# Overdrive Opinions?



## ThunderCoveRocks (Sep 24, 2009)

Hey 

I've been looking around for a new overdrive these days but the choices seem to keep getting harder the more I search! Although, I have come up with some great contenders:

Mad Professor Sky Blue Overdrive
Okko Diablo Plus
JHS Double Barrel
Mad Professor Sweet Honey
Timmy

I'm looking for something that is going to clean up well but also give a decent amount of gain that will work with a clean amp. I play through a JTM45 and Les Paul. I don't want the pedal to cover up the tone of the JTM45 either so it has to be transparent enough. 
Thoughts? Opinions?

Cheers:rockon2:


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## zerorez (Jul 4, 2008)

So what gain range, when running into the clean jtm45 amp, and what are some of your favorite band sounds, are you talking higher gain into a pushed plexi or jcm800 type range?


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## Bruiser74 (Jan 29, 2010)

The Tim pedal sounds like it would give you what you need.
I have one, its fantastic. Transparent, cleans up well and enough gain to get lots of places.
Plays great with LP's, stellar with strats and teles.


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## ThunderCoveRocks (Sep 24, 2009)

> So what gain range, when running into the clean jtm45 amp, and what are some of your favorite band sounds, are you talking higher gain into a pushed plexi or jcm800 type range?


When I get the JTM45 up to about 7/8, that's about the gain, a good medium gain. Classic rock to blues so you know that kinda stuff.


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## ThunderCoveRocks (Sep 24, 2009)

Forgot to mention, my current overdrive is a Menatone Red Snapper


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## zerorez (Jul 4, 2008)

The JTM45 is a very pedal friendly circuit and accepts everything very well.

The Tim or Timmy is fantastic pedal and does the transparent sound without sound coloring very nice and I would rank that one in the medium gain range.

I would skip the okko and go with the new freakish blues alpha drive as a better bang for the buck, that will push a clean amp real nice for blues and rock styles in the marshall bluesbreaker pedal camp.

The catalinbread DLS is great pedal for medium high plexi and jcm800 sounds and priced decent.

On the bit more of a price spectrum the swedish built himmelstrutz fetto nord is fantastic and has a boost that can be added alone or inconjunction with the overdrive in a compact footprint, it does everything well, cleanups pristine when backing off the volume, retains transparencey and clarity and is real sensitive and dynamic to picking attack.


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## b-nads (Apr 9, 2010)

I've just went through a few myself, and thought I was settled on the Paisley Drive, until I tried a Jetter Jet Drive Dual OD - creamy low-gain on one side, gritty mid on the other, and perect balance between them when both voicings are on - about the coolest pedal I've tried yet.


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

....you may want to consider more than one o/d pedal.

i use a danelectro transparent o/d for mild, and a radial bones london for more extreme drive. i also have an eh metal muff for that modern high-gain thing.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

I also play Les Pauls through a JTM45 and I find the Timmy does a great job of keeping the amp's tone intact and giving it lots of drive.

Running my JTM clean at 3-ish on the vol, I use the Timmy around 1-3 on the drive knob to get a good amount of drive for classic rock stuff and it still cleans up pretty good. Running the amp harder, I just drop the drive on the Timmy to somewhere between 9-12 o'clock.

Another solid option is the Z.Vex Super Hard On pedal. More a boost than a drive, if you have your JTM already cooking a bit, that does a great job of sending it into overdrive, but it doesn't work as well if your amp is set to clean.

At all costs, avoid the Fulltone OCD. I find it just too damned dark and compressed with the JTM. I love it through other amps, but the JTM and the OCD don't really mate well (for me, anyway).

I would like to try a DLS at some point, though.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

I also play Les Pauls through a JTM45 and I find the Timmy does a great job of keeping the amp's tone intact and giving it lots of drive.

Running my JTM clean at 3-ish on the vol, I use the Timmy around 1-3 on the drive knob to get a good amount of drive for classic rock stuff and it still cleans up pretty good. Running the amp harder, I just drop the drive on the Timmy to somewhere between 9-12 o'clock.

Another solid option is the Z.Vex Super Hard On pedal. More a boost than a drive, if you have your JTM already cooking a bit, that does a great job of sending it into overdrive, but it doesn't work as well if your amp is set to clean.

At all costs, avoid the Fulltone OCD. I find it just too damned dark and compressed with the JTM. I love it through other amps, but the JTM and the OCD don't really mate well (for me, anyway).

I would like to try a DLS at some point, though.


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## Stevo (Apr 3, 2008)

The Loner said:


> The catalinbread DLS is great pedal for medium high plexi and jcm800 sounds and priced decent.


I use a DLS with a '74 Marshall Superbass and it sounds great. Very close to the attenuated sound of the amp cranked up by itself.


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

...just took a listen to the nova drive clips on youtube. very interesting.


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## zerorez (Jul 4, 2008)

david henman said:


> ...just took a listen to the nova drive clips on youtube. very interesting.


Did you mean the Alpha Drive?, for the OP, here is a demo of the Alpha drive with humbuckers that starts at 3:10 into a SS-10 preamp set clean, it will give you a feel of the dynamics and cleanup capability of the Alpha.

[YOUTUBE]emLZA4Zb8VM[/YOUTUBE]

For Single Coil players

[YOUTUBE]3KA50GJLyw8[/YOUTUBE]


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## ThePass (Aug 10, 2007)

I use a Visual Sound Jekell & Hyde OD/Distortion pedal with my Strat and Les Paul into an US built Fender HRDlx.

I like it alot, "two in one" makes it easier on my chain, cable-wise, and both side are sweet. Plus, I can use them together to boost solo's.

Great pedal, IMHO>

http://www.visualsound.net/index.php/products/guitar_effects_pedals/v2_jekyll_hyde


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## ThunderCoveRocks (Sep 24, 2009)

Yeah, the Tim and Timmy sound great, and less expensive than JHS and the other boutique pedals. I also like the idea of the dual pedals, getting a boost with one and drive with the other.


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## ThunderCoveRocks (Sep 24, 2009)

So, is there any tonal differences between the Tim and Timmy?


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

You might consider a simple boost pedal since the marshal already has a great OD tone of it's own. The Dunlop/CAE boost/overdrive MC 402 pedal is the bomb.

[video=youtube;sHMJcKSkuSk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHMJcKSkuSk&feature=player_embedded[/video]


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Buy yourself an MXR Distortion+ second hand and change 4 parts.

The stock unit uses a cap value in the gain circuit (.047uf) that cuts out too much bass as gain is increased. Swap it for .1-.22uf to keep the bass at all settings.

The stock germanium diodes clip the signal at too low an amplitude, yielding lots of sizzle but not nearly enough output to push an amp's input stage hard. Swap those germanium diodes for a pair of silicon diodes, such as 1N914 or 1N4148 (available at all electronics stores everywhere) to increase both maximum output and how much gain is required to produce distortion. You'll still get wads of crunch of you want it (thanks to keeping more of the bass in at higher gain), but you'll also be able to feed the amp with a hot *lightly-coloured* input signal, the same goal that all the high-priced pedals attempt to achieve.

Finally, the stock unit uses a .001uf cap in parallel with those diodes to trim some of the top end, but not nearly enough for the purposes of overdriving an amp. Replace that with a higher value, like .0022uf (for rolloff starting around 7.2khz) or .0033uf (for rolloff starting around 4.8khz).

These simple-to-do and inexpensive changes to an otherwise already inexpensive pedal, based on LOTS of experience, will yield a really nice kick in the ass to just about any tube amp. Whether it sounds identical to what you imagine in your head is something that I don't think any of us here can address, but it certainly moves in the direction of the CAE pedal, which is decidedly pricier.


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## s2ledesma (Apr 18, 2011)

Check out the Fulltone Fulldrive 2 or the Visual Sound Jekyll and Hyde


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