Nobels ODR-1 and Digitech Bad Monkey hype and blather

[BubbaFet]

I have seen a few posts, and videos popping up lately on youtube and other guitar sites about how great the ODR-1 and Bad Monkey overdrive pedals are. I have owned both and was not impressed enough to keep or mod them. It seems to me like much ado over a couple of different ways to control overdrive MID frequencies. I much prefer what a Rat offers, without any mid control.

What build-able pedals do you feel 'trumps' the ODR-1 and Bad Monkey ?

[andy-h-h]

The Cornish CC-1 is the best overdrive that I've made.  Schematic care of Aion FX https://aionfx.com/app/files/docs/cepheus_documentation.pdf

Why?  The active three band EQ is great, and I modded mine to replace R12 & R17 with a dual gang pot to allow how much diode clipping can be dialled in.  Really versatile pedal with this mod, just a wide range of useful tones.  I only made one - I sold it to someone who was meant to just have it to try, but they didn't want to give it back.   I need to make another for myself, as it was my go-to overdrive. 

[Steben]

Double soft clipping... a trick I did on a bluesbreaker mod.

[Fancy Lime]

Which overdrive or distortion works well and sound "impressive" and which sounds "meh" depends a lot on the rest of the gear. And personal taste of course. One set of guitar, amp, and speakers may sound great with, say, a Bad Money, but if you change the amp or the speakers or the guitar, it may not work together as well anymore. That is where the three-band EQ of some pedals comes in handy.

Addendum: the most critical aspect of the interplay of pedal, amp, and speakers, is the mid shaping. Most guitar speakers are extremely mid-heavy but not all in the same frequency range. Most guitar amps have a hefty mid-cut built into the EQ section to compensate for the speaker response. But again, different amps cut different frequencies so not all amps sound good with all cabs. The ODR-1 and Bad Monkey emphasize high(ish) mids and cut bass but not as much as a Tube Screamer. This is great in fron of a completely clean amp but may get fuzzy and undefined in front of an amp that is already crunching up, unless the amp has a very lean (meaning bass cutting) input stage.
TLDR: if you like the Rat with your setup, use the Rat and ignore the hype. If you*almost* like the Rat but think that there are aspects that could be improved for your use case and taste, make your own custom Rat based design. If you need pointers on how to do that, let us know. I have had a ton of Rat derivatives on the breadboard and I know for a fact that I am not the only one around here who has.

[Mark Hammer]

The Ibanez MT10 Mostortion is also quite popular amongst Nashville seasion folk.  It is a decent smooth drive, with an excellent 3-band EQ.  I've built a few and quite like it.  The CA3260 chip it relies on is perhaps only slightly less tricky to source than the LM308.  Once I ran out of 3260s, I made one with the more available 3240, and it sounded decent to my ears, although I was not able to directly compare it against one using the 3260.

[BubbaFet]

Yes indeed Mark, regarding NashVegas players and ODR-1 and MOStortion. Here is a just released video of studio ace Tom Bukovac blind testing overdrives, including the MOStortion and various ODR-1 versions. SPoiLeR... he hated the MOStortion and liked the mini ODR-1 the best! And they all pretty much sound great through his Princeton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97gYbyzkzGs

Here's a link to one of the current ODR-1 discussions... https://www.tdpri.com/threads/nobels-odr-1-shootout-shootout-bukovac-vs-that-pedal-show-can-u-hear-the-difference.1131521/

I think Mr. Fancy Lime has the right answer/explanation to my OP question.

[Rodgre]

Gotta say... I've had a few ODR-1s, including an original 90s Nobels, a 90s Series-10 Branded one, a modern Mini and a Visual Sound Open Road clone and I love them for what they do. As a recording engineer, I love having tools that will do something that I often need to do for different sessions and the ODR-1 circuit is killer for smaller amps that respond well to the bass boost that they give you. I don't love them for everything, but it's definitely a flavor that works whenever I am looking for that sound. Same with Timmy circuits, EHX Crayon and my modded Rats.

The Bad Monkey is a super-flexible TS and every time I have had someone in the studio with one, it sounds great.

It's easy to be irritated when there is a lot of chatter about a pedal like there is now about the Bad Monkey in the wake of JHS's video, but if you are a TS person and you want more tone flexibility, there it is. If not, you won't like it. Don't dislike it because of the hype, though. Don't like it because of the hype either. That's Josh Scott's point, I think.



Roger