does one really need od pedals to boost

[Shin Chan]

i know they fatten tone but if you have mesa why use od pedal when you have enough gain

 

[emperor_black]

If you have a strong pick attack, that's more than enough for the mesa. but if you dont, you'd need one. I used to use a boosted eq up until I changed the pups on my Jacksons to Dimarzio X2N's. now I'm going straight into amp.

 

[Shin Chan]

attack as in how hard you pick

 

[elvis]

Mesa amps tend to be pretty bass-heavy. An OD pedal in front helps to accent the mids and/or highs to help bring out a more percussive sound. Alternatively, many people want even MORE gain, so they use an OD just to boost the guitar level at the front end to get some distortion from the amp front-end, as well as subsequent gain stages.

 

[TimeSignature]

I use a TS9 (and other similar OD stomp boxes) to tighten up the sound of my DC 10. For me its a must.

I find it really helpful for my VHT Pittbull as well which already has tons of gain. I run the gain at about 60% and then use the TS9 to push it just a little bit more and to even out the tone. Kind of like an EQ.

.... and sometimes you just want to set the gain to 11.....

 

[droptrd]

I use my boost all the time. My stiletto is more than capable of giving the same amount of gain, but the boost tightens the bottom and (with my DD) bumps the low mids for fat tone. The pick attack is more dynamic. The same thing with my old recto. I was able to keep the lowend punch, but narrow it up a bit for fast metal playing. OD808 works great for rectos IMO. Basically its not about gain for me but more about the feel and character of the tone. The recto and stiletto clean ch's will totally benefit from a clean boost IMO. cant play without one.

 

[Shin Chan]

doesnt a compressor boost the lows

 

[droptrd]

A compressor is a ciruit that controls the dynamic envelope (attack, rise & decay) by attenuating the signal that is over the designated threshold. Everthing under the threshold is left untouched. So you would use it to keep dynamics more consistent. They do not control indiviual bandwiths (although there are some that do that - in studio equipment)

Hope i got this right :lol:

 

[emperor_black]

A compressor is a ciruit that controls the dynamic envelope (attack, rise & decay) by attenuating the signal that is over the designated threshold. Everthing under the threshold is left untouched. So you would use it to keep dynamics more consistent. They do not control indiviual bandwiths (although there are some that do that - in studio equipment)

Hope i got this right :lol:

and compressors add a lot of noise. Which means, you need to get a good noise gate pedal. then the noise gate will cut off your cleans and some of your highs. The ISP decimator and MXR smart gate are pretty good noise gates, but still grab some of the tone.

 

[jab]

I never used one because I necessarily needed more gain, but I used an Xotic AC to give my Stiletto Fat Clean channel a crunch. Therefore with a 2 channel amp I could get clean, crunch, and lead instead of just one or the other all via footswitches. You can also use one on both channels with volume up and gain on zero as a clean boost when you just need that temporary kick in the ***.

 

[UKBoogieboy]

Lots of different reasons, for a start its not just about the amount of gain, its also about the tone, different pedals give you different tones, and I use them on the clean channel, I usually hate the overdrive on amps, does nothing for me and works against my style, od,dist,metal pedals are NOT just for people who haven't got overdrive on their amp, they are good products in their own right and used by pros everywhere even though they might have an amp with overdrive, the pedals have got sounds of their own and are not "just" simulations of amp overdrive in most cases.

You can use an overdrive as a boost though yes, why would you want to?
Because you can either have the amp overdrive set for crunch and boost it with a small or large amount of drive when you want it, or have the amp heavily overdriven but use a light bit of overdrive and level boost which will add some more volume to drive the amp harder with a bit more added overdrive, or use it with the drive down and level up to add a cleanish boost to the amp.

 

[ryjan]

I've tried several different boost and od pedals and have gone back to straight into the amp playing. It always made my amp sound over saturated and solid state. My amp sounds so much more organic and has more personality on it's own.

 

[droptrd]

nothing an eq knob cant fix

A compressor is a ciruit that controls the dynamic envelope (attack, rise & decay) by attenuating the signal that is over the designated threshold. Everthing under the threshold is left untouched. So you would use it to keep dynamics more consistent. They do not control indiviual bandwiths (although there are some that do that - in studio equipment)

Hope i got this right :lol:

and compressors add a lot of noise. Which means, you need to get a good noise gate pedal. then the noise gate will cut off your cleans and some of your highs. The ISP decimator and MXR smart gate are pretty good noise gates, but still grab some of the tone.