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One of the things that heavily influenced the rock music, and actually I could even dare to say “created” is the overdrive. If you paid attention to yourself in your early days of playing the guitars and to other young rock fans you’ve probably met along the way, the biggest joy is to just get that famous metal, distorted palmed sound. Giiiiiigigigi!!! Whatever…
I remember that when I used to own one of those BOSS DS1 stompboxes, the overdrive know was turned to maximum value. No doubt here.
The same, when I purchased the BOSS multieffect I still own and happily use even today, when I started to set the parameters there, like EQ settings, delay, chorus, flanger, noise reduction, I had no doubt regarding the gain setting, it is turnet to 15 out of 15. And to be honest, I still use it today. ‘Cause I like it!
However, I realized that I started to like also a guitar sound that has not so much overdrive on it, so the original guitar sound cuts through the overdrive. I actually look at other fomous overdrive users, see Satriani for ex, think Starry night. Starry night is nothing like Surfing with the aliens or Always with you, always with me. Starry night is warmer, closer to the classic 70’s rock sound maybe.
OK, I also played guitars with the overdrive turned on even more than mine, but my feeling was that I couldn’t tell what I play, is it a guitar? Is it some kind of a keyboard?
I remember loving the sound on Parisian walkways or Still got the blues, at that moment I was in love with that sound, even if it was not a metal sound, the sustain there, like for ex on Parisian walkways, is unbeatable, the dream of any guitar player…man…
I still play my guitar with the sustain and gain on maximum, and honestly, I can not get that ACDC sound no matter how much I’d try, it does not represent me, even if it sounds great on their records. You know, I like Accept very much, I’ve always thought Accept is ACDC with a better guitar sound. Don’t hit me here for saying that!
So, how do you keep your overdrive settings?
PS: The sustained note at 3.18 makes one of the most famous moments in rock music, don’t you think? I actually don’t know if this is the exact same concert, but I remember speaking in highschool about that moment when Gary Moore played that long note, I remember that…
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5 Responses to “Turn the damn thing on!”
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Ovidiu OprescuRomania, 33 years
Playing the guitar since 17 and enjoying every moment of it!
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Pribek
January 16th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I’ve owned a bunch of different distortion pedals/fuzzboxes over the years. Some match better with certain guitars and/or amps.
I’ve also went without for a few years of playing full time with no effects, just a small tube amp.
I like using two channel amps and getting a good dirty sound out of one side, clean out of the other. Not much different than using a pedal in a lot of cases because you are really just pushing the pre-amp section. Sometimes I will use a pedal in front of this type set-up for a third, higher gain type of thing.
A lot of pedals that get the ultra “high gain” sounds also seem to have some type of compression built in as well as an eq curve. I’m not so much in to the infinite sustain. I like some natural decay.
Gary looks like he found the sweet spot on stage there at 3:18. Pretty nice.
In a perfect world, I would use a tube amp, running hot enough to get the power tubes just starting to break up and a pedal in front to with the gain set on the low side; just enough to kick it in the ass enough to be able to use the sweet spot on stage. It usually doesn’t work that way because it’s pretty loud and the stage is too small.
Chris - GuitarToyBox.com
January 17th, 2009 at 3:49 am
That note is pure feedback. Steve Vai does that well on the first G3 DVD. He has several “sweet” spots set up within a step of each other on stage that make the strings resonate better at different freq’s so that as he moves he can play a little feedback melody.
As far as high gain goes I had a quick look at my amps. My Fender Twin is on 5, and my Marshall’s OD1 is on 3 1/2 and and OD2 is on 5. I like to hear the notes. If I want a high gain tone I use my Tech21 XXL, but for subtle boost i use a Tube Screamer clone that has it’s gain at about 3 and volume at 10.
I like to hear tone of the guitar through the gain, so I rarely go too high with my gain settings.
Jon
January 17th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I like to run my BB+ with the volume up pretty high and the gain at around 2 or 3 similar to Chris with the Tube Screamer but if I’m playing rock I like to run my amp with the preamp and boost up full and just use the BB+’s 2 separate channels as a extra levels of gain.
Ovidiu
January 17th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Personally I love the power and the complexity of processors, they give you whatever you need at 100% quality. I also love the fact that when you switch the tone you only need to press one pedal, not 2-3 or 4. I mean, if I have a tone with compressor, distortion, eq and delay and then I need to switch to flanger…too many pedals to press…
Ryan
January 21st, 2009 at 7:50 pm
When I started out I was in a constant search for the heaviest sounding distortion. Went from boss DS1 to DOD Grunge, DOD punkifyer, Ibanez Tube screamer (didn’t cut it) . Tried many DOD distortions. One I settled on and even bought twice was the Ibanez SM-7. I stuck with this one even after I outgrew my Digitech multi fx that also had grunge/OD distortions that were highly customizable.
Funny thing is, these days I almost never run my guitar through any fx at all and just go straight to the overdrive channel on my guitar amp.. A sound that used to leave me wanting more.