Metropoulos Forum

I'm in the market for a good distortion pedal and any advice would be appreciated. I've got the vintage 60-70' tones all covered, with different low/mid-gain boosters and fuzz, but my band is taking on a couple of tunes requering a more modern 80-90's tone. Thus I feel the need for a distortion pedal with a big tight bottom, maybe slightly scooped, for chunky rythm. I plan to goose it with a TS or Timmy for leads. I know my set-up isn't ideal for a modern rock tone, using a strat with low ouput single coil trough a low gain plexi amp, but with a good dist pedal, I should get close enough.
Any recommendations from the forum?

Man, there are LOTS of choices. I think I like what I've been hearing from those Radial units. Very good warmth. But for a pedal that isnt going to be used much (you said just a few '90's to modern tunes, right ?) I may not want to spend that much (Radial).

Maybe a Boss Metal Zone or Metal Core. Dunlop/MXR has some great units, as does Line 6.

obtain a dod 250 overdrive pre amp clone
or dod yjm308 or build it yourself kit

tweak the pedal to dod gray specs

then place the pedal at the end of your signal chain, last before the amp

dial the distortion down to 1/4 or less & set the output level at or above unity

leave the pedal on for clean or dirty sounds

This way the dod layers progressivly harder distortion sounds onto your existing rig

because of the simplicity of the ciruit it does not introduce EQ changes

set up this way it is very dynamic and makes cleans better & brilliant at low levels

with moderate drive brings in some rythm crunch and driven by a fully overdriven signal adds complex amp like wood

overtones to your more polite distortions

my chain :

homebrew rangemaster + dano /timmy clone + od808 + tc flashback + microvibe + YJM308

amp: Marshall 1986 or Traynor YGM3

the YJM308 replaces an exotic ep pre, echoplex pre but serves the same purpose

Warning... fully saturated the od250 will lead you to conclude its a crappy pedal

on my next build I'm considering hardwiring the gain control to 1/4 to aviod accidental changes to the magic setting


p

what about a mucho boosto? big bottom end and slightly scoopish

This thing looks pretty neato. Don't really know what it is, but it's supposed to be a "tone-shaping overdrive" but looks like enough gain on tap and some slight compression? Maybe too clean for you. Otherwise, a dod 250 or mxr dist+. You've already got the killer base tone happening, just needs a push and hit the strings harder.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqHlhJcIilk[/youtube]

I've had great luck with the Visual Sound Jeckyl and Hyde pedal. One side is a TS 808 with switchable bass boost, the other is a Marshall Shredmaster clone I believe. It's very versatile, both sides can be run at the same time and the buffer in it made the rest of my pedal chain sound better, which surprised me because I've never had this happen before. They're about $149 new, less than $100 used. Awesome pedal IMO.

MI audio Crunch Box,your there..

slagg wrote:MI audio Crunch Box,your there..

What he said.
Just scored a good deal on a used Crunch Box, and it suits my needs very well. Nice, slightly scooped crunchy distortion with enough bottom, and fat, sustaining leads with a TS in the mix. A very nice pedal for it's value.
This pedal will probably stay on my board for a while

Krank, Wampler Triple Wreck, Okko Dominator

yjm308

I'm looking at a Suhr Riot sounds pretty good to me.

MI Audio Crunch Box

Just to update you I settled on a XTS Atomic overdrive you should check it out!

If you're ever feeling adventurous, you can build a BSIAB2 from a kit at generalguitargadgets.com. I designed it, so I can give lots of suggestions to tweak it just right.

I've bought a Jetter Jetdrive. It's the first time that I'm truly happy with an OD+ pedal. Just beats the crap out of my old FD2 from clean to mean...
Check this out:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVoCli8BZ0U[/youtube]