"always on" drive?

[seedlings]

I pretty much keep the amp at edge of breakup for my base tone.  I know there are a lot of people who keep one drive pedal always on for a base tone... so for those people, what kind of drive circuit would you leave always on?

CHAD

[nocentelli]

Timmy.

[vigilante397]

Timmy is a fantastic drive and is very "stackable," so it sounds great with everything, but it's a little heavy for "always on" for me. I personally never turn off my Klon, which I then run through a Timmy for heavier stuff.

[R.G.]

I pretty much keep the amp at edge of breakup for my base tone.  I know there are a lot of people who keep one drive pedal always on for a base tone... so for those people, what kind of drive circuit would you leave always on?

This is pretty much the theory of application for the "Rangemaster" and its many copies. Make the signal bigger and overdrive the amplifier input. The Rangemaster also includes some treble boost to bring up the treble that was historically lacking in amplifiers and guitar pickups at about the time it was made. Parenthetically, that treble lack is also the reason AC30s have "top boost" as a built it.

One pretty decent always on boost is the Tillman JFET preamp. It gives a bigger signal for overdriving an amp and also includes some mild asymmetrical distortion, a percent or two.

[nocentelli]

Timmy is a fantastic drive and is very "stackable," so it sounds great with everything, but it's a little heavy for "always on" for me.

The Timmy's gain knob goes right down to completely clean

I use it with the gain at around nine 0'clock, and the bass + treble cut just a tiny amount. With humbuckers at this setting, a gentle strum gives you clean, and a harder dig gives some grit.

[seedlings]

Timmy.  Ok.  I build an opamp drive that's pretty similar (who doesn't), and figured the always on drives wouldn't be in an opamp platform... but if it sounds good, then it does.

CHAD

[vigilante397]

Timmy is a fantastic drive and is very "stackable," so it sounds great with everything, but it's a little heavy for "always on" for me.

The Timmy's gain knob goes right down to completely clean

I use it with the gain at around nine 0'clock, and the bass + treble cut just a tiny amount. With humbuckers at this setting, a gentle strum gives you clean, and a harder dig gives some grit.

That's true, it does clean up nicely. But I guess the real problem I would have is that the Timmy is my go-to distortion, so keeping the gain down would mean changing my rig to make up for the loss of my Timmy gain. Maybe I need another Timmy ....

[FiveseveN]

Maybe I need another Timmy ....

A simpler solution could be footswitchable gain controls. You could use different values for more control in the respective ranges.

[vigilante397]

A simpler solution could be footswitchable gain controls. You could use different values for more control in the respective ranges.

An excellent idea. Pretty much the only gain settings I use are 0 and 10, so it wouldn't be very hard to figure out what values to use. Now if I could finally figure out a balance between work, school, family, and building.... 

[phaeton]

"Rangemaster"

Here's my Rangemaster clone, with some bigger caps to open it up a bit more:



Sometimes when I'm feeling very mischievous I run this full tilt into my Laney AOR and the walls bleed Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

(And sometimes the cops show up, too)

[seedlings]

"Rangemaster"

Here's my Rangemaster clone, with some bigger caps to open it up a bit more:



Sometimes when I'm feeling very mischievous I run this full tilt into my Laney AOR and the walls bleed Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

(And sometimes the cops show up, too)

Yep.  I have a 1590A rangemaster with a russian gt108 and two cap selections.  It would benefit from a master volume in order to be always on.

CHAD

[nate77]

I have a naga viper that I keep on at least 90% and I also built an umble from the ROG guys and that is on 100% of the time. Both very versitile and the viper couldn't be easier to thow together, and are both bass friendly. They both add quite a bit of clear fatness to the signal.

[seedlings]

I have a naga viper that I keep on at least 90% and I also built an umble from the ROG guys and that is on 100% of the time. Both very versitile and the viper couldn't be easier to thow together, and are both bass friendly. They both add quite a bit of clear fatness to the signal.

Hey, the Umble is fairly similar to the vulcan, which I like and have on -board.

CHAD

[nate77]

It has a volume/master volume setup so you can dial in a fair amount of push with the breakup wherever you'd like. Very handy

[seedlings]

Maybe I'm missing the point of having a pedal on all the time.  Is it that the amp doesn't sound good enough on it's own, or what?  Because I hear/read guys with real nice amps use a drive always on pedal for the base tone...  amps I'd expect (or know to) sound good on their own.

CHAD

[FiveseveN]

There's no such thing as good sound, it's whatever the artist likes. There are tones we are used to, tones that have become famous, tones that are instantly associated with particular players or songs and so on.

[nate77]

I am in a similar state of mind as you chad, but my sound evolved during the period I started producing pedals at a prett aggressive rate when I first got into this hobby. I was banging out 2-5 pedals a week and would have to set aside a few hours at the end of the week to figure out all of my new pedals. Sometime at that point I found that I liked the umble in the front end of my signal chain. Every pedal I dug before that, I would eventually get tired of. I really like taking advantage of dynamics, so leaving a pedal on all the time is counter-intuitive to me, am despite my love for the natural sound of my main amp, I really liked the way the pedal gave me a bit of a punchier, and more focused sound. I don't have any particular sound I'm ever looking to emulate, but I know what i like when I hear it and this was something I dug. I've tried treble boosters (the naga viper I ended up liking and use for leads or really any spot I need more juice with clarity), sonic maximizers, tons and tons of ODs, various boosts, parametric EQs, fixed wahs type pedals, phasers, reverb, and in the end they pretty much all disappointed in one way or another. I will say that anyone that is already happy with their tone seems to have already found what they're looking for. I used to have a ton of preconceived notions about what good sound was and how to achieve it. What kind of guitar, amp, effects, speakers, mic, bla, bla, bla. Turns out what worked for me couldn't have been more different that what I thought I wanted. I still go through that process again sometimes. I guess what I'm saying is; if you like the way you sound, why change? But random experimentation helps my sound evolve.

[karbomusic]

Maybe I'm missing the point of having a pedal on all the time.  Is it that the amp doesn't sound good enough on it's own, or what?  Because I hear/read guys with real nice amps use a drive always on pedal for the base tone...  amps I'd expect (or know to) sound good on their own.

CHAD

IMHO there is something special about combining distortion/drive of a pedal then driving the input of the amp with that. Many think both the Tube Screamer and Fuzz Face sound better when their distortion is mixed with some light amp distortion. I personally think mixing more than one type of breakup sounds incredible comparatively especially when one drives the other. I also think this is especially true with tube amps which IIRC R.G. calls out in is TS article. I'm an "always on" guy for the last 20 years and control the rest with my hands and the knobs on the guitar. YMMV.