Any info on Shanks ODS-1?

[MG]

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6bW9yvKhNI

Oh *that* video. I thought you were talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw-4LQglX3w.

That sounds like a missing Carlton track from an earlier Steely Dan album.  Nice tone, but not the
Hendrix Strat thing I was curious about.

At 8 minutes in, he says he's using two pedals for the video: An MXR Microamp, and a Shanks ODR-1. ... If the session is live-mic'd, he's not getting the OD sounds from a blasting amp, unless it's isolated in another room.

In fact it is live mic'd in another room. He has another video about his setup, but basically he has a bunch of heads which you see (and plenty of effects) in his control room, and a few cabs in another isolated room that are mic'd. He can easily switch heads and cabs just like effects. So you are always hearing a real amp and I think he has stated that he usually runs them on the edge of breakup.

That bastard! :-)  OK, I guess I can vanquish my assumptions about the ODR-1 as the main contributor to that sound then.

Note that at 8:08 he says about using the MXR Microamp "to push the front end of the amp".

And I was right before about him having an original ODR-1 - spotted it on his pedalboard in an older video. So unless he got rid of it or loaned it out or something, it's interesting that he's using the Vemuram clone, however he often "promotes" products if he likes them (not sure if he does that for pay or not).

So there was an original "Shanks" then, followed by the Vemuram clone.  That's what I had inferred from what little I saw on archived posts.
I'd still love to know more about the sound on that particular Hendrix track, but obviously it would be tough to nail that down.

Now I gotta hire a carpenter to build soundproofed room.  Tim looks so happy sitting behind his fortress of amps and effects.

[GGBB]

The Nobels ODS-1 schematic seems to be readily available.  Two stages of back-to-back diodes.  The first, around an opamp feedback loop.  The second follows, with diodes going to ground.  I wonder if that's the main concept in the Shanks/Vemuram.

Hence my original query about whether this is just another well-tuned version of the age-old diode theme.

Yes. General consensus is that The Vemuram Shanks ODS-1 is a clone of the Nobels ODR-1. Vemuram is in the clone business just like many of the "premium" pedal brands. Some of you may recall the hype around the Jan Ray a few years back and then the letdown (and backlash) when it was traced to reveal just a plain old Timmy.

[MG]

In fact it is live mic'd in another room....

PS: Thanks for the insights.  You obviously know Tim Pierce's setup in depth, so this was more info about that than I had expected.

[GGBB]

So there was an original "Shanks" then, followed by the Vemuram clone.  That's what I had inferred from what little I saw on archived posts.

That's not the impression I got. Do you have links? John Shanks is an artist. The way I understand it is that Vemuram worked with John Shanks when designing/cloning the pedal. It's even on their web site - "collaboration with John Shanks." They built an ODR-1 clone for him and he endorsed it. Kind of like what Wampler did with Brad Paisley and the tube screamer for the Paisley Drive (although I think Wampler did modify that circuit a bit).

[MG]

Yes. General consensus is that The Vemuram Shanks ODS-1 is a clone of the Nobels ODR-1. Vemuram is in the clone business just like many of the "premium" pedal brands. Some of you may recall the hype around the Jan Ray a few years back and then the letdown (and backlash) when it was traced to reveal just a plain old Timmy.

Re Vemuram: That was my assumption as well...that they had cloned an earlier pedal.  Not sure where the name 'shanks' enters. The Nobels ODR-1 does have a slightly different slant in the cascaded diode stages, but nothing I'd categorize as dramatically ground-breaking.  I'll take a closer look at the schemtics though.

I don't get to follow pedal circuits as much as I'd like these days, so I was not familiar with the Jan Ray.  I'll look at that too if it sounds good.

I'm still waiting for someone to do better at dynamic modeling of tube overdrive. That would involve changing overdrive parameters over time. A lot of what people perceive as power tube distortion can be attributed to shifting bias points due to grid-to-cathode conduction charging the coupling caps.  So not a static response curve at all.

[MG]

That's not the impression I got. Do you have links? John Shanks is an artist. The way I understand it is that Vemuram worked with John Shanks when designing/cloning the pedal. It's even on their web site - "collaboration with John Shanks."

OK, that certainly sounds logical.  So Tim Pierce would have been using a Vemuram pedal then.  Good to know.