuzz then I would also look elsewhere still. IMO the MDMA doesnt even touch distortion territory it just gets louder lol I havent played it in awhile i just remember not being impressed lol

 

[jhaneyzz]

Well I guess I did modify the circuit pretty heavily. Didn't think about that before I posted lol.
Just to re-affirm what your looking for,
One overdrive for all purposes?
Not a fuzz, not a distortion?

Great question.

And while I was thinking about how to respond, I read the next post in this thread which is about as good of a response, or even a rebuttal, to my original premise that was a great whack upside the head to get me thinking about what exactly AM I asking here.

 

[steviejr92]

Great question.

And while I was thinking about how to respond, I read the next post in this thread which is about as good of a response, or even a rebuttal, to my original premise that was a great whack upside the head to get me thinking about what exactly AM I asking here.

I think your original idea was you wanted a drive to rule them all right? In that sense i can easily say a rat. But i just posted the Spruce Effects The Gale in the project wishlist thread. I think THAT is all rounder. It supposed to be a dist/fuzz but if you tame it i believe you can really get a nice OD or even boost!

 

[Funnel]

There’s so many good options already mentioned. But I’ll mention the chauffeur as it can cover a lot of ground. I’m not a high gain player. So it covers all of my dirt needs… if I wanted it to.

 

[jhaneyzz]

With a question like this, it seems to lead to thinking more is more: more knobs, switches, gain stages, etc. allow for more custom tweaking and dialing in with precision—so, necessarily, that means that it’s more versatile.

I think that there’re diminishing returns there. With the ability to modify circuits, we can easily add options simply because we’re able to. But, does that proportionally add versatility?

The ease of making a new pedal can lead to a lack of exploration with circuits themselves. For example, you can get very nice overdriven sounds from rudimentary fuzzes with the interaction between the guitar and the fuzz pedal. That can easily be overlooked because a “fuzz is a fuzz and I’m going to approach it and use it as such.”

With the rat, dirty boost, OD, distortion, and (somewhat gated) fuzz sounds can all be found. Is it the “best” at all of those? That depends on what your preference is. But, it’s much more than just a distortion.

I think that the available number and variety of circuits may discourage really digging into a single circuit to find everything that’s there. And, of course, this applies to much more than just the rat. That’s just my preference.

Now, this won’t hold true for everything, but I do think it’s useful to investigate the full potential of a circuit rather than pigeon-holing it into a narrow use category.

This is perhaps the best response to an Original Poster question that I have read in recent memory.

You make some absolutely great points, and actually solidify for me what some other posters in this thread have been saying but were taking a while to sink in for me.

I totally get your first point especially. You could turn every possible resistor in a circuit into a trim pot and make every capacitor or diode switchable. Great case in point, My current favorite OD, the Madbean EgoDeath, which has no less than three switches that, to my ear, have absolutely zero audible effect.

The spirit of my original post was "What's the one pedal to make for a buddy taht makes them say 'Dam. I can get SO many awesome tones from that thing!'"

Obviously, that could be a LOT of different pedals...

I'm definitely not looking for ONE pedal, I'm looking for dialog like "For me, it's a RAT. THIS specific RAT or a RAT with these specific mods."

Or "A DS-1 into a RAT is all I ever need"

Interestingly, and further to reinforce what I think is your main point, where this has been leading me has been settling on a foundation circuit and making it do great things.

I'm thinking of the Yellow Spiral for instance. try to perfect the DOD 250 in an awesome package of tone and style.

 

[jhaneyzz]

I think your original idea was you wanted a drive to rule them all right? In that sense i can easily say a rat. But i just posted the Spruce Effects The Gale in the project wishlist thread. I think THAT is all rounder. It supposed to be a dist/fuzz but if you tame it i believe you can really get a nice OD or even boost!

I'm am definitely planning on deeply pursuing this path.

In fact, I just got 2 RAT boards in the mail yesterday that I plan to socket the hell out of and explore all the options.

 

[steviejr92]

I'm am definitely planning on deeply pursuing this path.

In fact, I just got 2 RAT boards in the mail yesterday that I plan to socket the hell out of and explore all the options.

You cant go wrong. Try some red LEDs and Ge diodes!

 

[jhaneyzz]

You cant go wrong. Try some red LEDs and Ge diodes!

I have a Mooer rat clone that has LEDs and it sounds awesome.

AND, I just got a batch of saucy germanium diodes in the mail this week.

 

[jhaneyzz]

There’s so many good options already mentioned. But I’ll mention the chauffeur as it can cover a lot of ground. I’m not a high gain player. So it covers all of my dirt needs… if I wanted it to.

Holy crap... that thing has more op amps than the rest of my pedalboard combined...

Daily Driver demos sound pretty nice.

 

[steviejr92]

AND, I just got a batch of saucy germanium diodes in the mail this week.

Your going to notice a VOL drop but i think its worth it!

 

[Guardians of the analog]

If you are doing a rat with options but not option paralysis, I'd go with the madbean slow loris. Ruetz mod pot and 3 clipping options.

 

[The Gator]

Now, this won’t hold true for everything, but I do think it’s useful to investigate the full potential of a circuit rather than pigeon-holing it into a narrow use category.

Very well said. Great post.
I tend to like bright sounds. I am missing a bit on higher frequencies. Standing too close to the drum set playing extremely loud gigs in small place did that.
I tend to gravitate towards overdrives with 3 band eq to get a lot of different sounds.
After making several overdrive circuits that are simpler, I realize a 3 band eq is not really needed.
That being said I made a few modified malachite (Revv G2) circuits that do a wide range of sounds. The midrange can be really scooped or really boosted.

I know it has been said before, but I really like the nobel overdrive circuit. Dave Browne's version specifically. His Protein dual drive sounds great. You'll find yourself a few licks hiding in there.

 

[Joben Magooch]

I have a few others on my board for different “flavors” but it’s not uncommon for me to find myself only using the Pro-10/Protein for multiple sets… it covers a whole lot of ground.

Of course it’s a dual OD so maybe that’s cheating. If I had to pick one single sized drive to cover just about everything it’d probably be the Timmy. From clean boost to heavy OD I think it does just about everything fairly well

 

[eh là bas ma]

If I had to pick one, it would be a BD-2 because I like the fact there's no big boost on the mids, and the sounds are both warm and sharp.

You can check the premierguitar's article from B. Wampler to add useful mods.

Boss BD-2 Mods

The Boss Blues Driver is one of those pedals that everybody has owned or at least played through once. I’d venture to say it’s nearly as popular as the

www.premierguitar.com

 

[jhaneyzz]

If I had to pick one, it would be a BD-2 because I like the fact there's no big boost on the mids, and the sounds are both warm and sharp.

You can check the premierguitar's article from B. Wampler to add useful mods.

Boss BD-2 Mods

The Boss Blues Driver is one of those pedals that everybody has owned or at least played through once. I’d venture to say it’s nearly as popular as the

www.premierguitar.com

As usual, I completely disagree with you…

I still put my Blues Driver on the board from time to time and try to figure out what so many people love about this pedal. It just doesn’t do it for me.

 

[benny_profane]

I think a more interesting question would be what circuits are best suited to accommodate a wide range of pickup arrangements / instruments. I think that mentioning the pickups used with a pedal when discussing experiences would add a lot of important context.

 

[jeffwhitfield]

My Swiss Army dirt pedal isn’t one you can build. It’s a BOSS OD-200. It covers a lot of ground with 12 different distortion modes. I’ve been replicating quite a few pedals with it. Granted, it’s not perfect. I still use quite a few standalone dirt pedals. This one is nice cause you can really dial in a shit ton of different tones off of just one pedal.

 

[jeffwhitfield]

I think a more interesting question would be what circuits are best suited to accommodate a wide range of pickup arrangements / instruments. I think that mentioning the pickups used with a pedal when discussing experiences would add a lot of important context.

Yeah, it’s amazing how much of a difference it makes when playing with a Strat vs a Les Paul with many pedals. Case point, virtually any Blues Breaker type pedal will react dramatically different with single coil pickups. The breakup is different…more controlled even.

 

[eh là bas ma]

It just doesn’t do it for me.

Did you try different clipping diodes from 1n4148 ? The diodes mod below did a noticeable difference on my build. Like DS-1 and many boss pedals, the circuit is great but the stock parts are ruining the sound. The FET transistors selection is also very important. I can recommend 2SK117 or 2SK209 (seen in Aion's and Lectric-Fx versions).

I am sure that you will soon worship and make many offerings to your BD-2, if you start modifying it to your tastes.

BD-2 is among the best circuits ever created, a real masterpiece, all experts are in agreement on this matter. But I wouldn't expect it to sound right with 1N4148 and J201....

Take good care of it !

 

[Harry Klippton]

I think a more interesting question would be what circuits are best suited to accommodate a wide range of pickup arrangements / instruments. I think that mentioning the pickups used with a pedal when discussing experiences would add a lot of important context.

At the risk of opening a can of worms, I also think volume level used, and if the user plays/has ever played in a band at volume and with other people matters as well. No judgement to home-only players either, it's just that the needs and preferences can be quite different to those that play loud and live with others.

Also jazz guys. If you like guitar jazz, we basically have opposite ideas of what good guitar tones are