Best distortion pedal?

[jsabo]

I have an express 5:50 and was wondering how to get a better hard rock sound out of it.

Would you recommend an actual distortion pedal or running an OD pedal in front of the amp and on top of the crunch or burn settings?

Thanks.

 

[jsabo]

i should mention that i would rather sound like the "vintage" setting on a dual rec rather than the "modern" setting.

 

[vbf]

I have a Fulltone OCD and really like it. I sometimes switch on burn mode with the OCD active and sounds pretty good provided both aren't gained to the max. Well, some folks might like the sound. Beauty is in the ear of the hearer. The OCD sounds very nice in front of the amp in the clean channel.

 

[Newysurfer]

I have an express 5:50 and was wondering how to get a better hard rock sound out of it.

Would you recommend an actual distortion pedal or running an OD pedal in front of the amp and on top of the crunch or burn settings?

Thanks.

Hey - totally depends on which flavours of high gain you want.
The 5:50's burn channel is more a modern Mesa voicing.
It won't do the classic Marshall high gain tones at all.
If you wanna boost the 5:50 burn channel a good Tubescreamer pedal will blast it into the stratosphere.
Keep the gain on the pedal low and crank it's volume.

I luv those Marshall JCM distortion tones too so for Mesa owners THE best distortion pedal IMO for JCM800 JCM900 tones is the MI-Audio Crunchbox. I use that for different flavours Mesa's can't do. The Crunchbox is true bypass, low noise, costs $120, has a ton of gain and sounds equally great with Single coils, Humbuckers or Filtertrons :mrgreen:

Another trick I use is to drive the Crunchbox with the 5:50's crunch or blues channels.
Gives more flavours useful for many solos.

If I want Metallica type metal tones I mid scoop the Crunchbox pedal with an MXR EQ pedal.
It has more gain than the OCD

 

[thunda1216]

:twisted: Biyang DS-7. Pleasantly satisfying.

ty

 

[UKBoogieboy]

The drive sounds are pretty useless to me on both my F50 and my 5.50.
There are thousands of overdrives and distortions out there it depends what you want.
The pedals sound better on the clean channel because the gain channels are eq'ed very middly to start with.
Digitech make some great pedals which I find better than Boss, I have got both.

If you want an AC/DC sound for not much money the Screamin blues is great, I use the Bad Monkey for all of my 1988-1992 Mark Knopfler "drive" Pensa Suhr sounds, and its great.
If you want to go boutique the Wampler Plexi and Plexi drive sound great.

The Hardwire pedals are very well thought out pedals and not expensive, they are true bypass with notched pots and stomp locks.

Using an overdrive or distortion on a Marshall crunch channel is fine for some sounds, but the Mesa crunch is so biased to its own middly sound that its much better to use the clean channel.

 

[GOVTMULE13]

The BB Preamp from Xotic sounds superb...

 

[soundchaser59]

Nothing beefs up the tone like a clean boost in the fx loop. I'm getting to where I never turn that thing off..... master on 1 or 2 with a 10db clean boost in the loop sounds better than no boost with the master on 5 or 8.

 

[vbf]

Nothing beefs up the tone like a clean boost in the fx loop. I'm getting to where I never turn that thing off..... master on 1 or 2 with a 10db clean boost in the loop sounds better than no boost with the master on 5 or 8.

what boost pedal are you using?