Overdrive Lab or Cascading Multiple ODs Together

[ercsguitar]

Hey everybody-

I'm new to the forum and pedal hacking for that matter. I wanted to get some opinions/ advice for a major undertaking I'm starting to plan. Lately I've been digging through the Lab pedals on Beavis Audio Research and I've been inspired to do my own take on this using overdrive circuits. I'm thinking about putting three different overdrives in the same box and possibly a compressor and a boost and making it so I can cascade them together if I so desire. Plus I would want to be able to switch the order of the overdrives. I'd probably mod out most of the overdrives and maybe do something like adding a triboost for more boosting options.

Any suggestions about what overdrives, compressors or boosters to use? Any advice for making the order switchable? Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Eric

[frequencycentral]

The Valvecaster 9 volt tube boost/overdrive seems popular, as does Dragonfly's Sparkle Boost.

You could got for the modular/patch panel approach to switching the order.

[Mark Hammer]

Some already are cascaded.  F'rinstance, the Big Muff Pi IS two cascaded overdrive stages.

There are concrete limits to how much you can cascade, and for several reasons.  First, some things are hissier than others.  Sticking one hissy high gain circuit after another hissy high-gain circuit will inevitably yield more noise than anyone can live with.  Second, some things are clippier than others, and you can't really extract any "more" by sticking two in series.

Selecting between qualitatively different clipping devices in one big package is a reasonable idea (which is what Dano 12 did).  Of course, at a fundamental level, it is simply a bunch of individual pedals, with the convenience of one big box, one power supply, etc.

[ercsguitar]

Those are some great insights. Thanks for your help.

[cheeb]

A guy was in the music store where i work and he was talking about having an overdrive pedal that has the ability to have one overdrive circuit in which the gain increases through the first half of a pot's rotation, and at that point, a second overdrive begins to be cascaded in, also increasing in gain and cascade intensity through the first and second stages simultaneously through the rest of the same pot's rotation. Does that make sense? It's hard to explain.
He said that he would settle for a gain one and gain two with a pot to blend them together if that wasn't possible. Less difficult, but also a bit less challenging and therefore interesting, eh?

[ercsguitar]

That is an interesting idea, though not really what I was going for. I'm not sure how useful something like that would be for my purposes. What I'm looking for is the ability to blend and/or cascade two or three fundamentally different sounding overdrives. Although if there were some way to put the modules in any order I wanted and have a blend pot between them that would be cool. Any ideas there?

Lately, I've been thinking about a rat clone, a TS clone and one other that is still TBD. I might do an amp-like distortion for the third one like Runoff Groove's 18, Matchbox or Umble. I'm still digging through sound clips to see which ones hit my ear the best. I definitely want to stay away from the fuzz realm, so (even though technically an overdrive) the BMP is out. But I'd still love to hear suggestions for modules to include.

[frequencycentral]

http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/PedalHacker/OrderSwitcher.htm

[jacobyjd]

I was talking to Eric about this project the other day, and I think this looks like this project will end up being a great studio tool for him. At this point, the third effect to be included is still TBD, but here are some other ideas to add in the mix.

Currently the plan is to build each of the 3 dist/OD effects into one enclosure, all with independent inputs/outputs to give him the ability to use each distortion independently or stack them however he wants via patching.

Along with this, we're considering including something like the Tri-Boost in the box (with the ability to patch it in at any point) to further expand its versatility.

He is also planning to include switchable mods to each OD effect, which he's currently researching--this would include various clipping arrangements, and any other mods that might be effect-specific (any suggestions/favorite mods for the two already-established ODs he's including are welcome...).

Some thoughts I've had on this project--mostly questions I have vague answers to, so third-party input would be appreciated  :

-we don't have a ton of experience with hi-gain distortions (we're pretty chill guys that play pretty chill music), so are there any things to consider (keeping inputs/outputs/separate effects away from each other, etc) when we design the box layout? I know we could overcome lots of issues by using separate enclosures, but Eric wants something he can plunk down on the table and use to create all manner of distortions with minimal setup time. It's not necessarily supposed to be gig-friendly, either

-Which mods are the most USEFUL. It seems that clipping diode switching will allow for the most drastic change in sound for each individual effect, and there are a couple other mods (like the Ruetz for the Rat), but to what extent will they change the sound? In other words, which mods are must-haves?

-Should we include buffers? If so, would it be overkill to make switchable input and output buffers for each effect? or would it make sense to have the capability to add in a buffer on both ends of the 'chain'?