chunky distortion

[starekase502]

a friend of mine wants me to build him a distortion with lots of good heavy chunky low think the rythmn sound off the wezzer blue albumn
mainly the heavey power chords in "say it aint so" any ideas on what would be a good pedal he plays a strat all single coils through a mashall not sure what the mashall is but it wont give him the sound he needs any help would be great

[Baktown]

First of all, get a guitar with good quailty humbuckers (I prefer my Gibson SG with the HQ Gibson HB's).  I played a strat through a Marshall for a while, and no matter what pedal I put in front of it, it never got the heavy, chunky sound I wanted.

Only my opinion of course.

Rick

[jefe]

My thoughts too Rick. For that Weezer sound, you're gonna need humbuckers.

[Mark Hammer]

A lot of the "chunkiness" comes from the amp, and especially the cabinet, not from the pedal.  What I find is that when people start talking about "chunkiness", they are rarely talking about things like open-back 4 x 10" cabinets.

[starekase502]

thats all well and good and i understand completely if it were me id have a good humbucker guitar and i do but its for someone else who needs a pedal for the convenice of switching from clean to distortion this guy isnt going to get a new guitar so what would be the best advise on a pedal with good low end response that he can get now and if down the road he gets that humbucker guitar hell be even closer to the sound

[Ripthorn]

Wow, I didn't see any punctuation in that whole thing, but I think I understood.  For good chunkiness, I really like the DieFET pedal, or soulsonic's freya distortion.  Also, a lot of people like a big muff, but I've never played one.

[jefe]

IMO, diefet and freya are too high gain... probably better for metallica type stuff, no? Big muff is probably too fuzzy for Weezer.

This may sound stupid, but I'll just throw it out there: Boss DS-1, possibly modified.

You're buddy isn't going to get good low end response from a single coil strat though. How about throwing a humbucker in the bridge?

edit: and he's playing through a marshall? a humbucker into a cranked marshall could get him very close, I would think. There is no magic pedal to make a single coil sound like a humbucker.   

[Baktown]

Even though I don't know a thing about theory (see the thread from a couple of days ago), I modded a new Boss DS-1 to the Marshall JCM 800 specs as recommended by Brian Wampler, and it sounds really good, even played through my little 10 watt Marshall MG SS with head phones.  Well worth a try...

Rick J

[starekase502]

yes i understand the humbcker issue hopefully hell get a humbucker soon. sorry if im a bit unclear as to what im looking for.  im deff not looking to get a magical pedal that makes a strat sound like a les paul.  i do have a ds-1 that i modded to the robert keeley specs, ive kinda thrown it aside because its not my sound, i guess i could let him check that out. by the way sorry for the punctuation and thanks for all the help

[Scruffie]

Well, ignoring his setup and just throwing in my ideas about an actual chunky distortion, I thinky the chuggiest... albeit not actually a word, distortion i've heard is either the Dr Boogey or the ROG Thor... although these may be too higher gain for that weezer sound, and a bit of drop tuning with an extremley thick pick and heavy gauge strings can never hurt. But as i say this is ignoring his set up and just an idea but maybe it's what your after.

Thanks,
Scruffie.

[Caferacernoc]

The big muff is probably too wooly on the bottom end for a "chunky" sound. But a pedal with a big muff tone stack might help give this guys strat some low end thud because of the mid scoop that tone stack has. So a modified Boss DS1. Or a box of rock clone. Or a BSIAB would be a good start.

[Baktown]

Or a Marshall Guv'nor 2.  Mine sounds awesome with my strat through a Kustom 72 tube amp set on clean.

Rick

[starekase502]

what about a thor anyone

[Scruffie]

As i mentioned a few posts up, Have a look on the run off groove site for some samples, It is very chuggy and high gain thick distortion.

Scruffie.

[Ripthorn]

I have had trouble getting very much low end with my thor, but then again, I could probably just mod the bottom filter for more low end.  As for the freya or DieFET, you can roll back the gain knob and get some more crunchy sounds (more so with the freya than the DieFET), but a guv'nor does work well.  I've got an original and I like it.

[starekase502]

im sorry scruffie with all the post i missed that you recomended the thor im reading through these fast at work with plans to research more tonight

[rousejeremy]

I just googled what gear did weezer use on the blue album and got this.

http://www.weezer.com/info/recording/equipment/index.html

[starekase502]

also i just thaought would there be a good single coil sized humbucker anyone could recomende dont know why it didnt dawn on me before

[kristopher612]

maybe this link on pickup simulation at AMZ can help get closer without getting an actual humbucker, at least for the time being.http://www.muzique.com/lab/pickups.htm

[petemoore]

  Distortion Plus.
  But with something before it [I use a compressor but an LPB does about the same thing to the DIST+ as far a 'chunky' aspect], It chunks better also when I use a Minibooster after it, dialing the tone knob [oh, the D+ Also has a treble cut knob BTW], and the Minibooster has a treble-cut, and another knob {IIRC it's an input gain knob}, that does pretty good at chugging tones because the Minibooster, well it's a Mu Amp.
  Set the dials [output volumes, etc.] just right and a big chuggy Distortion tone is pretty easily dialed in, some variety to the tones, especially since there is a 'light distortion' stage, a 'Distortion' stage driving it to distort harder [or not] and a 'clean-ish' booster stage...a fair amount of 'chuggy' options.