A light distortion for Church

[StephenGiles]

Remember - Big G......better than a smoke or a cup of tea..(Hank Wangford!)....I have the t shirt, albeit a little small now!

[MKB]

Hey fellas!

Well... What I need is an advice...

I said to the sound guy of my church that I made a Pedal for my Bass, then he told me that he needed a distortion pedal to bring the "dead eletric guitar" back to life, to sound like a real eletric guitar! I don't know anything about overdrive, fuzz, distortion, or anything like that. What would be a nice smooth and light distortion to make for him? Remember it's for a Church, we play gospel rock/pop rock.

What would you suggest?

Thanks a lot.

Could you describe the "dead" amp and guitar?  If it's something like a Squier Strat through a Line 6 Spider, I'm not surprised.  But if it's a real Les Paul through say a vintage Fender Deluxe, you have other issues afoot.

The perfect church overdrive tone has to be Larry Carlton's stuff before the last few albums.  It would be nice to find a distortion pedal project that gives the dynamics and distorted tone approximating a Dumble.  I'm looking for one of those myself.  Probably the hardest thing about playing in church is that you often can't play very loud.  So distortion pedals or distortion channels on an amp are required. 

Every sound man I work with in several churches each are amazed at how much better a tube amp sounds that a solid state one on guitar.  Each can hear it immediately; the one church bought Line 6 Spiders, and are looking to convert to Peavey or Fender gear.  Actually what might be the perfect church amp is the Fender Blues Deluxe.  I used one for quite a while in a Southern baptist praise team, and it handled everything from clean bluegrass stuff to metal (when miked of course).  You can tweak those to sound very nice slightly distorted and not too loud.

[Paul Marossy]

Could you describe the "dead" amp and guitar?  If it's something like a Squier Strat through a Line 6 Spider, I'm not surprised.  But if it's a real Les Paul through say a vintage Fender Deluxe, you have other issues afoot.

I used to play with a guy who used a POD with his Mesa Boogie .50 Caliber combo amp. I thought it sounded terrible.

What works nice for me is my Fender Hot Rod DeVille on the clean channel in conjunction with my pedalboard. The other thing with being on a church worship team is that you have to be a fairly dynamic player - play soft when the music gets soft, build up when everyone else is. If all you have is one speed, full bore, you're not going to fit in very well.

[Shakal]

Hey guys! Thanks for so many replies!

With "Dead Eletric Guitar" I mean that it seems more like a Classical Guitar than an Eletric one. The rig isn't fixed, but on average it's a nice equip. They play for a lot of people, biggg church. I think when it's a special day, like christmas, they play for 3k-5k people. (YEAH!) Or 200, 500, 1k people usually, depends on the day of the week.

Sometimes the guitar player brings its own pedal, then the soloing is guaranteed. But, sometimes there is no distortion at all. There are a lot of instruments, and the guy said that eletric guitar has to be highlighted, u have to hear without increase too much the volume, u have to know that there is an eletric guitar soloing! I don't know if I was clear enough...

And... it has to be a DIY distortion, that's the idea. We're making a lot of eletric things that before, we had to buy.

Well... there is sooo many options. I saw TS808 more than once here... So I searched and found this: http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=82&Itemid=26 ... What do you think? It's gonna fit my purpose?

Thanks again!

[Paul Marossy]

As I mentioned earlier, I feel that my TS808 clone is the best all around performer in a church setting.

I ocassionally attend a church thats probably close in size as yours. I can hardly ever hear the electric guitar player in the mix between the piano, bass, drums, percussion, keyboard(s), acoustic guitar being played by the worship leader, the choir, trumpet, saxophone and other lead singers. I'm sure on the stage he's loud, but you can't hear him out there where the people are. BTW, he plays thru what looks like a Fender 2x12 Hot Rod DeVille - same thing I would normally use. 

[Shakal]

That's exacly what is happening!

So, TS808 is the one... I'll see if the sound guy agree.

Thanks a lot!

[Paul Marossy]

It's going to be difficult to make the guitar stand out when you have all that other stuff going on. I think the sound guys at this church I visit once in a while don't turn the electric guitar up enough, for whatever reason.  I also think everything gets kind of mushy because they have everything so loud, too. It's pretty obvious that all they really care about is the piano, bass, drums and the worship leader's guitar and vocals. Even the horns get lost in the loud mush. I can tell that they are really having to blow their lungs out just trying to be heard. And I see the percussion guy doing stuff, but I can't actually hear him at all.

The TS808 does get you some nice overdrive sounds with a tube amp, though. It blends pretty well with most styles of music I have heard at church. I think it's really mostly up to the sound guys to get the electric guitar in the mix. On stage, it's a whole different ball game.

[s.r.v.]

how about an english channel from OLC. i hope to build it in the near future:

http://www.olcircuits.com/olc_englishchannel.html

[One-Way]

Hi there,
Newbie to forum. My name is Derek and I'm from Northland in NZ.
I play in the worship team at my church and recently picked up a cheap well used Boss OD1. This is awesome for a nice overdriven sound that really cuts thru the mix. I use it with either chorus or reverb to give a nice effect. It is very sensitive to light pick attack and single notes ring out clearly.

[Paul Marossy]

Oh yeah, an OD-1 ought to work well, too. Good suggestion. 

[MartyMart]

Yes, OD-1 and SD-1 will have similar "cut through" attributes.
Actually for a circuit that's "almost" a TS-9 the SD-1 is WAY cheaper and just a couple of
part changes gets you some great tones
MM

[george]

with a church your size, you should have the funds to try a whole different bunch of stufff.

Boss OD-3, Digitech Bad Monkey, Boss SD-1 they all fill the light distortion/overdrive need that seems to be expressed here.

Take the advice that's been given here and pray on it and God will show you the way he wants you to praise him - remember it has to be the way that HE wants you to go ....

God Bless

[tcio]

Hey fellas!

Well... What I need is an advice...

I said to the sound guy of my church that I made a Pedal for my Bass, then he told me that he needed a distortion pedal to bring the "dead eletric guitar" back to life, to sound like a real eletric guitar! I don't know anything about overdrive, fuzz, distortion, or anything like that. What would be a nice smooth and light distortion to make for him? Remember it's for a Church, we play gospel rock/pop rock.

What would you suggest?

Hi Shakal. I don't know if your still looking. I am new on this forum but have been playing guitar for years and also play in a worship band. I am super thankful that our worship leader is a shredder (as I am) and has been permitted to incorporate this into the worship.

I can tell you right now no matter what pedal you have, how much it cuts through or does not cut through the mix, without a good soundman or a soundman that is allowed to bring the electric guitars up, you will always be in the background. Unless you are playing at such a small church you are not using mics.

It can be a hit and miss situation to advise what pedal to use unless your amplification in clarified. If it was, please forgive me for missing that. I use an old 1970's six band MXR equalizer (the blue one) to drive an all tube very low watt amp to give my amp an extra little edge but I don't know how well that would work running straight into a PA or a totally clean amp plus I don't know where to find the schematics but just wanted to add that in case you happen to run across one for cheap.

I call it my secret weapon and wouldn't get on a stage without it. It works great to push a tube amp just a nudge giving it a nice smooth edge. I set the faders like a mid/treble boost which is also called a "frown" (opposite of a smile). Then on the amp or post EQ I set as a smiley. If I need more distortion to totally rip I put an overdrive or distortion pedal after the MXR. I just click that on combined with the MXR for pure shredding.

I am currently using the Omega and just love it.

(http://www.runoffgroove.com/omega.html)

It is pretty easy to throw together and IMO completely does the job for both a smooth nice overdrive and a heavy yet smooth crunchy tone. I have tried many modded pedals (Boss, Ibanez, you name it!) and prefer the Omega and 3 legged dog (very distorted) so far over them all but I get most of my tone and saturation from my tubes and amp and just use these pedals to drive it harder mostly.

The Range Master is also excellent for what you are looking for as mentioned. I believe the Omega is kind of an enhanced Dallas RangeMaster except that with all the controls on it, you get the best of both worlds. A soft edge or heavy edge with a nice sweet tone just fantastic for worship IMO. Good luck 

[Paul Marossy]

I can tell you right now no matter what pedal you have, how much it cuts through or does not cut through the mix, without a good soundman or a soundman that is allowed to bring the electric guitars up, you will always be in the background. Unless you are playing at such a small church you are not using mics.

That really is the bottom line, IMO. It doesn't matter what you are using if the sound guy doesn't turn you up loud enough to actually be heard. I can rarely hear the electric guitar player clearly at church, for whatever reason...

[george]

ah yes us church electric guitarists - what's just right for us is usually too loud for someone else. 

If the lols aren't complaining it's usually one of the vocalists that can't cope if they can't hear the melody from the keyboard. So we turn down and sound anaemic - or you just plain can't hear yourself - let alone anyone else hear you!  Or we make sure that our amps are pointed directly at our heads so we CAN hear - then a vocalist decides to stand right in front of you!

Shakal at least your soundman isn't of the "electric guitars are of the devil" persuasion .....

[StephenGiles]

You know, when I was forced to go to church as a boy (Church of England - the chosen method of a 16th Century fornicator King!!!) the very thought of even an accoustic guitar in the church would have been unthinkable!

[george]

did they have acoustic guitars in the 16th century? .... 

I think my favourite church music is the old ACDC video of "Let There Be Rock", you know, the one with Bon Scott dressed as a priest

[george]

did they have acoustic guitars in the 16th century? .... 

I think my favourite church music is the old ACDC video of "Let There Be Rock", you know, the one with Bon Scott dressed as a priest

enjoy:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmvTyXyOQZ4

[petemoore]

  Gotta have sumpthin' on the solos or they just sound weak/thin.
 Old ears tend to respond to hard distortion w/treble with adversity.
 Boss OD-3, Digitech Bad Monkey, Boss SD-1 they all fill the light distortion/overdrive need that seems to be expressed here.
 Not so sure about the OD 3, but arent' these all feedback loop clippers..like the TS's.
 The TS seems to get around the 'why so fuzzy' comments, a 'happy' distorter I calls it, some guitar timbre always there, and always just sort of playing around with the tip of the iceberg as far as hard clipping goes, makes it interesting enough for the player to play lead, mild and not so harsh as to get the 'grumpies' to start making forceful 'too scratchy' [fuzzy] comments.
 Mom even likes the TS type tones, the only ones with enough umphh to make lead playing work without rattling the broken scilia in older ears.
 A bit more trouble than an OA build, fet's can be lit up to assist in making great guitar tones w/mild edges, see Blue Magic and ROG amp emulators.
 Not so sure a Spyder doesn't do most of this itself about as well as it would with stompboxes, My exp. with digital amps is that they do 'clean to clean-ish' superbly, some ~decent OD, but when pressed by boost/OD/dist pedals don't respond by surpassing their own digital emulations...by much.
 We had some luck with a TS in a Behr twin amp things loop...once the tube 30w classic showed up, all the experimenting on working with/improving the digital amp distortions [heavier] went 'to the closet, on a shelf'...but that was for more of a rock band tone pallette.
 I'd say try a Bad Monkey in the loop, I did [w/tube amps] but it was a dead monkey by the second day...your monkeys performance would certainly to be better than that though...wouldda been a great deal otherwise.

[Paul Marossy]

Shakal at least your soundman isn't of the "electric guitars are of the devil" persuasion .....

Yeah, at least you have that going for you...