Favorite overdrive pedal

I don't have a specific favourite overdrive because it's not really an effect I use very often on it's own, I'd rather use a compressor on a clean signal or go all out with some fuzz (that I might use an overdrive to boost). Back when my songwriting was a little bluesier and all I was listening to was The Division Bell, it cropped up here and there, but I've never asked for much out of low gain pedals as it's rare they're the core of the sound. I've owned a Soul Food, TS808, BD-2 and a Boss SD-1, and they've all been great for my applications for them.

That being said, here's my two favourite gain sounds I've ever gotten:

Squier strat > EHX Soul Food > Thorpy Muffroom Cloud > Delay > Blues Junior

Jackson superstrat > Red Witch Famulus (set fairly low gain) > Boss SD-1 (cranked) > Walrus Audio Fathom > Peavey Bandit

Over the weekend I'm going to try: Fender Modern player Tele > JHS Muffuletta (Ram's Head) > BD-2 > Dawner Prince Boonar > Hot Rod Deluxe. Can share clips of the above two if anyone's interested, but I won't be held responsible for the low quality of the recordings ;)

EHX soulfood you mean? Do you ever just run the 45 wide open with nothing in line, as god intended?

Boss BD-2. Got some great, wet, thick tones for driven pop-punk (my preferred genre). Also does blues OD (duh) and almost fuzzy all-out ear assault. Another pedal I'm absolutely in love with is a weird one-- the Danelectro Cash Cow OD. I tried it in a Guitar Center and really enjoyed the light, loud, smooth drive it gave. Put a touch of reverb and you're playing SRV for the rest of the night.

Well, I really like the Tube Screamer from Ibanez. The main point is that it gives some distortion, but in a sutile way, without making the sound too dirty. Another point is that it gives a nice vintage, garage atmosphere. Finally, it´s a pedal that works well with others, and works well with the amplifier, making it a good choice to either play with it alone, or with another pedal.

I'm really getting back into using a fuzzface as an overdrive with the volume dialed back on my guitar most of the time to get those jangley and crunchy tones. You get a real early clapton sort of thing going with a british amp, and SG and a fuzzface. Its a bit noisy, but it has a sound.

SD1 and a amrshallstack... the SD1 is 95% the same pedal, slightly different tone shaping circuitry and assymetrical clipping diodes, but soemthign about it plays even ebtter then a TS9 with brit amps

get an mxr custom abdass OD, its an SD1 with a bass control and 2 midrange bump voicings.... its got better parts then a current production one, more like the 80s one I have, altough I'm not sure you can hea rmuch ofa difference between a new one and an old one when the bnd is cooking. This little gold mxr version is a real winner in the tubescreamer family.... actually the grandaddy of them all is a boss, the OD1. Its the epdal that ivnented the TS style sot clipping with diodes in the feedback loop. Ibanez copied the later OD1s and just switched up a few component values, took out a germanium diode to make clipping symmetrical and added a basic high cut control and called it tone and thatw as the TS808. Just a modified OD1. The SD1 is also a modified OD1, kidna boss's take on Ibanez's mods with flatter mids and assymetrical clipping... the whole TS thing si really a Boss thing but Ibanez doesn't like to admit that Maxon knocked the circuit off of Boss back when they were doing Ibanez's pedal designs. But that's what went down.

For real though, the secret superlead setup of the 70s and 80s is an OD1 or SD1 (or for a more metal tone try an old DS1... ebst of both worlds? Boss's overdrive/distortion withthe blend knob ;-) with a little gain and a cranked output hitting a non-master marshall. that's like the LA strip sound... up until guys like Jose started hot rodding those amps that was thing to do. I think pretty much only van halen did thigns differently but you oculd discuss the brown sound all day and enver figure out what that guy did...

the supro reissues have bad reliability. I've literally seen brand new ones on big box store sales floors thata re out of order and its not the tubes. They're all ehavily bastardized too. I've had some supros and supro amde amps, the enw sones aren't really right. They did thigns to squeeze more gaina dn the thing with a supro is its low output but you play ti at 10 or not at all. That's the whyole deal. No one plays a supro at 3, its lame there, get a fender! The upro thing is like a grittier, midrangier tweed deluxe that sounds wimpy unless its turned all the way up. And the alter designs like the statesman and stuff are really not so hot. Once they were adding reverb and goosing extra wattage the tone kinda suffered, although they have a weird budget-amp charm when you dime out the reverb I guess.

I'm of the oppinion that anything with 'blues' in the product name is lame. That's like so-called emtal pedals.... come one guys. People like those fender blues amps though, so what do I know. Try a bassbreaker if you want a modern, affordable fender with a tweed cathode follower tonestack. They sound rpetty good.

whatever someone's doing, odds are mxr or boss were there first in a small format pedal...

I can't figure out portable... I don't tote tape delays around anymore and I'm not slavishly devoted to a wll of amps. Its hard to find soemthing that'll clean up that isn't heavy. Ad I like to be loud, its fun.... as a former soundman I know you cna worka round a loud amp... new guys are just lazy as fuck. I had a tweed deluxe phase (the old 15 watt supros were during that period too) but man, light as those amps are, if you wanna ehar yourself over a drummer in a small club you ain't getting a clean sound you cna hear unless you take 2 of them... and then I might as well drag an ac30. I guess tis easier to halve the weight between 2 amps, but meh... I also used to use princetons in the 90s, but its just not my bag anymore. I don't do the blackface thing these days. Got rid of ym last one like 5 years ago. I don't really wnt an amp with a lot of controls. A plexi would be too many if you idn't just turn msot of them to 10 for optimal tone LOL

as for hotrods, the taper of the volume (gain?) pot sucks... you can trade it out for a different taper and that can help but not every version is easy to work on... another thing to consider is the preamp is very much a tweed preamp with one channel. If you throw a 12AY7 in there it'll lower the gaina dn change the whole swing of that knob, how it hits the next stage... you'e also a bit closer to how leo designed that style preamp rather thandoing the higher gain amrshall thing with it... the 12ay7 trick is really unobtrusive. You can try a 12AT7 too but they have a different impedence relationship with the following stage so it'll drastically alter the response of the amp as well as lowering the gain... can eb cool though. A 12AU7 is probably too clean and linear though.

I've tried quite a few ODs and I must say I'm in love with the Westwood by EQD. I know I sound like an EQD fanboy who's sold on the latest OD pedal they released, but it's seriously good man. The drive goes from clean boost to moderate distortion, and the best thing about it is the EQ section. It's active so you can boost and cut bass and treble. That means you can get many, many, many sounds including : - Gain at 9 o'clock, Treble slightly boosted -> Your guitar, but better. - Gain at noon, full Treble and a slight Bass boost -> Thee Oh Sees-style twangy zingyness. Roll the treble back for King Gizzard territory. - Full gain, bass boost -> Green Machine !!