It's high noon at the OK corral.
The participants are:
Recording Info:
Strat into Effect into 70's Fender Vibrolux
(with 1 Weber alnico and 1 Weber Ceramic speaker) Beyer
Dynamic mkIII mic / M-audio firewire
no reverb, sweetening EQ .... MP3 192kbps
Many of these devices sound best into a slightly overdriven
amp. These clips however are in the amp set totally clean med/low volume amp so
you hear the true effect not the amp.
I realize these effects all have many parameters, therefore
many possible tones. I spent time with each device and chose to dial up what I
personally thought was it's best tone. All recordings start with the clean
tone. Nothing fancy here, jus' a few power chords, 'n a lick or two.
All commentary is simply my opinion
Blues Devil is a very nice, warm OD in the TS-9 arena. I could not find a bad tone on this
White Dragon is a strange bird capable of some rather ugly tones IMHO. Kind of in the OD meets fuzz box neighborhood. I had to really tweak to get this tone
Sans Amp is a very versatile OD with built in cabinet emulation. I love this device and have been using it since it was introduced in the early/mid 80's (all dips up except 6 and 8) I modded with true bypass switch
Zen Drive is a very cool, sweet, warm, OD with a pronounced mid kick. The voice knob changes the tone a good bit. I chose to record 2 samples here. The zen2 sample is not to be confused with the tube version of the zen
zen.mp3 Voice at 3:00, and tone at noon
zen2.mp3 Voice at 11:00, and tone at 2:00
Rat It's capable of low or very high gain tones Dist at 10:00, Filter at 1:00. This was my standard before the Sans Amp.
Tim Boost a very versatile, extremely transparent, sweet pedal. This has subtractive designed tone controls. Turning to the right extracts bass or treble. The larger Tim pedal has a second stage adjustable boost with a single tone knob. It also has a super cool effects loop. I use it so I can have delay come on only when the Tim is on. It also removes the delay pedal from the circuit when the Tim is off via true bypass.
I have the 1st stage set for light OD Gain noon, Bass 9:00, Treble
10:00.
The second stage kicks in a heavier OD Drive set to 9:00 Tone 10:00
OCD is a very transparent, amp like OD
capable of low compression tones as well as heavier saturated tones. It can be a touch bright
Drive 11:00 Tone 2:00 The HP-LP switch adds a boost as well as mids to my
ear anyway. I flip it in the sample
John Bull is a very dark, at times downright muddy OD. Definitely a 1 trick pony here. I had to work to get this tone
TS-9 You know it... You love/hate it
right? The Analogman mod had a very subtle improvement on the tone, but I can
not rave enough about what the Vaughn Tri-mode mod!
There are two 3 way switches. The first offers 2 low boosts to compensate for
the TS9's thinner tone. The 2nd switch is super cool. It offers a less compressed,
more natural tone as well as a clean boost. The 3rd option on each switch is
back to stock. After I heard the less compressed option, you could not pay me to
use the stock tone!
I used the slight low boost option and demo the stock/semi compressed and boost modes. The boost mode hits you hard so it actually clipped the recording. I would have had to change a setting to compensate. It does however sound amazing into a slightly overdriven amp.
Drive at 1:00 Tone 2:00
AC Booster is a very compressed OD that can also be transparent in terms of the tone itself. There is no heavy mid hump and has a very nice individual tone setup. Gain at 10:00 , Each tone 1:00
Keeley Blues Driver A nice improvement on the rather harsh original tone. The switch adds a fullness to the tone. It can get pretty buzzy at times. I feel it shines more as a boost to push an amp into OD.