Looking for modern garage rock overdrives.

[zovosaf]

Looking for overdrives for modern garage rock sound (somewhat open and jangly, not low heavy, medium gain, good clarity. The Hives, Mike Krol, Man or Astro-man, Sick Thoughts, Together PANGEA, Cosmonauts, White Reaper). I have narrowed it down to:

-1981 DRV

-Bondi Sick As

-EAE Dagger

-MXR Timmy

-Benson Preamp

-JHS SuperBolt

I'm sure I'll eventually end up with all of them lol, but if you could pick one of these right now. Which would you pick for my sound?

[sal paradise]

What amp & guitar? Will make a huge difference.

I’ve only used 2 of those pedals, and even with those I’d use one with a clean amp & one to push an amp already at breakup.

The Timmy can be picky about what it sounds good through. And even when it sounds good, sometimes takes a lot of tweaking the controls to make it sound great. Not so much a plug & play pedal in my experience. But when it works I love it.

Next is the DRV. I fell in love with it quickly, and out of love even faster. It’s more articulate than a Rat at the lowest gain, but once you get up to 11 o’clock there’s way too much gain. It’s just a really expensive rat that’s less flexible, imho. My favourite rat sound is the Mooer black secret- sounds exactly like an LM38 Rat, but slightly darker & easier to use with my setup.

Boss BD-2 would be my vote for the sound I think you want.

[zovosaf]

What amp & guitar? Will make a huge difference.

Physical amp would be a Hot Rod Deville or a Vox 30. Though I run most of my stuff through a FM3 these days. I still keep my physical pedalboard though. On the FM3, I could say any amp is at my fingertips I guess.

Guitar would be my JM with gold foils, my gold foil tele, regular JM, or Mustang. I do switch a lot and play around with them.

[thisisnickpaige]

I’d say the Benson can do exactly that and so much more (eve Velcro-y fuzz type tones).

If you dig the DRV I’d highly look into the Bigear WOODCUTTER. Super rad pedal, and all the DRV and then some. Super huge Hives fan, so I dig the ethos.

I’ve never used physical pedals with my FM3 or 9. How do they take it? Can’t find anything in the box or just prefer the tactile nature?

My vote, if you can afford it, is the Benson.
WOODCUTTER close second (Grant is a super awesome dude), But RAT based pedals tend to have a more specific sound palette.

[zovosaf]

I’ve never used physical pedals with my FM3 or 9. How do they take it? Can’t find anything in the box or just prefer the tactile nature?

It takes pedals well! Responds pretty much like an amp would. Idk if I can say that though becasue I don't actually own, say, a Divided by 13 amp for comparison. To my ears, it sounds great so I go with my ears.

As for why physical pedals. I'm actually not a big fan of navigating and programming with Fractal's stuff. The less time I can spend in their environment, the better. I'll dial in an amp and a cab yeah. However, I'll always love sitting on the floor and fiddling with pedal knobs.

[crazyzeke]

Any good Klon Centaur clone will do for this kind of application, maybe two so you can stack them.


Muslady (aka Mosky) Golden Horse
I have one of these on my board and paid £20 shipped from Reverb. Good pedal whether used on it's own for a little grit, or to push into other pedals to make them drive more and mid boost just a tiny bit (hey that rhymes), takes up minimal board space. I tend to use it more as a solo boost or to make the guitar pop out on certain parts for a few seconds so it's not a "leave on all the time" pedal but it would be fine for that as the tone is good. My one objection is every time I pull it out of the pedalboard luggage the knobs have moved as it doesn't take much to jog them, and more than once I've seared my ears with excess treble because of it (honestly it's pretty bright even at only 2 o'clock on the dial).


EHX Soul Food
I nearly got one of these in preference to the Golden Horse but basically all the sellers had their list price so close to new RRP shipped from places like Thomann it wasn't worth it, but I'd guess it works just as well with maybe slightly better build quality.

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Other drive pedals worth a damn in general that could be used for most low to medium gain stuff :-


Dolamo Overdrive
Literally my favourite overdrive pedal I've ever owned, presumably it's a clone of something but I don't know what (looked it up and apparently it's the Pure Sky/TIMMY). As a testament to how good it is, I recently borrowed a Boss SD-1 from a friend to compare against the gain pedals on my Affordaboard and as usual, I could get it to sound okay at low volumes but in rehearsal it never seemed to go loud enough in the right way, or I couldn't get the tone right. The Dolamo slayed it. The EQ is great, it can level boost more than enough to get louder than your clean tones, it works well with the gain set high or low, it cleans up well when you roll off the guitar volume/tone controls, it's cheap. What more could you ask for? Only downside is despite it's size it won't take a 9V battery, it's mains power only.


Catalinbread Super Chile Picoso
Doesn't necessarily have to be this exact pedal, just the same or similar MOSFET based circuit. Fattens up your guitar tone like crazy - more of everything that's good without colouring the sound too much. You can use it to push an amp into breakup and it's good at that, but I'd recommend stacking it before one or more other drive pedals as part of gain staging to get lots of tonal variations. For me it's an "always on" type pedal regardless of how hot or not the pickups of the guitar are, just use the dial to balance it.

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The moral of the story is, you really don't have to spend much to get a good low-medium tone for garage or other types of rock, just get ones which don't overly colour the sound when they're switched on at least at lower gain/overdrive/distortion levels.

[thenewromance]

I recommend a look at the Wampler Triumph. It is affordable, has two basic sounds and an EQ section. I like it with all my guitars (I play through an Orange Tiny Terror), and it can do most everything from clean boost to classic rock. I bet you could dial in the tone you're looking for.

The suggestions above also seem solid. As an alternative to the DRV, have a look at Wampler's take on the Rat, the Ratsbane. I really like it, as an all-purpose amp-like overdrive.

Wampler isn't paying me for this, unfortunately, but I find his drive pedals to be real good (at least for what/how I play) and priced fairly.

[RockStarNick]

Oooh I have a good suggestion:

Supro Drive

REALLY great sounding drive pedal that is unique and different from a TS, OD, Klon, Timmy, etc.

Very amp-like, organic, great feel.

[RockStarNick]

Another one to mention:

Greer Lightspeed.

Does that medium-gain thing REALLY well.

Lots of pedals claim to be transparent; the Lightspeed truly is, IMO. Great as a boost, in front of a dead-clean amp on it's own.

[RockStarNick]

A few more thoughts on your list above:

Timmy: Excellent INTO an already driven amp, or other pedal. On it's own, good if you're adding a slight bit of hair around the notes. If you want to set the gain high on the timmy, it kinda does that "clean note surrounded by fuzzy drive" thing that a TS does, albeit with less midrange.

JHS Superbolt: Supro-esque drive, similar to the Supro Drive I mentioned above, GREAT pedal

PS. Huge Hives fan here, I love the interplay between the guitar players tones: jangly and almost clean vs fuzzy and drive.

[redchapterjubilee]

I’m thinking a Klon clone. That’s exactly what I use mine for. Lower gain, turn the tone up a bit, and it’s got the jangle.

[crazyzeke]

Wampler isn't paying me for this, unfortunately, but I find his drive pedals to be real good (at least for what/how I play) and priced fairly.

His YouTube channel also tends to be highly entertaining. I haven't watched a lot of it but he seems like one of those guys who lives to demystify "guitarist snake oil" theories about tone by using his engineering/building expertise, and I'm all for that.

[therizzla]

I can find a lot of useful light to moderate overdrive tones with my Karma MTN-10. I now believe all drive pedals should have three band EQ tone controls. I can get a good Rumble tone with mine, not modern but a great lighter.