Purist looking for the right pedal. First Time.

Hi everybody. These days I play through a Vibrolux reverb just plain. To modulate my sound I use my pick attack and the Vol knob.
Occasionally I whish to drive that SF a little more w/o having to shoot off ears.
I'm addicted to my guitars' and amp's true tone, so finding a box that keeps my gear's tonal character true is a challenge.
I'm familiar w. playing naturally overdriven amps but I have virtually no experience with pedals These days I need a solution for small and medium sized club situations.
I mainly use a Tele and a Strat. For more sustain and cut through I thought about using my P 90 equipped Gold Top (my most powerfull Tele ;)) more often but that anchor is a bit heavy. Besides that I got used to the Fender fret board a lot.
I read a few post here and there and started to Youtube various demos. Ouuutch!!! ;) , Ha Ha,...but at least I got a few impressions that are good for pointing me into a direction.

I thought that the Xotic RC Booster was sounding great. An other peda# that impressed me right away was the Woodo Lab Sparkle Drive , , and some of the Barber and Mad Professor products as well.
What you guys thinx?
Thank you for your comments in advance.

What kind of music you like to play?

All of those companies you mentioned are top flight.

So, probably a Boost of some sort is what you're looking fpr.

There are a lot of great options available.

The KLON is one that does color your sound. But, it is "THE BOOST PEDAL" for Fender styled amps, to many.

Personally, I really love my Timmy pedal. It can make your amp sound "on the edge" at lower volumes, has a great EQ section for stacking with other pedals, and for adjusting to different guitars, AC Levels, and room, etc. Also, it has a righteous Gain to it, in case you decide to "Goose" it up some! :)

Some may point you towards an Attenuator of some sort. This is another viable option. The Ultimate Attenuator seems to rule the roost, from what I can tell.

Yes, some of the gear I'm mentioning is in the $250. to $500.00 range. But you already have very nice gear. And if you are using a minimalist type of set up, it is still in the range of affordability, IMO. Because you obviously want to have some classic sounds available, and are used to good gear. i.e. A SF Fender is a KILLIN' Amp!

The Timmy is about $100.00 from Paul C., I believe.

Well, I play whatever is needed in a band situation except Jazz. My roots are blues, country and rock, but I also rap funky rhythms occasionally. I often use my fingers to pick and zapp. I've been influenced by Peter Green, Hendrix, Billy Gibbons, Albert Collins and Albert King.
However I love to give my tone a dry and boney touch as can be heard from Jimmy Vaughn, Brent Mason, Sol Philcox, Brad Paisly, Forrest Lee Jr., etc.
On the other side, I'm also comfortable with highly overdriven Rock tones. Still have that old 4X12" Hiwatt cabinet in the garage...
However I do not look for a distortion. Just s.th. to give me more push and cream when needed and w/o coloring my guitar and amp too much..

The Catalinbread Super Chili Picoso has a lot of fans. It has a toggle switch so you can choose between Fat Boost and Clean Boost.

http://www.catalinbread.com/SuperChiliPicoso.html

The Serrano Picoso is a pure clean boost.

http://www.catalinbread.com/SerranoPicoso.html

hermida zendrive. might as well start with a righteous pedal

You might also like a Maxon OD 808 reissue- excellent copy of an original tube screamer- I also use a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive- excellent and a bit warmer sounding than the Maxon pedal- neither will color your sound, but both add a bit of overdrive.
I hear excellent things about the Mad Professor, but here in Canada they are crazy expensive- and I doubt they are worth twice as much as the other pedals I mentioned.

Yeah, thanx for the suggestions. I just listeed to some demos at YT.
The Klon didn't impress me much, but a fair comparison is impossible. There are too different levels of players and each records with different equipment and mics.
The Zen Drive Demo was O.K., and I think that it is a great pedal.
At this time my favourites from what I could hear in the demos are,
Xotic RC Booster, the Zen Drive and the Woodo Lab Sparkle Drive. It got late in central Europe. Gotta catch some sleep. I'll be back with you tomorrow.
Best

Oups, Timo, I didn't check out the Maxon OD 808 reissue yet. Let's see tomorrow. Thanx

I have an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 and I like it. It gives me a nice boost without changing my tone too much. Adding anything to to your signal path is going to change your tone somewhat, even a different cable. But I have found it to be pretty transparent.

It's more on the low end price wise, about $40 new, so I'm sure that some of the higher priced boxes might sound better. I like it just fine though.

Hi everybody. These days I play through a Vibrolux reverb just plain. To modulate my sound I use my pick attack and the Vol knob.
Occasionally I whish to drive that SF a little more w/o having to shoot off ears.


My '71 VR is the most used amp in my stable. And while I use pedals (a lot!), I got hooked on the VR for it's base tone, either clean or starting to break up.

I guess that my biggest question is what 10's do you have in your VR? I've thoroughly tested hundreds of pedals thru mine - many were good, but some not so much. Probable reason - I prefer as close to a clone of C10Q's as possible. I currently have a pair of Weber Sig 10 ceramics with the smooth cones, and it doesn't take much to get them dancing.

...I found that the VR is a bit more forgiving (with pedal choices) if you have some stiffer, higher power speakers in it, like Eminence Ragin Cajuns (awesome speaker, IMO). But I really prefer the Webers at lower volumes, and the RC's are LOUD!

If you have alnicos, I'd think that might cut down your options a bit. With 4 10's no, but with only a pair, yes.

If all that you played were blues, I'd say that any old TS (or clone) would be fine. But for stuff where you need a little more rump in the saddle, the old greenies will come up short every time, IMO.

While I like the Timmy, I like it a lot more through amps with a lot of mids on tap - tweeds, Marshalls, Z's, Voxes, etc. I really like the pedal, but always feel like I'm missing something w/it into my VR. And when you change the gain, you usually have to futz with the tone controls with each change.

While the Sparkle Drive is another great pedal, it's mainly a TS that bypasses some clean tone around the overdriven one. So it will kill the low end as savagely as any other TS.

I would actually avoid a true boost design, as counterintuitive as that may seem. With a VR in particular, I typically don't have good results with the (slight) EQ changes that boosts tend to add - especially additional bass thru the pair of 10's. JMO.

There have been lots of other good recommendations, but I'd just like to say that some of them really color your tone or alter the compression at moderate or higher drive levels, so I wouldn't even consider them.

The two that I would most strongly consider would be the Xotic RC and the Barber LTD (any version, SR, Silver, etc.). Both have a flexible frequency response and won't trash the VR's core tone. But the deal breaker may be that you don't like what they do at your desired drive/gain/boost setting. Both can get kinda hashy and zingy at higher drive settings - as long as you don't need that much, you should be able to dial either one in, though.

...I think that those two would be a good start, especially as far as pro pedals thru a VR are concerned. But you will probably have to experiment a bit. Even though you want your core tone in tact, many folks tend to realize that they actually prefer just a touch more compression, harmonics, edge, what have you, than they originally thought they wanted or needed.

All of this said, the VR is a pretty flexible amp, pedalwise, IMO.

Ibanez TS-9, and Bixonic Expandora are my two favorites, when I use pedals. I really prefer to just overdrive the amp tho. I think the Vox Night Train I just got,thru about any speaker box, is about the best I've seen for that. The little Egnator 20 has some possibilities also.

I'm addicted to my guitars' and amp's true tone, so finding a box that keeps my gear's tonal character true is a challenge.
maybe an attentuator would serve you better than an overdrive box?

I read a few post here and there and started to Youtube various demos. Ouuutch!!! ;) , Ha Ha,...

Check out Brett Kingman's demos he records in his studio with quality gear.

Brett Kingman (http://www.youtube.com/user/Burgerman666)

Light to medium overdrives will probably be a good start.

I was like you - I hated anything NOT tube. I've come to appreciate some pedals sometimes (though 90% of the time I don't use any pedals). Fenders have a scooped midrange, so perhaps a Tubescreamer (the classic TS808) can help beef things up, especially since you also use single coiled longer scaled Fenders. For Marshalls and shorter scaled Gibsons I'd suggest other pedals.

Attenuators are OK, but every form of crunch without volume has some trade-offs (even tube amps with MV's, attenuators, and pedals).

Even full on distortions and fuzzes have controls that let you pull back the effect and hit your tube amp with a cleaner type of "boost" (turn Gain/Dist down and crank Level).

The XOTIC RC Booster is my booster of choice - great to add just a hint of dirt without coloring the sound but you won't get into overdrive with just the RC.

As an OD pedal, I found the Barber Custom Cool to be the most 'neutral', 'transparent' and amp-like pedal out there.

I don't think you can go wrong with ANY overdrive pedals (from the high-end all the way to the low end). It's just a matter of dialing in the right amount of tone.
I'm glad I'm done with the pedal acquisition syndrome. But if I were to start over again, I'd seriously look into Voodoo Labs' Sparkle Drive or Visual Sounds' Route 66!

I don't think you can go wrong with ANY overdrive pedals (from the high-end all the way to the low end). It's just a matter of dialing in the right amount of tone.
I'm glad I'm done with the pedal acquisition syndrome. But if I were to start over again, I'd seriously look into Voodoo Labs' Sparkle Drive or Visual Sounds' Route 66!


The Maxon OD 808, Sparkle Drive and Route 66 are all tube screamers of one flavor or another.

CW_sh5QEG4g

vibrolux & zendrive in germany.

maybe you could contact this cat and actually try some out...


another nice clip (http://www.chuckdaloiamusic.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/revelationclip.mp3)

Fulltone Fulldrive2

Blackstone Appliance - spendy $225+

Danelectro Cool Cat OD - $40

Telemach,

The Timmy I mentioned, can be set to be basically completely transparent. And then, a little EQ'ing or Gain can be added. I think this is where you should start. Maybe use the Search Function here at TDPRI, and look into some of the older Threads. From what you mentioned, Timmy sounds perfect.

As for the KLON, it really is sweet! I had played one a long time ago, and didn't know how to use it. And.....it wasn't so impressive.
Since then, I have kept being impressed with the Tones of players, only to find out that they use a KLON.
FINALLY, a friend of mine's bandmate got one and I could try it more "properly". And I gotta say, it really is sweet! It makes your Tone "bigger" when you're playing in a band mix, at volume. As an OD? Just okay. At lower volumes? Just okay. When used as a Boost, and the amp is kicking a little? OH YEAH!
Anyway, SERIOUS GAS on my part!
So, I will be getting one, hopefully after the Holidays.

And YouTube Clips will not do it justice. Even the ProGuitar HQ videos on their site.

Thing is: both the KLON and the Timmy can be re-sold for MORE than they cost. So, trying them in person is a no-lose situation.

I'll add a couple of clips here, but again, not as good as in=person results. And, I'll leave it at this. But, I just thought you might want to re-consider......

Here's some clips:

KLON

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fquk_14F_7c

Timmy (Although, he doesn't really show how "invisible" you can make a Timmy):

http://www.youtube.com/user/gearmanndude#p/search/6/AViMnHAV-lw

http://www.youtube.com/user/gearmanndude#p/search/2/4Guqunfe_m4

Anyway, I hope you find this useful in some way.

Good morning fellas,
I'm overwhelmed by the huge variety of comments and pedals you recommend. You guys write faster than I can hook up with ;). Thank you so much. Rather than quoting each one of your posts seperately lemme just keep my response general at this time.

First of all, as some mentioned, most demos don't do no justice to the pedals.
Too many different levels of players, different capture equipment and so on.
At this point, a special thank you for linking me to the Klingman family. Brett's demos are set up nicely and apear to be very usefull to me. His sales manager is way cute I think.
His Klon demo lets the box shine in a totally different light. The Klon sounds like a serious piece of work.
Same goes with the Timmy. WOW!!!

I also found Bret's demo of the Hot wired excellent. I've been watching those Wampler with Brent demos for a while now but have been a bit hesitant as this pedal is quite pricy.
I liked the 2 in 1 combination and the fact that it has been voiced to a Telecaster. Not to mention the collaboration with one of my heroes.

The attenuators are a great thing to have in a recording situation. In case with the Vibrolux they would ask for having the amp burning at ten all the time. The tubes wouldn't last as long as in normal operation and those attenuators are not cheap to obtain. Not exactly what I would need during the week.

Oooh, yeah the gearmanndude!!! Heck they all do fine. The dude I love too ;) Unfortunately he's a SG man and rarely uses the other breed. He's funny. I read that he might be JB? Is that true?, Funny dude anyway.

0.11, to answer your biggest question, yes I currently play two Emminence alnicos,...those blue ones Fender used to toss into some of their amps in the 90ies. Nothing fancy but qute O.K. to me. I sold the original speakers that were none of the desired goodies, (way too flabby in the lows).

As you can see here (scroll down nearly to the bottom of this thread), and check for my post and pic, (http://www.tdpri.com/forum/amp-owners-clubs/165992-vibrolux-reverb-roster.html)

I'm in great favour of 4 X 10 combos such as the Bassman and the Super Reverb. I don't own one of these at this time but certainly will one day.

Back to my current VR,...I used to play a mix of alnico and ceramic, which I really liked very much. I had to sell the jensen w. an other amp in favour to keep the Emminence. Unlike those Emminence blues, the Jensens are readily available. So I'll certainly get me one at a later time. The Alnico, Ceramic mix works excellent to me. It gives the combo more edge and tighter bass response, which is good for country and funky raps as well.

Thank you for the link to that German Vibrolux/ Tele Player. I'll probably gonna drop him a line in the next future.

It looks like I'm going to spend a few more time to check out demos on the pedals that have been recommended in this thread.

Here's an other German SF VR Player. He also sells guitars, amps and effects. He playe the Okko Diablo on numerous tracks and I think it is his favourite pedal. Not cheap too. Anyone ever played that pedal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TaghI7vDS0&eurl=http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit2&feature=player_embedded

Hey Tonfarbe, since we both breath the same Berliner Luft, could we meet for a test drive with your RC pedal?
I'm playing at the Rickenbacker's Music Inn on Thursday night. It would be way cool if you would let me play it that night. Lemme please know either here or by PM. Thanx

I'm addicted to my guitars' and amp's true tone, so finding a box that keeps my gear's tonal character true is a challenge.

Keeley modified Boss Blues Driver. Awesome pedal. Your guitar's/amp's tone with a little more umph.

http://www.robertkeeley.com/product.php?id=14