# Is there an all-purpose distortion pedal?



## aC2rs (Jul 9, 2007)

Is there a great sounding, all-purpose, analogue distortion pedal that will go from a light overdrive to metal tones?

I recently replaced the speaker in my main amp and have cleans that put a big smile on my face. However, the cost was reduced gain on the lead channel – and I need (want?) more.

So it’s time to consider adding a distortion pedal and of course the choices and flavours seem to be endless.

I may have to go with one or more pedals but would prefer to go with a single box if possible and not a digital multi-effects unit.

Any suggestions?


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## cboutilier (Jan 12, 2016)

Sparkle Drive Mod. Great tube screamer od and good higher gain options, with a blended in clean boost.


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## TWRC (Apr 22, 2011)

Dr. Scientist Elements would work really well for you. There's a boost section based off of the Cleanness, it can do very low OD, all the way to crazy distortion bordering on fuzz territory. It's super versatile.


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## soldierscry (Jan 20, 2008)

TC NOVA drive would cover it.

There is also this guy:


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

TWRC said:


> Dr. Scientist Elements would work really well for you. There's a boost section based off of the Cleanness, it can do very low OD, all the way to crazy distortion bordering on fuzz territory. It's super versatile.


The Elements is a tweaker's dream! You can do everything dirt wise.
If you prefer simple controls, the Rat is the best do it all distortion!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Chase Bliss Brothers, and Empress Multidrive.


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## Alex (Feb 11, 2006)

soldierscry said:


> TC NOVA drive would cover it.
> 
> There is also this guy:


That is an impressive unit.


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## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

Fulltone Plimsoul


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## k tone (Oct 7, 2008)

Used Visual Sound V2 Jekyll and Hyde. I got the newer version one for $60 off Kijiji. It is still home plate shaped. The new company is Trutone and they are now regular rectangular shaped.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Depends how much gain you want. My OCD covers me for anything I will want to do, including black dahlia murder style stuff.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

I use the Stephenson Stage Hog. 

Actually a one-watt vacuum tube amp producing pre-amp tube AND power-amp tube distortion, which then drives your big amp. Expensive. The best. Still might not be what you want. 

Just saying I spent more money experimenting with solid state stuff than the Stage Hog costs. Hard to find one to try in real life, which you definitely want to do before parting with the money. It is an EXTREMELY flexible unit, I will say, by way of encouragement, if you are considering the plunge.

There is a lot of nice solid state stuff out there. The Van Weeldon Royal Overdrive seemed fantastic in the YouTube, but it is as expensive as the Stage Hog.

Also impressed with the EArthquaker Palisades via YouTube. Half the price.

What is the budget?


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

Ti-Ron said:


> The Elements is a tweaker's dream! You can do everything dirt wise.
> If you prefer simple controls, the Rat is the best do it all distortion!


A Rat is often overlooked for it's low gain attributes. A great all around pedal.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

There are pedals, like the Rat and OCD that cover a wide drive/gain range, and have enough output to push an amp hard without introducing too much distortion themselves. They cover a wide range, but really it's one sound with different degrees of druive and some variation introduced with EQ. Then there are pedals that employ different "distortion engines", such that a variety of qualitatively different tones and feels can be produced. The Brothers, Multidrive, Analog Drive, and Jekyll and Hyde are examples of that. I would agree that the Analogman King of Tone is also one.

I have a rack unit at home almost completed, where I went through my large schematic collection and assembled a dozen qualitatively different distortion engines from the last 50 years, that could be used one or two at a time, in any combination of series or parallel.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Why don't you want to go with a digital effects unit?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Steadly, Steadly, Steadly! There are a whole lot of things that digital does exceptionally well. But unless one is willing to spend big, distortion is not one of them. It's _getting_ there, but it ain't there yet.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

Budda said:


> Depends how much gain you want. My OCD covers me for anything I will want to do, including black dahlia murder style stuff.


Exactly. I've never own a high gain pedal (ZVEX BOM, PISDIYAUWOT, Digitech Death Metal, MI AUDIO Megalith, etc. etc) that can also do low gain - at all.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

The Elements will do both, I prefer the low gain on it.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

mhammer said:


> Steadly, Steadly, Steadly! There are a whole lot of things that digital does exceptionally well. But unless one is willing to spend big, distortion is not one of them. It's _getting_ there, but it ain't there yet.


So what is the lowest cost unit in your opinion that "does" it?


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

Looks like fun!


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## Cups (Jan 5, 2010)

I think digital is there. For the sake of argument let's say its a different "there". 
It's a super subjective topic and you'll probably change your mind a hundred times so good luck in your search.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Steadfastly said:


> So what is the lowest cost unit in your opinion that "does" it?


I honestly don't know, but I do see that folks who use things like the Kemper and Axe-FX generally do not supplement them with overdrive pedals the way that folks with supplement something like a Line 6 or TC multi-FX.

I think of it like this. Once upon a time digital FX were like a 640 x 480 screen resolution. They worked their way up to 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, and are now at 1680 x 1050. There are some things that can look "real" at that resolution, but some things that are still discernibly not-quite-real. And distortion is one of those things that is not quite real. And AFAIC the reason is that distortion of a dynamically-changing signal in a dynamically-changing circuit is VERY hard to describe algorithmically in enough detail to mimic it faithfully. In other words, at this point, the limitations are more to be found in our understanding of how distortion behaves than in the technology we use to produce it digitally. That includes the touch-sensitivity aspects, and the way the harmonics generated vary with picking, where your guitar volume control is set, how you use the butt of your picking hand, etc. The steady-state tones are alright, but the moment-to-moment nuance seems to be missing.

That's MY view, and certainly not a definitive one.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

mhammer said:


> I honestly don't know, but I do see that folks who use things like the Kemper and Axe-FX generally do not supplement them with overdrive pedals the way that folks with supplement something like a Line 6 or TC multi-FX.
> 
> I think of it like this. Once upon a time digital FX were like a 640 x 480 screen resolution. They worked their way up to 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, and are now at 1680 x 1050. There are some things that can look "real" at that resolution, but some things that are still discernibly not-quite-real. And distortion is one of those things that is not quite real. And AFAIC the reason is that distortion of a dynamically-changing signal in a dynamically-changing circuit is VERY hard to describe algorithmically in enough detail to mimic it faithfully. In other words, at this point, the limitations are more to be found in our understanding of how distortion behaves than in the technology we use to produce it digitally. That includes the touch-sensitivity aspects, and the way the harmonics generated vary with picking, where your guitar volume control is set, how you use the butt of your picking hand, etc. *The steady-state tones are alright, but the moment-to-moment nuance seems to be missing.*
> 
> That's MY view, and certainly not a definitive one.


Interesting point on the moment-to-moment nuance. 

The reason I asked the question is with my Digitech unit that I used to have, it had as much distortion as I think anyone would want in a real setting or recording.


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## aC2rs (Jul 9, 2007)

Thanks for the input everyone.
There are a lot of interesting choices here for me to investigate.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Steadfastly said:


> Interesting point on the moment-to-moment nuance.
> 
> The reason I asked the question is with my Digitech unit that I used to have, it had* as much distortion as I think anyone would want* in a real setting or recording.


Yep, if it were possible to hold string output level constant, put the resulting signal on a scope and do a Fourier transform on that, translating it into appropriate algorithms, nailing the distortion flawlessly by digital means would be a piece of cake. I have Zoom amp simulator, and Johnson J-Station that also has a variety of amp simulators, and they capture maximum distortion quite well. The problem/challenge is that guitar is not all power chords. The digital emulations of the more budget-conscious devices do a great job at emulating those conditions, but don't really do a great job capturing the milder coloration of amps or pedals (or amp x pedal interactions) when you're not slamming the thing.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

One pedal to do it all? Perhaps in the studio, but that wouldn't work live for me. I need a selection on the fly - I can't be bending over mid-song and tweeking a knob or switch.

And to get a good switchable distortion pretty much means 'digital with memory locations', so $1500 and up. As Mark explained, everything below that is still lacking. We need '4k distortion' - maybe that will be the resolution that does it. Or maybe not.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

High/Deaf said:


> One pedal to do it all? Perhaps in the studio, but that wouldn't work live for me. I need a selection on the fly - I can't be bending over mid-song and tweeking a knob or switch.
> 
> And to get a good switchable distortion pretty much means 'digital with memory locations', so $1500 and up. As Mark explained, everything below that is still lacking. We need '4k distortion' - maybe that will be the resolution that does it. Or maybe not.


Selection on the fly? Like picking dynamics and using the volume knob?


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Budda said:


> Selection on the fly? Like picking dynamics and using the volume knob?


Sure, if I was playing originals or a very narrow selection of covers, I could get by with one level of gain and modify that with picking and volume control. But I play a wide range of covers, from funk to country to classic rock to hair metal and I need a couple of levels of drive, as well as two channels and a comp (I can get by with less, but prefer not to). Digital boxes can't do that for me - although I haven't tried the +$1500 ones.

And as an aside, I've worn out more guitar volume pots than I care to count. I'm on it all night long.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

High/Deaf said:


> One pedal to do it all? Perhaps in the studio, but that wouldn't work live for me. I need a selection on the fly - I can't be bending over mid-song and tweeking a knob or switch.
> 
> And to get a good switchable distortion pretty much means 'digital with memory locations', so $1500 and up. As Mark explained, everything below that is still lacking. We need '4k distortion' - maybe that will be the resolution that does it. Or maybe not.


But I can't emphasize enough that what is lacking is not the technology. Your average $800 laptop can provide smooth graphics that allow for your favorite 3-D game to have a sense of realism as the shadows, lighting, and textures change when characters and objects move. What is missing is the research into the depiction of audio waveforms in motion, analogous to what has gone into gaming graphics. 

By now, I imagine most of you have seen a commercial or two for the King Kong: Skull Island movie coming out in a few weeks, and it seems like 98% of that is CGI, but looks quite realistic We need the equivalent for the audio world so that a digital FX unit can respond to your picking with as much nuance and subtlety as movie CGI does. Once it migrates to DVD or Netflix, the technology used to watch it at home, with the same richness (apart from the IMAX/3-D thing) won't be all that expensive or involved. What IS involved and expensive is what they had to do to translate ideas for giant animals into code.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not note that what increases the difficulty of the mission is not just the code for producing the effect, but also the code for interpreting the incoming waveform and translating/transforming that into something else. That is one of the reasons why digital does everything else so well, but chokes on distortion. Many effects can be produced _in spite_ of the signal properties. Delay is simply sample the input and go through the entire series of samples again. Compression is read the amplitude and don't make the decoding turn anything above this value into a higher amplitude. Etc. Distortion is the last remaining frontier of digital FX because it requires microsecond-to-microsecond interpretation of the incoming signal properties, and transformation of that input with the same time-resolution in a way that corresponds to a changing set of rules. It is several orders of magnitude more difficult and complex than virtually all other guitar effects to emulate digitally. It'll get done, eventually. What remains is to identify and describe those rules. But you know, you've got walking up all the steps of the Empire State Building, and then you've got Mt. Everest. There's hard, and there's harder.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

As you say, I have no doubt they already have the sampling rates and quantization depths required to get there. As seen in the high end products. It is getting the software to use that hardware to sound natural and not glitchy. It will come, eventually. And probably be cheaper than a digital watch, eventually.


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

AC2rs, what kind of guitar are you using?


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## JTraverse (Dec 30, 2016)

adcandour said:


> Exactly. I've never own a high gain pedal (ZVEX BOM, PISDIYAUWOT, Digitech Death Metal, MI AUDIO Megalith, etc. etc) that can also do low gain - at all.


My favorite is ZVEX box of rock set at 4's across the board


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

JTraverse said:


> My favorite is ZVEX box of rock set at 4's across the board


I'm refering to the Box of Metal. Both are good, but I prefer my MI Audio. I think I'll be selling it though.


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## Macki (Jun 14, 2010)

I would recommend a Source Audio LA Lady - its digital and sounds great - cost 150 USD. Super crazy what is under the hood....huge range of distortions, ODs and fuzzes. You can save 3 presets to the top toggle. I use it with the Neuro hub and Soleman and you get a huge range of easily accessible presets.

The LA lady and King Maker Fuzz are basically the same pedal (same engines are available on both pedals)

L.A. Lady Overdrive


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## aC2rs (Jul 9, 2007)

Hammerhands said:


> AC2rs, what kind of guitar are you using?


I have guitars with single coil and humbuckers, but mostly play my guitars with the vintage and medium output humbuckers.


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## aC2rs (Jul 9, 2007)

After thinking about this for a bit, I may be better of going with separate pedals for each of, overdrive, distortion and fuzz, rather than trying to do it all in one box (though that Empress Multidrive looks _really_ intriguing).

I've never been big on using pedals, I'm more of a guitar to amp player, so my initial thoughts are keeping it as simple as possible. ie. the less on the floor the better.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

aC2rs said:


> After thinking about this for a bit, I may be better of going with separate pedals for each of, overdrive, distortion and fuzz, rather than trying to do it all in one box (though that Empress Multidrive looks _really_ intriguing).
> 
> I've never been big on using pedals, I'm more of a guitar to amp player, so my initial thoughts are keeping it as simple as possible. ie. the less on the floor the better.


I too was all about "straight in amp tone" - right up until I joined a band requiring a bunch of pedals. Pedals aren't all bad, I must admit. There's a lot of two-in-one drive pedals these days, and then find a fuzz you like to add in.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

aC2rs said:


> I've never been big on using pedals, I'm more of a guitar to amp player, so my initial thoughts are keeping it as simple as possible. ie. the less on the floor the better.


Amen. Best set-up: guitar, cord, amp. 

Not always possible. Especially with covers. However, most venues are so crappy, that a digital swiss army knife is an easy and effective solution. 

For studio playing, yeah, get the best thing you can afford. Best wishes for your purchases, bro!


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## Spinedriver (Mar 19, 2016)

There's the Tech 21 Tri-OD










You can just switch from one to the next. Sadly, they've been discontinued for a while, so you'd probably have to search the used market to track one down. 

Like others have said you can quite easily get a Visual Sound/Truetone Jekyll & Hyde or either of Fulltone's 'dual channel' pedals, the GT-500 or Full Drive 3. The GT-500 has both a 'Boost/OD' side as well as a 'Distortion' side that can be run either independently or one into the other. The Full Drive 3 operates exactly the same way except that the 'Boost' doesn't have an eq section.

















To be honest though, there aren't that many "analog" od/distortion pedals that are programmable aside from the Elektron pedal but that one's gonna set you back a few duckets for sure.


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## doriangrey (Mar 29, 2011)

There are so many - and I have tried many - but I think the Bogner Red pedal stands out for me - I can get very nice low to mid gain tones and all the way up to hard rock / metal type tones. And you can still tell what kind of guitar you're playing, unlike some distortion pedals that make all of your guitars sound the same because all you hear os distortion. the Bogner Red really is a really fantastic pedal.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

aC2rs said:


> (though that Empress Multidrive looks _really_ intriguing).


Just picking up a Multidrive literally right now, can report on it by end of the weekend.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Then there's the oft-overlooked EHX Double Muff, which is two cascaded Muff Fuzzes. The Muff Fuzz itself is more or less a fixed-gain silicon Fuzz Face, though it iseasily modded for gobs more gain. I packed a variable-gain Muff Fozz and a Shin-Ei FY-2 fuzz into a sinle pedal I sold a guy a few years ago. Here's both the EHX and my pedal.


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## capnjim (Aug 19, 2011)

Save your cash and get one of these. Probably my favorite ever overdrive.
I can set it so there is no difference in my tone when engaged. You can then add boost or drive,
Great bang for the buck.

Joyo Ultimate Drive OCD Guitar Effects Pedal Buffer Bypass JF-02 OverDrive Distortion: Amazon.ca: Musical Instruments, Stage & Studio


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## Spinedriver (Mar 19, 2016)

doriangrey said:


> There are so many - and I have tried many - but I think the Bogner Red pedal stands out for me - I can get very nice low to mid gain tones and all the way up to hard rock / metal type tones. And you can still tell what kind of guitar you're playing, unlike some distortion pedals that make all of your guitars sound the same because all you hear os distortion. the Bogner Red really is a really fantastic pedal.


I have one as well and as good as it is, it would have been just a pinch better if the boost could be used independently.


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

A solo pedal, like the EHX Signal Pad, or a volume pedal that has a minimum volume setting is a cheap way to double up the settings you can get from any one pedal. You may have have to put a treble bleed into them.

Electro-Harmonix


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## bigboki (Apr 16, 2015)

capnjim said:


> Save your cash and get one of these. Probably my favorite ever overdrive.
> I can set it so there is no difference in my tone when engaged. You can then add boost or drive,
> Great bang for the buck.
> 
> Joyo Ultimate Drive OCD Guitar Effects Pedal Buffer Bypass JF-02 OverDrive Distortion: Amazon.ca: Musical Instruments, Stage & Studio


It is good one. And for the price really good one. I got it for something like $36 from amazon. (Returned though - had similar and better pedal to choose from)
Somebody else just reviewed bunch of Joyo pedals (including this one) and gave really helpful reviews.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

aC2rs said:


> (though that Empress Multidrive looks _really_ intriguing).





LexxM3 said:


> Just picking up a Multidrive literally right now, can report on it by end of the weekend.


Preliminary report -- I think this may well be an awesome pedal. I think maybe you CAN get almost any boost/OD/distortion/fuzz out of it! Some people complain it's too complicated, but it really took no effort to get great sounds out of it on all 3 effects as well as the master controls. Perhaps fine tuning and mixing all 3 "just right" might get involved, but at least one at a time, it's easy to sound great. And the master controls are very effective, particularly the "low" knob.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

bigboki said:


> It is good one. And for the price really good one. I got it for something like $36 from amazon. (Returned though - had similar and better pedal to choose from)
> Somebody else just reviewed bunch of Joyo pedals (including this one) and gave really helpful reviews.


Why yes, yes there is. 

A Tale of Six Pedals

While good bang-for-the-buck, it isn't my favorite pedal. But we all play different guitars and amps, we all play differently and we all hear differently.

Play what you love and love what you play.


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## aC2rs (Jul 9, 2007)

Just a quick follow up to my original post, I ended up going with three separate pedals instead of a single pedal.

This is what I have gone with (so far ):
- Boss Blues Driver for overdrive
- Fulltone OCD for distortion
- Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi w/wicker for fuzz.

I've actually had these pedals for quite a while now, so I've had a chance to mess about with them and I'm really pleased with the results I get.

While going with three pedals didn't achieve my original goal of having a small foot print and keeping the floor tidy, I did end up with flexibility, so I can swap out and try something else or add a pedal with a different flavour if I want to.

Once again a big thanks to everyone for your input on this thread.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I think it is worth noting that many players will have several overdrive and distortion pedals on their board. And if they don't, chances are good that they play through more than one amp or use an amp with more than one channel. In other words, the pedalboard may look simple, but the amp provides other ways to get different overdrive and distortion personalities.


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## Merlin (Feb 23, 2009)

I used to have a TC Electronic Nova Drive. It had OD and Distortion in the same box, and you could stack them. It has an analog signal path, but digital presets. Very flexible box.

http://www.tcelectronic.com/ndr-1-nova-drive/


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

I'm really digging that Yellow Brick ST9 (Super TS9 Tubescreamer clone) I got about a month ago. Infinitely adjustable from slight over-drive to total fuzz and everything in between. Very happy with it. Those extra knobs really come in handy


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## MarkusV (Sep 24, 2009)

Not saying its the best out there..
I bought a Wampler Pinnacle and to me- just endless joy. Very versatile


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

It's a prototype with two new types of clipping involving nano tech....
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EJIihaLV9g


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## SouthamptonPdls (Nov 4, 2014)

mhammer said:


> But I can't emphasize enough that what is lacking is not the technology. Your average $800 laptop can provide smooth graphics that allow for your favorite 3-D game to have a sense of realism as the shadows, lighting, and textures change when characters and objects move. What is missing is the research into the depiction of audio waveforms in motion, analogous to what has gone into gaming graphics.
> 
> By now, I imagine most of you have seen a commercial or two for the King Kong: Skull Island movie coming out in a few weeks, and it seems like 98% of that is CGI, but looks quite realistic We need the equivalent for the audio world so that a digital FX unit can respond to your picking with as much nuance and subtlety as movie CGI does. Once it migrates to DVD or Netflix, the technology used to watch it at home, with the same richness (apart from the IMAX/3-D thing) won't be all that expensive or involved. What IS involved and expensive is what they had to do to translate ideas for giant animals into code.
> 
> Of course, I would be remiss if I did not note that what increases the difficulty of the mission is not just the code for producing the effect, but also the code for interpreting the incoming waveform and translating/transforming that into something else. That is one of the reasons why digital does everything else so well, but chokes on distortion. Many effects can be produced _in spite_ of the signal properties. Delay is simply sample the input and go through the entire series of samples again. Compression is read the amplitude and don't make the decoding turn anything above this value into a higher amplitude. Etc. Distortion is the last remaining frontier of digital FX because it requires microsecond-to-microsecond interpretation of the incoming signal properties, and transformation of that input with the same time-resolution in a way that corresponds to a changing set of rules. It is several orders of magnitude more difficult and complex than virtually all other guitar effects to emulate digitally. It'll get done, eventually. What remains is to identify and describe those rules. But you know, you've got walking up all the steps of the Empire State Building, and then you've got Mt. Everest. There's hard, and there's harder.


I know this is an old discussion, but I found this post really interesting, and I wanted to add something from my experience.

I had been working with a developer of audio plugins to work on a website that would allow you to upload your guitar playing (unaltered - although obviously sampled somehow) and feed it through any combination of real pedals and amps. When I started talking to the developer I was convinced this would be impossible, yet he was emphatic that not only was it possible - it was routine. He had worked on movie sets where they would measure the excitation of a room to vocal frequencies and harmonics. This allowed them to overdub audio in post and have it sound like it was spoken in the room at the time of filming - really cool stuff.

However, you are right, there are many limitations. First off, is measuring a distortion for the purpose of simulating. You need to measure all possible frequencies at all possible amplitudes going into the pedal and out. Also consider that many circuits are not perfect and will react in unpredictable manners. For instance, if I hit an open E, the pedal reacts in one way. Same thing with an A. Now, if I hit an E and an A simultaneously, the circuit will not always react in a way that is a combination of the previous two reactions. So... to properly measure the pedal you need to spend a LOT of time in the analytical stage.

The next challenge is processing the signal. To be able to do this in real time - something modulation effects by their very nature do not have to do - is not impossible; to do it in a small footprint pedal that the average person can afford? At this point, not doable. I imagine if you were to give the engineers at AxeFX an unlimited budget and form factor, they could damn near perfect an OD or distortion, but it's not marketable. There's not really a great way to scale the development either - each OD or distortion responds so differently that to be able to simulate different 'flavours' is not a matter of tweaking just a few parameters. There's subtle frequency response changes, harmonies which are introduced, etc. 

Anyway, thought I'd chime in as I find this subject fascinating.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Thanks for your post, Hamish. You outline several distinct and real challenges when it comes to digital production of analog distortion effects:

Fulsome description of just what the heck we want, need, wish it to do.
Comprehensive measurement of all relevant attributes (and attributes * circumstance interactions).
Reproducing the desired outcome, with the desired control and flexibility, in something that feels close enough to real-time.
Being able to deliver a device that does so in a form-factor, and at a price-point, that enough people would want.
It's a pretty tall order.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

As The Gump said: "Distortion pedals are like a box of chocolates. And you can't email a box of chocolates to someone." 

Very wise man, The Gump.


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## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

LexxM3 said:


> Preliminary report -- I think this may well be an awesome pedal. I think maybe you CAN get almost any boost/OD/distortion/fuzz out of it! Some people complain it's too complicated, but it really took no effort to get great sounds out of it on all 3 effects as well as the master controls. Perhaps fine tuning and mixing all 3 "just right" might get involved, but at least one at a time, it's easy to sound great. And the master controls are very effective, particularly the "low" knob.


Not my experience. I thought the fuzz and overdrive sounded good, but the distortion was very weak. I also prefer stacking rather than parallel.
I had the feeling Empress doesn't like this pedal much 'cause they sure aren't pushing it online.
There are a couple of vids that compare the Multidrive to real amps, and while the pedal does compare favorably, they didn't show the pedals settings. Very peculiar.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I wouldn't say they "don't like it". But other pedals are selling better.

Before they tanked, Corel ventured into children's software, with a handful of interactive books. They should have stuck with Draw and Wordperfect, because the kids' stuff went straight to the delete bin.. Steve and Co. at Empress ventured into distortions, but I think the field was just to large to have any sort of impact. I suspect they won't be venturing out in that direction again any time soon. In contrast, other things, like the Echo System and Parametric EQ are doing very well for them.

The Chase Bliss Brothers seems to be selling okay. I suspect this has to do with the ability to stack the two channels as well as run them in parallel, not to mention the small footprint. Several of the Truetone pedals can do that too, but the Brothers allows it to be done via a few toggle flicks, rather than patch cables, not to mention the very flexible expression-pedal control.

I think when people talk about an "all-purpose distortion" they mean not only the range of sounds attainable, but also how easy it is to achieve them, and how replicable. User interface becomes important there.

I haven't played with it as much as I'd like to yet, but I got myself a Roland Torcido module and a Source Audio Hot Hand 3 controller earlier this year. In principle, I should be able to achieve a lot of real-time control over distortion parameters, simply by waving my hand. Like the other Aira modules, the Torcido comes with 31 virtual (and virtually patchable) modules that will permit a broad palette of tones. I know the Hot Hand can provide suitable control voltages to the Torcido, but I still need to whip up the patch cables to do so.


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

knight_yyz said:


> It's a prototype with two new types of clipping involving nano tech....
> www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EJIihaLV9g


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## Lola (Nov 16, 2014)

mhammer said:


> Steadly, Steadly, Steadly! There are a whole lot of things that digital does exceptionally well. But unless one is willing to spend big, distortion is not one of them. It's _getting_ there, but it ain't there yet.


I really did consider getting a digital fx unit but I succumbed to the sublime pleasures that my pedals offer! I just like the capabilities of them a lot better.


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

I tried out a drive stack of my LP hummer into my 1986 DS-1 (slight gain) -> Visual Sound VS-XO (half gain both channels)-> the dirty channel of the Blackstar at about half gain a few days ago. I could've held a note in sustain approaching feedback for half an hour it seemed. Definitely a very usable and beautiful extreme gain sound that would work in any situation I'm part of. I'm re adding the DS-1 to my board soon. I need something bigger than the teensy little pedal train nano I'm currently using though. I love a lot of heavier sounds, so I'm considering something else to add in that might be more Blues oriented as well. I like to OD on OD in certain situations.


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