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talabereldon

distortion pedal of choice?

Hello, all. As you know, it's difficult to get the distortion happening in a MM without cranking it up, so I'm curious about what distortion pedal(s) you have found work well with your MM amp? Thanks much!

mm210
mm210's picture

Well, that's kind of like

Well, that's kind of like asking which tubes we like! there are a LOT of flavors of OD's that work good with MM's but my current ones are either home built or modded ones. The Boss Blues drivers when modded are great pedals. If you're looking for a platform to mod from, the boss stuff is great . I've modded some of the orange ones too that sound really pretty good and they are CHEAP to buy initially. Can't remember the number????? Anyway, one of those orange ones that I modded was great sounding and SCARY loud! The output volume needed to be tamed down a bit but then I stopped using it so it sat. If you're into building stuff, there's a site that has a LOT of info for building stuff with veroboard. I'm partial to the Rocket ANIMAL also. Built one of those that STAYS on my pedalboard. Funny thing is that I accidentally left a small cap out ( Iwas out of them at the moment) and I LIKE it like that. I built a second one a little prettier and put it ALL in and I don't like it as well. Anyway, pedals react differently with different amps and speaker choices. What sound good to me may SUCK to you. Not blowing your skirt up or anything but sound to me may NOT be what you like. Just sayin....... Mike.

talabereldon

Thank you for your input,

Thank you for your input, Mike. I know my question is bound to bring widely varying responses, but that's good.
I've thought about just finding an inexpensive, modded, Boss pedal on eBay and seeing how I like it. I'm also thinking in the other direction, toward something a bit more like an amp emulator, maybe a Tech21 Sansamp or a Tonebone which has a tube in it.
I just love the MM's clean sound, but the distortion is not my bag. I realize that's a sentiment shared by plenty of other MM owners. Thanks again!

davey
davey's picture

I've used many but I seem to

I've used many but I seem to always go back to the Korg ToneWorks G1. It's an old box (like me) I found mine on ebay years ago. As stated above it's all what works for you. This seems to work for me most of the time.

I'll try to post a pic of it on my pedal board. And if you want to hear the way I used it here's a link to our web page.

(Shameless self promotion.)

https://soundcloud.com/partly-banded

Good Luck, Davey.

talabereldon

Thank you very much for your

Thank you very much for your recommendation, Davey! I'll have a look at the Korg G1.

davey
davey's picture

no luck..

Sorry, I didn't have any luck uploading the picture..

mm210
mm210's picture

A LOT of times, I find that

A LOT of times, I find that the size of the picture being too big is not the only problem. I find that the pixel rate is too high many times. I regularly have to change the number of pixels per inch from something like 3 or 4 hundred to around 40 per inch. That usually gets me there. Send me your pic if you want and I'll post it or change the pixel rate and size and send it back to you. jbltwin1 AT yahoo DOT com. Mike.

mm210
mm210's picture

Davey's pedalboard

Here you go

Images: 
talabereldon

It's not exactly a compact

It's not exactly a compact unit, but thats not a big deal! I actually play my MM at home. It's my only amp except for a partially functioning Marshall combo. Obviously, I can't turn it up past 3, but that's fine. It still chimes at 3! Thing is, I need some dirt. I'm looking closely at a Tonebone pedal with a preamp tube in it that gets great reviews...and is only $80 used!

mm210
mm210's picture

HHHMMMM? that reminds me

HHHMMMM? that reminds me davey- I have a couple of those boss compressors around here somewhere! Might have to look through the junk boxes! Mike.

davey
davey's picture

Mike, thanks bunches for

Mike, thanks bunches for helping me out with posting the pic. And yeah, I like having a compressor handy. Sometimes when I'm having brain cramps a compressor will help get me going.

talabereldon, well to be honest the G1 is a signal processor. It has different distortions plus a echo effect. They're tweakable and I mostly just use three settings that I saved.

lmv

Interesting discussion

Hi talabereldon, thank you for posting the question.
I find it interesting to see what people think here on this forum, especially because the MM amps have such a special way of dealing with pedals in general and distortion/OD/compressor pedals in particular.

Different styles of guitar amps have different front ends. To me an 80s Marshall is soft as a sponge cake, an old Fender is medium soft like a Styrofoam cup, a newer Fender is somewhere in between Styrofoam and a fresh jelly donut depending on the setting and Music Man 'classic' 2 channel (or clean channel on the Distortion models) is more like porcelain.
MM amps can be pretty unforgiving both when it comes to your playing (keeps you on your toes) and when it comes to pedals (the slightest noise or stray unintentional clipping will be heard).
I had a Tech 21 distortion pedal for a while and gave it up because it was almost too much 'in your face' in combination with the MM front end.

Funny thing - I've been asked several times what kind of compressor I use, and I've never owned one in my life. I've been using MM for so many years that I've had to learn to control my attack, which makes it feel 'too easy' to play through a setup with a modern POD style sound.

Anyway, I have two sounds that seem to cover most of my needs: Guitar into MM amp and Guitar into OD into MM amp, sprinkle with 'wobble' of some sort on a few tunes (MM tremolo being one form of it).

Cheers
Lars

BK Butler (Chandler) Tube Driver
BK Butler Real Tube
Boss PH-1r Phaser
(Oh, and I leave the MM reverb on all day every day)

talabereldon

Hey Lars, your amp

Hey Lars, your amp descriptions are quite accurate and really funny, as well! Thank you for your input.

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