Purpose of clean blend overdrive/distortion

joe2517

Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone on here is using a clean blend overdrive or distortion and if they could explain to me the purpose of doing this. I know bass players like to do it to add low end back into their distorted tone and help cut through the mix but is this still necessary as a guitar player? I primarily use transparent ODs (a Klone and Fairfield Barbershop) and occasionally some very high gain tones and thought I'd be able to blend my clean tone in with these with a Boss Line Selector, but would it be worth it? Apparently it's also quite difficult to set the blend right as it differs depending on the acoustics of the room...

Cheers

fretmeister

It's just a different sound.

The main problem with balance is that overdrive naturally compresses the signal. If the clean part is just a straight though then the attack and decay can sound completely different to the driven part. Often the clean attack is louder than the driven part, but then the clean decays faster too.

The Boss LS2 is great for adding compression to the clean part of the signal as a compressor pedal can be used on the clean side and not the driven side. Then just set the compressor so the note behaves the same way for each part.

thecolourbox

I'm sure there are more standard and useful purposes for clean blend with drive, but I used it with a Tubescreamer into a Bass big muff which has a clean through, the two together sounded terrific with both overdrive and fuzz at the same time.

But the Boss Line Selector would offer much more control as you'd have volume control over both streams of the sound, or like the poster above says you could add a compressor onto the clean sound to even things out a bit. Using the A+B mode on that, then switch between that and bypass, you'd have the best of both and a lot of possibility. 

ThePrettyDamned

I've got a pedal that splits the signal into treble and bass and overdrives them separately. This means I can have pretty thick, overdriven bass tones (so low strings or neck pickup) with very clear (but still slightly driven) treble. On the bridge pickup, this gives me very slight breakup on the high strings and more drive on lower. The neck pickup gives me very clear, huge sounding overdriven chords. You can do fairly complex chords with it without sounding nasty too. 

I'd imagine it's similar with a normal od. I've only tried a sparkle drive and with any cleans it sounded pants. 

octatonic

Nice idea but in practice it doesn't do it for me.
I've yet to find a pedal where it sounds good.

joe2517

Yeah the impression I've been getting is that though it can sound great it's very difficult to find an effective blend

Sassafras

I've got a Way Huge Pork Loin which apparently does this. Works quite well to give the notes a good sharp attack although I only blend in a little of the clean sound. Without it I find the OD sounds a bit too smooth.

ICBM

ThePrettyDamned said:

I've only tried a sparkle drive and with any cleans it sounded pants. 

That's the worst overdrive pedal I've ever tried. Just awful - it sounded like it was something like a blown speaker, the two sounds never mix properly... they just sit there separately and each makes the other sound wrong, especially if you play with any dynamics so the clean sound goes up and down in volume and the overdrive doesn't.

I've never heard it sound good any other time either - at least without using two completely separate amps for the clean and dirty sounds, which does work OK for some reason.

For some reason it does sound OK with bass, although I think I still prefer a straight overdrive/fuzz sound with enough EQ to beef the bottom end up again.

lukedlb

I've been using a lehle parallel to blend the drive from a vintage ehx hot tubes with its buffered direct output. It sounds very close to voodoo child sr, a fuzzed cranked tube distortion. I'm getting a blend knob inserted in the ehx so I can eliminate the lehle ( a very good pedal btw). 

hugbot

I've got a Route 66 which does it but I only really like it on single coils, where you get to keep some of the jangle of the guitar for rhythm playing rather than the OD flattening it all out. With humbuckers they sound flat regardless so it  isn't as noticeable or worthwhile.

richardhomer

I think the idea is to mimic an SRV-type multi-amp set up, with Fenders running clean to maximise attack - and Marshalls running into distortion - to get that characteristic simultaneous 'clean yet dirty' tone. 

I sgree with @ICBM about the Sparkle Drive - the issue for me was that the 'drive' side of it sounds so poor - there was never a chance that the blended sounds would work well.

ICBM

Actually, I was slightly wrong about it never sounding good except for when using two separate amps - when I tried the Yamaha THR100, it did. OK, that is also modelling two separate amps, but they're still going through the same speaker.

Sporky

I concur with the general sentiment; clean blend is good on bass but not good on guitar.

Ro_S

A Klon has a clean blend within its internal circuitry, so there must be something in it?

joe2517

Is that dual gain pot thing?

Ro_S

joe2517 said:

Is that dual gain pot thing?

In the Klon?   Yes, I believe so.   I understand that the way the dual gang drive pot is implemented means that the blend ratio of two of the parallel circuit signal paths is automatically adjusted as the level of gain is altered.  
In a klone such as the VFE Merman, though, the external controls allow one to adjust this manually.

p.s.  
Going back to your original post...

I feel a clean blend with a transparent overdrive would be of limited benefit.   I feel a clean blend is more useful when using higher gain dirt and/or with dirt of a certain EQ characteristic.
(Look at the Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive pedal - it's a TS clone with an external clean blend control.) 

I like the idea of parallel signal paths and being able to blend different dirt effects. 

ThePrettyDamned

Ro_S said:

joe2517 said:

Is that dual gain pot thing?

In the Klon?   Yes, I believe so.   I understand that the way the dual gang drive pot is implemented means that the blend ratio of two of the parallel circuit signal paths is automatically adjusted as the level of gain is altered.  
In a klone such as the VFE Merman, though, the external controls allow one to adjust this manually.

p.s.  
Going back to your original post...

I feel a clean blend with a transparent overdrive would be of limited benefit.   I feel a clean blend is more useful when using higher gain dirt and/or with dirt of a certain EQ characteristic.
(Look at the Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive pedal - it's a TS clone with an external clean blend control.) 

I like the idea of parallel signal paths and being able to blend different dirt effects. 

You need a boss ls-2.

The sparkle drive is utter wank!