Gain Stacking on a Blackstar LT-Drive - FFO Fugazi/Sonic Youth

Asomodai

Hello all. I am new to the art of Gain stacking. Essentially I play in a Post-punk-rock band with experimental elements, think Fugazi, Sonic youth etc. Axe of choice is a cheap as chips Telecaster. 

 I have a Blackstar LT-Drive pedal, which is a plexi copy, i like to have it at a fairly low-medium gain setting to mimic a broken up amp and I used my dynamics to go driven and somewhat clean. However sometimes I just want that extra boost to go into a more crazy overdrive or fuzz with feedback effects. 

What sort of thing should I be looking at? Clean boost in front of the LT-Drive? Fuzz before or after? Another overdrive? Maybe even a MXR Distortion +? (Guy Picciotto from Fugazi uses that to great effect)

As I used lots of different amps during the week I dont want to have to use the amp to help me out here. Assume I am running a clean amp all the time. 

Cheers in advance! 

Johnnyseven

I had a similar situation to you when I was playing alot with my band, we played similar type of music. A pedal I found that worked with a good percentage of studio amps was a Proco Turbo Rat, which is also used by Thurston Moore. It's has a very wide gain range and stacks very well with other pedals.

DarnWeight

Asomodai said:

Hello all. I am new to the art of Gain stacking. Essentially I play in a Post-punk-rock band with experimental elements, think Fugazi, Sonic youth etc. Axe of choice is a cheap as chips Telecaster. 

 I have a Blackstar LT-Drive pedal, which is a plexi copy, i like to have it at a fairly low-medium gain setting to mimic a broken up amp and I used my dynamics to go driven and somewhat clean. However sometimes I just want that extra boost to go into a more crazy overdrive or fuzz with feedback effects. 

What sort of thing should I be looking at? Clean boost in front of the LT-Drive? Fuzz before or after? Another overdrive? Maybe even a MXR Distortion +? (Guy Picciotto from Fugazi uses that to great effect)

Guy never used the MXR that much live, as I recall.  On record, a little, but Fugazi were a classic "guitars-n-cranked-amps" band.  Early Sonic Youth, strangely enough, were pretty similar, and only started using a lot of pedals after the first couple of albums.

I'm a big fan of the Way Huge Red Llama...it can do cleanish-to-dirty boost, right up to fuzzy drive, and stacks extremely well with pretty much every other dirtbox I've tried.  It's extremely sensitive to picking dynamics too, so you wouldn't lose that element of your sound.  It's based on the Anderson Tube Sound Fuzz circuit, and there are a couple of other variants that would probably work well in a similar role (the EHX Hot Tubes springs to mind).

Johnnyseven

I really like the Red Llama too, the only downside for me is the lack of tone control which is useful if you're using a different amp each time you play. I didn't find the Hot Tubes to be much like it though.

ecc83

"I have a Blackstar LT-Drive pedal, which is a plexi copy, " ?? Not a copy of anything I am aware of except an attempt* to duplicate the sound of the HT version in a lower cost, 9 volt powered pedal.

I am not sure what you mean by "gain stacking" exactly, cascading one pedal into another? If so I would think something would run out of headroom PDQ and you might like to try the actual HT-Drive? The HT pedals have massive headroom due to their 30volt (and 300!) supply rails...But I appreciate that not everyone likes the size, price or dependence on a line lump.

*This will of course be in the lap of the player's judgement. Not seen much feedback?

Dave.

ennspek

Those LTD drives are under rated in my humble opinion. The RAT is a good shout.