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(Cheap) Gain/OD Pedal


theyellowcar
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Your concern with the clean blend is noted by many folks and was addressed recently by Tom @ COG, one of our very own!

His newer pedal versions (Knightfall 66, Grand Tarkin, and TK-421-X) all have a clean blend built in, but the clean signal is filtered, for just this reason! The difference is night and day as well - it no longer sounds as though there are 2 instruments, it just adds subtle low end to the tone. Very smart and seriously musical.

So yeah, your idea of filtering the clean blend works! There are a few Knightfall 66 and Grand Tarking users around the forum already who I'm sure would confirm this

Shep

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I'd agree with Shep here, Tom's (COG) blend is the only blend I've ever liked. Too often it simply sounds like you're diluting the sound of the pedal, need to boost the effect saturation as you introduce clean signal just to have it heard. My Knightfall 66 prototype is great though, I tend to only ruin the clean blend at about 30%, but as mentioned above, it's very musical.

Si

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Guest FretNoMore

I'll chime in with the same opinion; I've tried blending using a mixer/blender pedal and a couple of overdrives with built-in blend, and to me it does sound like two instruments in unison rather than one cohesive sound. The (futile?) quest for that holy grail of a pedal that can make the sound that's in your head continues ... :)

Edited by FretNoMore
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[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1387753774' post='2315371']
The cheapest option is to mod a guitar pedal. Basically, you can increase the input and output cap values to 1uF, or thereabouts, to allow bass frequencies to pass through the pedal. In practice this opens up the circuit to frequencies it wasn't designed to handle, so various pedals will get muddy, farty, flubby and unmusical pretty quickly. the Digitech Bad Monkey is one of the best pedals I've found that can be modded simply to work with bass.

The Boss OBD-3 sounds pretty good once you do the Wampler mods. Stock, the pedal basically dials some white noise and bass flub into the signal. The clean blend is thoughtful, but the OBD-3 appears to be designed to add a hint of grit around the edges of your tone, not spice up the whole deal.

Big Muff circuits tend to sound mid-scooped and can rob bass frequencies easily.

My problem is that I don't like clean-blends in pedals. Bassists always claim you need a 40% clean blend or similar, but I cannot abide by this. You end up sounding like you are running two amps, or have a guitarist running in parallel. Maybe if you aggressively LPF the clean tone you could get a better tone, but bone-clean zingy uncompressed bass tone and treble fizz,blended 40% - 60% is one of my least favorite tones.
[/quote]

I've had a Bad Monkey for a while, can you give me a clue how to mod it ? I've just been using it as is.

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[quote name='njr911' timestamp='1387883107' post='2316745']
I've had a Bad Monkey for a while, can you give me a clue how to mod it ? I've just been using it as is.
[/quote]

http://theuglyguitartruth.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/bad-monkey-mod.html

The board uses surface mount components which makes things little trickier, even if you're used to soldering. I just bought the SFX version (Humphrey Audio does a modded version as well).

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[quote name='danbowskill' timestamp='1387915019' post='2317240']
I had the Humphrey mod BM..... n to be honest I liked the original better when I had em :-)
[/quote]

I'd assume the Badder Monkey has modded the mids. The SFX has the option of stock, flatter or scooped mids with a three way switch, so might be a better option if anyone isn't sure. Or just do the mods themselves. :)

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[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1387922650' post='2317339']
Errrr, not really. The SMT stuff you leave well alone, the tonal-shaping stuff uses full-sized through-hole components. I don't know who Humphrey Audio is, but I imagine that they subscribe to the Keeley school of making $10 worth of mods and charging $60 for the privilege.

The mods most often posted are;

C22, replace cap with a 1uF version. Anything above 1uF will let too much bass into the circuit that will distort on the lowest gain settings. Good for Jack Bruce tones.

C5. Change this for something. Most people claim this is the 'mids' cap, but it isn't. I think it dictates levels of treble cut across the treble control. I've stuck a 1nF cap in there (0.001uF) and as a result I've got a lot more treble out the circuit.

C?, Right, this is off the map. The cap directly above C5, and equally tricky to get to, has some influence on the mids in the pedal. I increased it by maybe 47nF. I did this a while ago. Play around making the cap bigger and smaller here. This mod isn't on any of the usual sites (the Ultimate Guitar blog post everybody links to, for example), but it does work.

The PCB is burned up on my BM from the volley of mods I've done to it. I would love to get another just to see how different mine is. I always have a suspicion that there is a degree of clean signal passed in the BM circuit.
[/quote]

Oh, right you are! It might have helped if I'd actually looked at the pictures in the link I posted, where the guy actually points to the relevant components. I just had it in mind from when I was looking a couple of years back that the BM was entirely SMT. :blush:

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  • 2 weeks later...

[quote name='theyellowcar' timestamp='1388946194' post='2327966']
So once again thanks to everyone for the advice and recommendations!

For the time being I've gone for a BDI21 (I was sold by the DI functionality) which should be arriving either Monday or Tuesday!

Thanks again.
[/quote]

Excellent choice! First pedal with any sort of drive function I actually liked was the sansamp which is pretty much exactly what the BDI21 is! You can't go too crazy on the drive because it's more of an amp sim than a distortion... Try pairing it with a lomenzo hyperdrive, you can pick them up for about £50 on here. Seriously offensive sounds to be made!

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[s]There's a lomenzo hyperdrive for sale here now, £45 [/s]No there isn't, it's sold. Sorry.

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/226355-lomenzo-hyperdrive-l45-posted/"]http://basschat.co.u...ive-l45-posted/[/url]

Edited by ratman
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[quote name='Guinness21' timestamp='1389046298' post='2329383']
Does anybody have any clips of a sansamp with a lomenzo hyperdrive? That sounds tasty!
[/quote]

I have a couple of covers on here somewhere using those pedals, on quite low gain settings to give a fair idea they're capable of much worse!

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