How many types of drive do you need?

Cols

soma1975 said:

Fuzz Face
Treble Booster
Light OD
Distortion

Nailed it in one.

Teetonetal

Thanks to amp having a good dirt channel and a footswitchable "hotrod" switch I don't need any drive pedals at all

stratman3142

Into a clean amp, whether it's separate pedals or a MultiFX unit, I like to have two drives. One for a light crunch OD and the other for more full-on distortion.

 I also like to have two levels of clean boost (post OD/distortion), with one at ~3dB for a slight lift (if needed) and one at ~6dB (e.g. for solos). Sometimes I add boost and back off the guitar volume pot to get different flavours of sound from the OD and distortion pedals.

ICBM

Four at most.

Fuzz
Overdrive
Distortion
Amp

Cirrus

Dirt pedals tend to have narrower windows of applicability, I think. Amp distortion is a bit more reactive to playing style, so you can get it to work in more circumstances, but with pedals, what sounds great for one song/ part/ riff/ guitar can sound bad with something else.

That's a huge generalisation, obviously, but it's what I found. Also doesn't mean that drive pedals are less good - I love them. But when I was getting drive mostly through pedals, at times I had a TS type, a more transparent low-gain, a mid gain, a high gain, a fuzz, a clean boost and I didn't think any of them were superfluous - even if I only used a pedal for one song in ten, it was there because I needed it for that one song.

Sassafras

Freebird said:

Sassafras said: mm

OD-2 .for a little bit of gain.
Pork Loin for a bit more.
Fat Sandwich for even more.

I feel hungry.

So you should, it's a tasty combo.

Th4fonz

The Duellist covers my needs for home use.  And I dont find myself searching for something better since I got it.

Grocer_Jack

Usually for gigs -  Bad Monkey with drive rolled all the way off for always on rhythm tone. Then Barber Gain Changer on low gain setting with gain half way for a extra boost for big chords, solos, loud bits etc.  Also on the board is a Les Lius which I use on 3 or 4 songs instead of the BM/GC combo. I could get away without the LL but it gives a nice contrast and a bit extra jangle for tunes that need it. 

For studio as above, but also use Fulldrive or Barber Direct Drive to get solos to really sing and also sometimes use a Black 65 as a different base tone. It's good to get a bit of contrast on a recording and I find that slight changes in tone create interest. Not sure anyone really notices though! 

meltedbuzzbox

Wazmeister said:

- A Blues Breaker
- A Tubescreamer 
(Both Duellist)

- A Klon (RYRA)

That's a very beige list of beiginess 

Keefy

I currently run 3 on my big board, in this order:

- Danelectro Transparent Overdrive v1 - cheeky Timmy Clone
- Boo Instruments O/D-TS - blatant TS808 clone
- Xotic Effects SL Drive - in Marshall Super Bass mode

I could live with 2, in fact the Dano only recently replaced a wah pedal that I almost never used.

fretfinder

About this many? 

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/151429/od-pedal-shootout-sunday#latest

ESBlonde

The danger with stacking drive pedals live is in the varied volume levels the different combinations can give. Having three distinct pedal sounds gets me what I need without bending and twiddling mid set. My choices won't be yours so try what you can get your hands on.

monquixote

ESBlonde said:

The danger with stacking drive pedals live is in the varied volume levels the different combinations can give. Having three distinct pedal sounds gets me what I need without bending and twiddling mid set. My choices won't be yours so try what you can get your hands on.

It's ok if you are careful. You need to make sure that you don't have things like a clean booster slamming a MIAB into a clean high headroom amp. Turn off the pedals in the wrong order and you get a new insanely loud clean sound.