A versatile dirt pedal?

335clone

Living the dream
Looking for recommendations for a good versatile (and inexpensive) dirt pedal. I have a good clean amp with a shitty dirty channel, and a crappy distortion pedal. I am looking to start a pedalboard build, and am looking for a dirt pedal that works well with both SC's and humbuckers. I will eventually get a small tube amp, so it should also work well as a boost. Nothing boutique (Klon) but wondered what you guys think is a good "do it all" pedal.
 
Depends on a lot of things...

Your amp, guitars, tastes, budget...a pedal that matches up well with one amp can sound like ass with another...some react better to humbuckers, others to single coils...

Dirt pedals can be a real crap shoot...
 
Last edited:
Biyang od-8 (I think). Also I think you find it as Akai or GFS green.

The tube screamer variant with t the three way switch. I have one and love it for TS or more stuff the lowest gain setting sounds just like Malcolm young Marshall with humbuckers and around 4 on the gain.
 
Is it better than my FX55 supra distortion? Because that thing sounds like shit.

Ugh, the Supra Distortion.

There's an interesting TGP thread right now regarding DOD/Digitech "hits & misses". Tom Cram, the guy responsible for the company's pedal revival, posted about how terrible that era was, and how it destroyed all the good work DOD had done in the 70s and 80s (the time the 250 was developed).

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/digitech-hits-and-misses.1746399/

Anyway, yes. It's leaps and bounds better than the Supra Distortion. The 250 is a classic. The Supra Distortion is a door stop.
 
Cool.

So, with the DOD 250 and Full-drive 2 in mind, is the fulltone and it's dual channels worth it or is the 250 better at what it does? $50/70 used on reverb, which would you grab if you were only going to have 1?
 
Cool.

So, with the DOD 250 and Full-drive 2 in mind, is the fulltone and it's dual channels worth it or is the 250 better at what it does? $50/70 used on reverb, which would you grab if you were only going to have 1?

That's a matter of preference. They're not the same circuit. The Fulltone is a tricked out tubescreamer. #fuqatoobscreema
 
The Pedal Monster Klone is pretty versatile. You can turn down the drive and get a boost, get a mild OD out of it and if you crank it, it gets pretty dirty.

Also the Oddfellows Caveman v1 sounds pretty good and it has a separate boost footswitch on it.

 
I like my BYOC Rat clone with several clipping modes. Very, very versatile. You can find pre-built ones on ebay. Mine was built by a guy who called himself the Duhvoodooman, but he is out of business to my knowledge. But you can find similar builds on ebay.

You can set the clipping for some sweet low gain/boost, or set it to some nice phat distortion too.

http://duhvoodooman.com/miscimages/musical/RRv2.htm

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BYOC-Mouse-...221171?hash=item25a81c5d73:g:fFgAAOSw~ZdVfWBP

The other cheap pedals I started out with were a Digitech Bad Monkey with is a tube screamer variant, but with a better eq, and a DS-1, that I always thought sounded better being used up signal from the Bad Monkey also turned on, which rounded out the harshness on the distortion and made it sound better to me. I think I had between $25 to $50 into each of those pedals, used. The Rodent was more, but worth it to me as it is a nicer pedal overall. But for cheap starting out, hard to beat the combination of those other two, IMO. Tubescreamer hate notwithstanding.
 
Last edited:
The Hovercraft Ionsotrofear has tremendous range. It goes anywhere from clean boost to an absurd wall of fuzz. The downside is that it’s quite loud.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions!!

Watched some youtube shootout videos, and so far I'm liking the Full Drive 2 quite a bit.

Does anyone know if there is a mod out to clone the Full Drive 3 functionality that lets you select the boost independent of the distortion? I like that quite a bit, but the 3 is a chunk of $

Also, I see quite a few DIY kits out there starting at $25. Anyone build any of these, and have an opinion? I wouldn't mind building a box or 2 if they were decent.

Oh, and what about the EH Soul Food? I liked it a little better than the DOD 250 from what I heard on the comparison vids.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions!!

Watched some youtube shootout videos, and so far I'm liking the Full Drive 2 quite a bit.

Does anyone know if there is a mod out to clone the Full Drive 3 functionality that lets you select the boost independent of the distortion? I like that quite a bit, but the 3 is a chunk of $

Also, I see quite a few DIY kits out there starting at $25. Anyone build any of these, and have an opinion? I wouldn't mind building a box or 2 if they were decent.

Oh, and what about the EH Soul Food? I liked it a little better than the DOD 250 from what I heard on the comparison vids.

The EHX Soul Food is a Klon-esque pedal. I had one and it was cool for a dirty boost. You could get the Soul Food and the EHX Crayon and have an incredibly versatile pedal setup.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions!!

Watched some youtube shootout videos, and so far I'm liking the Full Drive 2 quite a bit.

Does anyone know if there is a mod out to clone the Full Drive 3 functionality that lets you select the boost independent of the distortion? I like that quite a bit, but the 3 is a chunk of $

Also, I see quite a few DIY kits out there starting at $25. Anyone build any of these, and have an opinion? I wouldn't mind building a box or 2 if they were decent.

Oh, and what about the EH Soul Food? I liked it a little better than the DOD 250 from what I heard on the comparison vids.

I had the Soul Food for a little while. It is ok but I didn't like it nearly as much as the pedal monster klone.
 
Back
Top