The best OD pedal in the world is still the.......

Winny_Pooh

Blackstone mosfet

TheMarlin

Mad Professor Sweet Honey.  The one Golden Cello shouldn't be my thing at all, all thick and fuzzy, a gloopy distortion with built in delay....but I absolutely love it.  It's my current favourite dirt box.   Joyous fun. 

frictionfraction

Bat Cat Siamese Drive - Never seems to be that much love elsewhere for it and they go cheap second hand but live it is a stunner 

Flanging_Fred

I've got a Tim on my gigging board and it's ace.

However this " one ring to rule them all" idea is bollocks IMO.  At low volume I find the Tim pretty bland and prefer other pedals. I've got few of the pedals mentioned above and they're all good at different jobs when matched with sympathetic equipment. They can all sound shit when used improperly too.

</. gets down off of soap box >

professorben

guitarfishbay said:

Boss SD1

This. 

If I had the option I'd say the SD-1w just for the custom option. 

ZenOvertone

The Mad Professor Bluebird, great OD plus short delay in one box and one stomp.  They should add the delay to the Simble/Twimble though

kjdowd

Boss bd-2w

timmysoft

I'm a big fan of the SD-1w and the humble Rat2, i only really use overdrives as volume up, gain down style, saturation booster. If i was relying on an overdrive for all my gain, it would be either the OCD or again the Rat2.

boogieman

siraxeman said:

;-) Well in my world at least anyway - the Dano Transparent Overdrive MK1 version. Just bought a Pure Sky as I heard good things about it on here and elsewhere, and well it arrived today and it is indeed good, I was hoping this would replace my TOD which has the awkward knob positioning....but after A/B'ing 'em together its not gonna be taking the Dano's place on my board, i'll let it stay on with the Dano but no way is it taking its place....the Dano is just all round betterer, more gooder - lil bit more gain and a smoother around the edges type of sound. Just a more refined version if you will. The Pure Sky is definitely a great pedal for the money but the Dano beats it. 

This makes me wonder if the Timmy is as good as the Dano? Never tried one n all that but I does wonder - sounds pretty identical on the comparison demos on youtube though.

I bought a Pure Sky in the classifieds here a few weeks back. Had a chance to play around with it properly this morning and I'm very impressed. It's a lovely transparent drive on its own but it works really well stacked with other drive pedals. I tried it last in the chain as a boost and it's excellent and definitely staying on my board. I paid just over £20 for it, Billy Bargain!! 

Marktigere1

Yep, SD1 all day long for me.

siraxeman

boogieman said:

siraxeman said:

;-) Well in my world at least anyway - the Dano Transparent Overdrive MK1 version. Just bought a Pure Sky as I heard good things about it on here and elsewhere, and well it arrived today and it is indeed good, I was hoping this would replace my TOD which has the awkward knob positioning....but after A/B'ing 'em together its not gonna be taking the Dano's place on my board, i'll let it stay on with the Dano but no way is it taking its place....the Dano is just all round betterer, more gooder - lil bit more gain and a smoother around the edges type of sound. Just a more refined version if you will. The Pure Sky is definitely a great pedal for the money but the Dano beats it. 

This makes me wonder if the Timmy is as good as the Dano? Never tried one n all that but I does wonder - sounds pretty identical on the comparison demos on youtube though.

I bought a Pure Sky in the classifieds here a few weeks back. Had a chance to play around with it properly this morning and I'm very impressed. It's a lovely transparent drive on its own but it works really well stacked with other drive pedals. I tried it last in the chain as a boost and it's excellent and definitely staying on my board. I paid just over £20 for it, Billy Bargain!!

Yeah well last night I got to try it up loud and its a great pedal - at low house volumes its less flattering than the Dano, up loud I'd still say I prefer the Dano but its a closer race in a band setting. Funny thing is I was also comparing my old fave OD-3 with my new SD-1 as well last night and found myself preferring the SD-1....had a few of these in the past so as again I'm on a merry go round going round in circles.........

lasermonkey

For low and medium gain, I still think the Subdecay Liquid Sunshine Mk II is the most amp-like drive I've heard.

Dave_Mc

ThorpyFX said:

My issue with the DANO one is that it is a total clone of paul cochranes original design. Yes it sounds the same, but this is a case of a small manufacturer being ripped off by a big company. It did him a lot of harm financially, and tbh he's a nice guy who didn't deserve it.

Agreed, however...

Having not tried it first, there's no way I'd have bought the Timmy if I hadn't tried the Dano first- and as @ThePrettyDamned said, when the Dano was first released there was a pretty long waiting list too IIRC. Indeed, when I first got the Dano I didn't really use it much, because at that point in time I didn't really use OD pedals as boosts. It took me a good while to actually realise that it was awesome.

So anyway, my point being, being cloned may well have resulted in more sales (it did in my case) and more visibility for the real thing- or at least maybe not as big of a reduction as you'd at first think.

stratman3142

In the past I've owned (amongst others) an MXR distortion+, Boss OD1, Boss SD1, RAT and Full tone OCD.

I currently have a Boss OS2, Angry Charlie, Maxon SD9 (which Scott Henderson holds in high regard) and a Maxon OD9.

My favourite is the Maxon OD9.

I've just (today) gone through all the OD pedals in my new Helix LT. The Timmy emulation was my favourite in the Helix.

I still prefer the Maxon OD9. There's something about it that suits my playing.  But maybe I should try a real Timmy.

boogieman

siraxeman said:

boogieman said:

siraxeman said:

;-) Well in my world at least anyway - the Dano Transparent Overdrive MK1 version. Just bought a Pure Sky as I heard good things about it on here and elsewhere, and well it arrived today and it is indeed good, I was hoping this would replace my TOD which has the awkward knob positioning....but after A/B'ing 'em together its not gonna be taking the Dano's place on my board, i'll let it stay on with the Dano but no way is it taking its place....the Dano is just all round betterer, more gooder - lil bit more gain and a smoother around the edges type of sound. Just a more refined version if you will. The Pure Sky is definitely a great pedal for the money but the Dano beats it. 

This makes me wonder if the Timmy is as good as the Dano? Never tried one n all that but I does wonder - sounds pretty identical on the comparison demos on youtube though.

I bought a Pure Sky in the classifieds here a few weeks back. Had a chance to play around with it properly this morning and I'm very impressed. It's a lovely transparent drive on its own but it works really well stacked with other drive pedals. I tried it last in the chain as a boost and it's excellent and definitely staying on my board. I paid just over £20 for it, Billy Bargain!!

Yeah well last night I got to try it up loud and its a great pedal - at low house volumes its less flattering than the Dano, up loud I'd still say I prefer the Dano but its a closer race in a band setting. Funny thing is I was also comparing my old fave OD-3 with my new SD-1 as well last night and found myself preferring the SD-1....had a few of these in the past so as again I'm on a merry go round going round in circles.........

That's why I've started hanging on to drive pedals now rather than selling them on. So many times I've bought new  pedals only to go back and buy ones I've had before. I think I'm sorted now though: Juansolo Tight Metal/Tight Rock clone, Fulldrive, DLS 3 and the Pure Sky. I can get pretty much every tone I want out of those. 

57Deluxe

@siraxeman - is funny, that although I have had my Dano Mk1 Trans for over 6 years and often praised it, inevitably other pedals come along and get a preference for no other reason than they are new etc. BUT just the other day I posted I had picked up a Fender Frontman amp for a tenner and knew the onboard Distortion would be utter pants, so I set about auditioning all my drive pedals with it and the one that came shining through was the Dano Trans Drive. Its sibling the Dano Drive came a close second.

I could have any drive I liked if I wanted to invest heavily, but I really like the tones I get with a handful of inexpensive but otherwise top drawer tone and performance pedals, and to me that is more satisfying than a board full of Strymon...

How to make your Frontman sound like a Deuxle Reverb:

http://i66.tinypic.com/noj995.jpg

ESBlonde

I couple of years ago I was doing a theatre pit band stint and was restricted to a single O/D unit when the PSU cut out. Since the Blackstar HTdrive has it's own dedicated 18v supply that carried on. with some judicious knob twiddling I got some lovely flavours of drive for all the differnt material equirements and spent the rest of the week using just that even though I fixed the PSU the next morning.
It was a surprising revelation at how good this single pedal was. I do use 3 drives normally but The HTdrive is quite the versatile tool.

professorben

ESBlonde said:

I couple of years ago I was doing a theatre pit band stint and was restricted to a single O/D unit when the PSU cut out. Since the Blackstar HTdrive has it's own dedicated 18v supply that carried on. with some judicious knob twiddling I got some lovely flavours of drive for all the differnt material equirements and spent the rest of the week using just that even though I fixed the PSU the next morning.
It was a surprising revelation at how good this single pedal was. I do use 3 drives normally but The HTdrive is quite the versatile tool.

Agreeded, the Dual is even better as you can set up two different levels etc. 

TheMarlin

I just got a Caline Pure Sky.  Cheap as chips, sounds excellent.  I know it’ll fall apart, but it sounds exactly like the Timmy I had some time back. 

I use it more as a slightly dirty clean boost, but love what it does to my clean tone.  Stacks well too!

noisepolluter

lasermonkey said:

For low and medium gain, I still think the Subdecay Liquid Sunshine Mk II is the most amp-like drive I've heard.

On the board now I just have a Liquid Sunshine MKIII running at 18v, with a boost in front for solos. First time I've not missed a second drive pedal.