Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi. TC Electronic MojoMojo. With a long list of famous artists and musicians who used the Big Muff Pi, I think it needs little to no introduction.
Defining the sound of rock music for over four decades, the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi is one of the most tried and tested unit when it comes to overdrive pedals, or just effects pedals in general.
Its user-friendly display paired with a compact size are just one of the things why people love it. But despite that, it still manages to sounds big and aggressive.
The Tone Knob sets the range of sounds, while the Sustain Knob alters the sustain and amount of distortion. It features different controls and switches to adjust it to your liking. The Tumnus Deluxe has a 3-band EQ gives your tone some warm low end and you also have the choice if you want a buffer or True Bypass.
TC Electronics brings you great quality even with an affordable price. The MojoMojo sits durably in a rugged and heavy-duty casing. It also has two band EQs, Level and Drive controls, and a Voice switch to personalize your tone at maximum level. With your imagination running wild, you can easily dial in a whole range of tones using just this pedal alone. Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini 4. Derived from its bigger version—Tube Screamer, musicians are thrilled that it comes in a fun-size, which is the Tube Screamer Mini.
Known for its rich midrange roar and dynamic touch sensitivity, the Tube Screamer Mini seems to get it right. Its compact and lightweight size makes it perfect to fit in your pedalboard. This little green pedal includes Overdrive, Tone and Level controls, and features an analog circuitry. Possessing a full-tone growl of a tube engine, the Behringer Vintage Tube Monster VT Effects Pedal will give your tones the extra boost and kick from warm blues overdrive to heavy metal distortion.
It displays LED for battery check and a true hard-wire bypass for ultimate signal integrity. The original Klon Centaur is right in the middle of the Venn diagram overlap for 'rare' and 'expensive', but luckily there are a number of high-quality clones on the market, of which the Tumnus is one of the better units.
Not only is it a great-sounding, faithful reproduction of the most unobtainium overdrive in the business, it's also housed in a small-form-factor, A-sized enclosure, meaning it doesn't take up much pedalboard real estate at all.
In terms of sounds, the Klon is often described as 'transparent', but we've always found it to be distinctly colored, chewy in its drive tone at lower gain settings, and crunchy and dry with the gain up — these qualities are also true of the Tumnus.
Although it may not be transparent, it can still be used as a slightly colorful boost in front of a tube amp with the gain down and volume up. And while it would be mad to pay for an original unit for this kind of use, employing the more affordable Tumnus to smash a tube amp into saturation isn't sacrilege.
Another drive in the extended TS family, the OCD goes from light drive and light compression to almost fuzz-like territory, depending on the model. It's got quite a distinctive sound, which tends to overtake the tone of your amp a little — but in that respect, it's really no different from the TS itself or the Klon, both of which have a very recognisable tone.
The OCD is sometimes marketed under the 'transparent' overdrive umbrella, but that's not how we would describe it, as in almost all configurations it colors your tone in a very noticeable way. You don't always have to spend a lot of money to get a great overdrive tone.
Sometimes, you just need the right combination of gear. Take a nice hollow-body guitar, a vintage-style valve amp, and the humble Boss BD-2, and you have a guitar tone to die for. It should be fairly apparent that the Boss Blues Driver is great at replicating those light break-up sounds associated with great valve amps.
With that being said, this mighty blue box can also do great rock tones, as well as a relatively convincing clean boost. It may be affordable and seen as rather pedestrian, but this pedal has been spotted on the pedalboards of Prince, Billie Joe Armstrong, and Paul Weller - and well, if it's good enough for the purple one, it's good enough for you!
The Santa Ana produces fat lead tones as well as distinctive hard rock rhythm crunch, and the switchable boost function is great for punching a solo above the mix level setting or adding extra creamy compression and sustain gain setting. Other cool features include the magnetic battery access compartment at the front of the pedal and the LEDs that illuminate the knob settings.
What's even cooler is you can control these lights with the flick of a switch on the rear panel. The Sunset is an oddity in this list.
Although it has an analog JFET gain stage, the heavy lifting is actually done digitally, allowing it to have a much wider range of potential tones inside the unit. It has two independent drives with independent controls, easily accessible via the front panel. The left-hand side sports a germanium diode-based drive, which is similar to some models of the OCD; a Tube Screamer-style drive and a treble boost, while the right side has a more complex two-stage drive, a hard-clipping distortion that's somewhat akin to a ProCo RAT, and the analog JFET boost.
These options alone offer a huge spread of versatility, but when you consider that you can also stack the sides to create even more complex drive tones, the true power of the Sunset is revealed. From Queen-style treble boosting to modern metal, this pedal really can do it all, and without breaking a sweat. Perhaps the most gratifying thing about the Sunset is that, with a lot of volume boost on tap - despite being a digital pedal - it can actually push a tube amp into saturation just as convincingly as an analog drive or boost.
Not only that, but the combination of treble boost and the JFET analog boost option mean that, tone-wise, you can craft unique boost timbres for complementing your valve amp's tone.
Designed by James Brown no, not that one — the chap who came up with the Peavey , the Amptweaker core line mainly comprises 'amp in a box'-style overdrives that go from light drive Tight Drive all the way to aggressive modern metal Tight Metal. The Tight Rock JR is, to our minds, the best all-rounder of the bunch, streamlining the options of the larger boxes while still offering a very good noise gate. With the gain down and volume up, you start off in grunge-ish territory; it can clean up further, but it begins to feel like you're not playing to the pedal's strengths if you get any less hairy than Pearl Jam.
At the other end of its range, you can pretty much get all the way to tech metal territory; and although it doesn't handle 7-strings and extended range guitars quite as well as the higher-gain Tight Metal, it can just about keep up.
Paired with a decent tube amp, it's responsive enough that bringing the gain down and volume up will result in a more dynamic playing experience. You can also use these to combat troublesome frequencies within your amp, for example, many metal players use a Tube Screamer, or something similar, to push the front end of an already distorted amp a little more, and to tighten up the bottom end. Some of the best overdrive pedals even have different foot-switchable gain stages.
MusicRadar The No. Included in this guide: 1. Fulltone OCD V2 overdrive pedal. The latest version of one of the world's most highly regarded stack-in-a-box pedals.
Sockets: Input, output, power. Bypass: Fulltone Enhanced Bypass, true bypass. Power requirements: V power supply, 9V battery. Reasons to avoid - A little pricey, given the number of affordable clones. Mesa Boogie Flux Five overdrive pedal. Bypass: True bypass. Reasons to avoid - Dedicated mid-range controls would have made this perfect. Controls: Tone, level, overdrive.
Power requirements: 9V power supply. Reasons to avoid - More versatile overdrives are available. Electro-Harmonix Soul Food. Controls: Volume, drive, treble. Power requirements: 9V power supply, 9V battery. Controls: Master volume, Independent volume, drive and tone. Sockets: Input, output, power, external footswitch. Bypass: True Bypass. Power requirements: 9V DC. Reasons to avoid - Overkill for some. Strymon Sunset Dual Overdrive. Controls: 2x level, 2x drive, 2x tone, A switch, B switch, bright switch, configuration switch.
Sockets: Input, output, favourite, expression, power. There are many pedals which meet in the middle, bridging the gap between overdrive and distortion thanks to their wide-ranging gain controls. Overdrives can also boost your signal and increase the overall volume and output from your amplifier. This is why overdrive pedals are often engaged for playing leads, to help solos cut through in a mix when playing live. Overdrive pedals are conventionally used in the front of an amplifier.
However, most players will place it after their tuner and wah pedals. Most will use an overdrive with the clean channel of their amp, to deliver a crunchy and more-raucous tone when engaged. This offers a punchier tone with improved sustain and width.
Overdriven tones are also associated with other genres such as classic rock, indie and even more modern contemporary styles. Players will often set the pedal up with the drive and volume low, so that only slightly more gain will be added without getting too out of control.
This will introduce more saturation and sustain, making it great for chunky rhythm tones as well as leads. Here are some of the big hitters:. Around since the late '70s, the Ibanez Tube Screamer is a truly iconic pedal. The most recognised and used iterations of this pedal are the original TS and the TS9, the latter of which has more top-end presence.
Both featuring volume and drive controls, letting you adjust the output and amount of gain respectively, Tube Screamers also feature a tone knob. The tone control acts as an EQ of sorts, letting you brighten the overall sound of the pedal. Renowned for its ability to push the upper mid-range frequencies of your signal, the Tube Screamer is also regarded for adding a soft compression to give you more dynamic consistency.
Running it through the clean channel of his high-headroom Fender amplifiers , the Tube Screamer would push his amps into break-up, without deafening his audience by maxing out their volume for a similar effect! Metal players are also known to utilise Tube Screamers or derivations of the circuit in their rigs.
As a Tube Screamer typically shelves the low-end frequencies, it takes out any unwanted flab from a distortion channel to give a more focused and saturated sound. Keeley are the most famous brand to modify this circuit, although several others have used the Tube Screamer as the foundation for their designs. Developed in the early '90s and manufactured between and , only around 8, of these rare pedals were made. This means that it adds gain to your signal like any overdrive pedal, however will not dramatically affect your base tone or its EQ.
The treble control will let you boost the higher frequencies for more cut if you wish, and is a versatile option that can be ideal for lead playing.
Subtler overall compared to a Tube Screamer, the Klon is considered to be more reactive to your playing dynamics, providing a cleaner, smoother and more open tone. John Mayer is a prominent modern player who uses a Klon to achieve his enviable sound — letting him attain his signature warm and rounded tone.
A huge range of other famous artists have used original Klon pedals or recreations too, making this style of overdrive a very popular choice. RYRA have designed a line of convincing Klon recreations, and their "The Klone" pedals are available in a range of colours. Not only do they spice up your tone, but the look of your board too! Far more affordable compared to Tube Screamers or Klons, the BD-2 is distinctive for offering a smooth, creamy overdrive sound that satisfies blues players in particular - hence the name!
The Blues Driver features a similar set of controls to most overdrives, with level, tone and gain knobs. The Blues Driver therefore works as well for rhythm tones as it does for leads, giving width and clarity to chords or riffs. The tone control can boost top-end frequencies very high should you want to pierce through the mix, giving a rich and musical sparkle to your lead lines. As the BD-2 is so inexpensive, there are very few companies that sell clones of this excellent circuit, however brands like Keeley have made modifications to this pedal in the past.
With all-analogue circuitry as well as two modes, the BD-2w is a great option for those wanting the sound of the BD-2 on steroids! From there, check out videos online to get a sense of which sound appeals to you the most. Goliath series, where we compare similar pedals - one affordable, one more expensive. Have fun finding the right one for you! The key difference between an overdrive and a distortion pedal is that the latter should provide you with a high-gain sound, almost completely transforming your unaffected tone.
Distortion pedals are generally more tweakable compared to overdrives too, often featuring more EQ controls to let you shape your tone how you want it. The main benefit of having a distortion pedal on your pedalboard, especially one that gives you great amp emulation both sound and feel-wise , is that you can take your pedalboard anywhere and plug into any amp to get your sound. Some distortion pedal builders will even utilise real amp tubes in their distortion pedal designs, to get you even closer!
Like overdrives, distortion pedals should only be plugged into the front of an amplifier.
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