Does the world need another overdrive/distortion pedal?

ThorpyFX

ICBM said:

TheCount said:

Fuller    arse

There you go.

To be fair to Mr fuller, he does make great pedals.

ICBM

Sort of. I've owned several and while they were very good, they were also a bit characterless too.

He also has a very bad habit of making replacing the switch extremely difficult by putting resin over the solder points and using the minimum wire length, so you have no choice but to replace everything back to the PCB. Pure bad practice.

I owned four of them with a total of eight switches - three broke. I'll never own another.

TheCount

Dave_Mc said:

TheCount said:

OCD clone I think. There was a big blow-up about it on TGP... I think fuller contacted him and I don't think it's an OCD any more... )

Don't see why Fuller got the arse over it, the OCD is a Voodoo Labs Overdriver, Pot kettle 

I never said he was justified! )

Naah, didn't mean it like that:;) Just don't see why someone that makes a living ripping off old circuits gets all stroppy when someone else does the same???? Strange bloke.

Thing is, a lot of guitarist say 'why is the same old shit rehashed all the time, why can't someone invent a pedal that does something different?' Unfortunately, most guitarist are rehashing the same old shit and not inventing anything different musically, so why spend kkk's on R&D when most people will turn round and say it's crap cos they don't sound like Jimmy Page.

Just my less than humble opinion;)

austint01

UnclePsychosis said:

JohnPerry;383628" said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Genuinely dont understand how people get so excited over dirt boxes. Distortion is distortion, really.







...and i guess reverb is reverb and a guitar is a guitar.

In terms of basic sounds, pretty much.

Just listened to this today. I was surprised how different they all sounded actually.

joeyowen

I'm always gassing after the next best gain, be it light od, or heavy miob type pedal

Just think they are fun variations.  Does the same question apply for delays etc... they never reallllly bring anything new (granted there are some exceptions) 

austint01

I was thinking about it again today and decided that if someone created a brilliant one stop shop overdrive/distortion tool that it would just take all the fun out of it. Thrill of the chase and all that.

hugbot

Didn't they do research a while back which suggested that those

sommelier-types were full of it? Even, IIRC, being unable to tell white

from red (or possibly vice-versa) in a blind test?

If we're thinking of the same study the issue isnt so much that sommeliers are totally bullshitting, good sommeliers can tell you what a wine is and where it came from because they know about production and know that a certain flavour can only be achieved in certain ways and so on. The issue is though that its easy to prime people into experiencing different things when they believe what they're tasting is expensive vs cheap, which has obvious implications in the world of boutique pedals.

ThePrettyDamned

hugbot;384656" said:

Didn't they do research a while back which suggested that those



sommelier-types were full of it? Even, IIRC, being unable to tell white



from red (or possibly vice-versa) in a blind test?







If we're thinking of the same study the issue isnt so much that sommeliers are totally bullshitting, good sommeliers can tell you what a wine is and where it came from because they know about production and know that a certain flavour can only be achieved in certain ways and so on.



The issue is though that its easy to prime people into experiencing different things when they believe what they're tasting is expensive vs cheap, which has obvious implications in the world of boutique pedals.

We held a wine tasting thing at university, complete with a panel of experts. It was double blind.

They could tell a good wine from a bad one - but anyone can. Bad wine tastes bad! Good wine is very easy to drink, same goes for beers/lager. The amateur tasters (students) could also tell the good from the bad, and in general both panels agreed on what was good in the results.

However, they failed to correctly identify most of them and were unable to assign prices. Did it matter?

Not really. They'd still taste them, pick their favourites and drink them. Yummy. The pros were able to describe precisely why they liked it, though - rather than just saying it was delicious, they could describe properties.

I find the same is true in pedals. It's much, much more useful to ignore the price and use your ears. If your favourite happens to be expensive, then save up, but if you have a 3 grand amp, custom shop strat and you just *love* the sound of a nobels od, then it's probably better than that providence the shop assistant keeps telling you is the best.

Prime example - BBE Ben wah. Had average reviews, "good for the money" etc. Slap a new name and price tag on it, and it becomes the best wah ever. Swap out the pot if you fancy a slightly different sound, but some people preferred it stock.

A circuit is a circuit, and it's irrelevant who made it or how much it costs - all that matters is how it sounds, and if the buyer likes the way it sounds compared to others.

Dave_Mc

TheCount said:

Naah, didn't mean it like that:;) Just don't see why someone that makes a living ripping off old circuits gets all stroppy when someone else does the same???? Strange bloke.

Thing is, a lot of guitarist say 'why is the same old shit rehashed all the time, why can't someone invent a pedal that does something different?' Unfortunately, most guitarist are rehashing the same old shit and not inventing anything different musically, so why spend kkk's on R&D when most people will turn round and say it's crap cos they don't sound like Jimmy Page.

Just my less than humble opinion;)

Yeah I agree, I was just clarifying that I was just reporting what had happened (at least to the best of my recollection), rather than giving an opinion on it.

And yeah that's true regarding old tones, but at the same time I don't think it justifies being economical with the truth (in my opinion, anyway) when you describe what your "new" circuit actually is in its marketing material.

hugbot said:

If we're thinking of the same study the issue isnt so much that sommeliers are totally bullshitting, good sommeliers can tell you what a wine is and where it came from because they know about production and know that a certain flavour can only be achieved in certain ways and so on. The issue is though that its easy to prime people into experiencing different things when they believe what they're tasting is expensive vs cheap, which has obvious implications in the world of boutique pedals.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think so, yeah. That's a very good point- just because you can fool someone doesn't necessarily mean there's no difference either, since people are very easily fooled. That always annoys me when some troll posts clips, where it's clear that he/she is trying to fool people, and then when everyone correctly (for the troll) identifies the cheap kit as sounding best, the troll pronounces that that means that there's no difference between any kit at all.

I think they did research on this for medicine too (I think Ben Goldacre quoted it for one of his awesome Bad Science columns a while back), where they gave people either painkillers or something which would exacerbate the pain. Except they told them the opposite of what they were giving them. Needless to say, the patients thought the pain-increasing medication helped, while the genuine painkillers made it worse. ) And that's stuff which very definitely has a physiological effect (i.e. had been tested extensively double-blind before that study).

So yeah, I'd be the ffirst to agree that just because you can fool people doesn't necessarily mean there's no difference, either. It just means we're pretty easy to fool.

jpfamps

TheCount said:

Thing is, a lot of guitarist say 'why is the same old shit rehashed all the time, why can't someone invent a pedal that does something different?' 

For two reasons.

Many pedal builders don't understand a lot about electronics, so aren't capable of designing anything other than a tweaked existing design.

Secondly, it's easier to sell some where there is an already established market, eg TS-808 clones.

TheCount

Secondly, it's easier to sell some where there is an already established market, eg TS-808 clones.

Exactly, because these are the tones people have heard on records all their lives. Take your TS808 example, people know if they want to sound like SRV they need that pedal and a fender amp. If you want to sound like Hendrix, you need a marshall and a fuzz face. The list goes on and on. 

I don't think there is much of a market for anything new, especially with OD pedals, but the internet has created a culture of hype and microanalysis. 25 years ago you had Boss and a few others, you went in to the shop, tried out a few pedals and went home with the one that sounded best. There was no hype, nor forums and you probably didn't know what your favourite guitarist used anyway, other than their amps and guitars.

These days people obsess over gear so much it's crazy but that's what is fuelling the market, not knowing if you have the absolute best pedal for you, and the constant search that follows.

I just buy them because the're shiny

stickyfiddle

JohnPerry said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Genuinely dont understand how people get so excited over dirt boxes. Distortion is distortion, really.

...and i guess reverb is reverb and a guitar is a guitar.

I remember having this conversation with @Sporky at a Gearfest 18 months ago, particularly with reference to his JM-esque variax rehouse . The phrase "It sounds like a guitar" was used a lot. It was true then and it's true now. Equally, I remember standing next to @Timmyo and @Dilbert testing about 12 different drives in a row, and agreeing that while they all felt a little bit different and sounded a bit different at extremes of pot travel, when you set everything to 12 o'clock they're all bloody similar.

There's nothing wrong with wanting the extra 2% of "guitar" but ultimately noone cares.

Of course I'm saying that as someone who's just sold one amp to get another imported over a distance of ~4000 miles to give himself *less* tonal options. And I'm thoroughly looking forward to finding out which of my pedals works with the new amp and which don't so well. It's fun

(Thankfully I enjoy building them too, and that's way cheaper than buying new..!)

JohnPerry

stickyfiddle said:

JohnPerry said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Genuinely dont understand how people get so excited over dirt boxes. Distortion is distortion, really.

...and i guess reverb is reverb and a guitar is a guitar.

There's nothing wrong with wanting the extra 2% of "guitar" but ultimately noone cares.

I care

EricTheWeary

ICBM said:

There are enough dirt pedals.

At least which sound like 99% of the ones we already have.

There probably aren't enough that sound like a desk being overdriven or a 70s solid-state amp seconds before it blows up though...

FWIW @ICBM the new Bogner ones are designed to sound like a desk being over driven as I've understood it; designed with Rupert Neve.

mike_l

The worls might not need another, but Mike certainly does.....

ICBM

EricTheWeary said:

FWIW @ICBM the new Bogner ones are designed to sound like a desk being over driven as I've understood it; designed with Rupert Neve.

Interesting! Just had a look at those. I'm not sure they're actually supposed to *sound* like an overdriven desk though.

The sound I'm thinking of is the guitar on the Beatles 'Revolution'. You just don't hear that sort of tone nowadays.

Another really great one is the sound James Gurley got with Big Brother And The Holding Company (eg on Ball And Chain). I don't know what it is, but you don't hear sounds like that now… even the supposedly "raw" fuzz tones today are tame compared to that sort of thing.

Cirrus

ICBM said:

The sound I'm thinking of is the guitar on the Beatles 'Revolution'. You just don't hear that sort of tone nowadays.

That's because guitar distortion has become an institution instead of anarchy! Back then they were pushing things beyond their design parameters and it was new and crazy. These days we've got decades of music conditioning our ears to believe there's "good" and "bad" sounding distortion.

I think the new U2 single has a pretty raw guitar tone. Unfortunately it's also not a good song, so I wouldn't recommend anyone go out of their way to listen to it.

EricTheWeary

ICBM;385725" said:

EricTheWeary said: FWIW @ICBM the new Bogner ones are designed to sound like a desk being over driven as I've understood it; designed with Rupert Neve.





Interesting! Just had a look at those. I'm not sure they're actually supposed to *sound* like an overdriven desk though.

Ooh weird formatting thing going on. Anyway, I haven't heard them , just found the ad in GP which says inspired by the classic mixing consoles of the 1960's. Not much indication of what the difference is between all 3 pedals other than slightly different controls. Oh and they have buttery tones ( sic).

ICBM

EricTheWeary said:

Anyway, I haven't heard them , just found the ad in GP which says inspired by the classic mixing consoles of the 1960's. Not much indication of what the difference is between all 3 pedals other than slightly different controls. Oh and they have buttery tones ( sic).

I think he means they're inspired by the *look* of old mixing consoles .

"Buttery" (barf...!) is the last thing an overdriven desk sounds like.

It's actually quite hard to get that sort of tone through a guitar amp, to be honest - the speakers naturally limit the grating top-end, you need more of a full-range amp.

thisisguitar

ChrisMusic said:

JohnPerry said:

We should discuss one of those, south midlands/cotswolds. I know couple of others might be willing

Make that a couple plus one more...   Great idea.

@JohnPerry @thisisguitar

@ChrisMusic - We'll have to start running a list :-)