On my blog Stomp Box Steals I have since 2014 reviewed 2,968 pedals to date. Easily 2/3 are dirt pedals. Analog pedals are limited by their tech. It is a tech that has not been aimed at consumer products for audio for decades. It means no one is going crazy to make a even a new transistor let alone some new analog part of any kind. There are virtually 7 basic topography's to make an OD. So if you pick the Tube Screamer or BluesBreaker as your starting point you will literally only be able to change its sonic to a different shade of grey. Our ears are incredibly better than all our senses to hear those shades so we really do hear the differences. Yes you can put more than one topography in a pedal or add elements like EQ etc. but these elements can all be had as separate pedals of which because they are usually do more and do it better. The thing these days is that you can get a $50 pedal that is equal or better then a $200 plus pedal. We buy with our eyes. We are all, including me fooled by brand names or indeed by the cosmetics and style of the enclosure. If we had to pick our pedals blind folded very few of us would own most of what we own. That said it is great fun and it is heaven when a new pedal not just sounds good on a video but matches our own rig and our skills and technique of which no two people play the same. I still get excited about a new pedal ___ 😇 Is there a new OD to be made ??? Yes the best transparent drive I have heard is the Browne Amplification Carbon. It uses the BluesBreaker topology but it makes the BB by contrast sound like a Metal OD, LOL. Yes I exaggerate but it is as clean as a dead clean boost at unity gain. You can hear the bell like chime in a Strat as clear when pushing the pedal as it sounds turned off even on low notes. It could be made perfect with memory to hold a few patches. It could use a very good added EQ with separate controls over the both the low and high mids. Finally a knob added that can blend in cleans. Then if you wished it could be the perfect always always on pedal.
That was odd, your original post came through as just the 1st three words of this and I couldn't work out what you meant! I think there are tweaks to be made to certain pedals and additional features, as I allude to in my video and you have in your comment, but like you say a total re imagining maybe isn't on the cards. An entirely different sound for a guitar to make perhaps? Would many guitarists even be accepting of that? That's the question.
Thanks, Tim! For me, from a functional design standpoint, Boss pedals have never been bettered. I mean the actual design of the housing, they nailed it with the compact series. The sounds are great and the prices, although creeping up, are still attainable for most players. I've never found a drive of theirs that I really liked, although in fairness I haven't tried them all. That super smooth sounding thing that I go for, is something they don't seem to have a lot of. Maybe that new(ish) Angry Driver? Although the price on that one is as high as a lot of the boutique stuff. Aside from my Small Fry Burn Unit and the Fly Rig I've been using, the only pedals I own are Boss ones! Everything you've ever seen on this channel belonged to someone else. I own 6 Boss pedals and I bought two of them, ha! Thanks again, Ben.
Well Boss just came out with the IR2 pedal. This is a cool pedal especially the addition of the FX loop. The burns probably sounds better. Look up Leon Todd’s demo. 🤘
I’d buy Voodoo Lab Giggity with switchable loop and switchable clean boost. Meaning I could put my favourite drive pedal (Small Fry!) in the loop before Giggity EQ, and they would both engage w/single step. Clean boost could be placed before or after the loop, depending if I was after gain or volume boost. I’d buy it without the boost probably. Great playing and tone!
Thank you! I saw the giggity about 2 years ago and it interested me a lot. The demos of them sound great, I just couldn't land on one for a price I was happy with. Sonny Landreth (one of my favourite players) was using one for a long time, maybe still is. It appears we must enjoy similar sounds, both enjoying the small fry. Maybe I would like the Giggity too...no, don't tempt me, haha! I like the concept of being able to switch in the eq and drive with one step, that would be a neat feature. Thanks for the comment.
Nice playing Ben. As to your question, no. Had I the funds I would go for different amps instead of different pedals. Hooked up to a switcher system of sorts would be magic.
Thanks, Graeme! Yes, this! I thought about what I'd buy if I had a never ending source of money (this is a situation I'll never have to deal with, ha!) and it wasn't guitars or even pedals, although I do like them. I never even look at buying guitars, I have 4 good ones already in fairness and one of those doesn't get played. It's amps. I've had loads of them, although this SV20H is really doing it for me, I'm getting consistently good sounds and people are complimenting the tone at a lot of gigs, so I'll be sticking with this for sure, but...if I was to collect anything it'd be amps. That being said, I'm not much of a collector, I don't like the clutter if I'm not getting good use out of something. Your setup would be similar to Tim Pierce/Pete Thorn/Brent Mason with the multi-amp thing.
I am not sure there is anything else to make, except refinements of what already has been done. Moog did something interesting with their MF Drive by using an OTA instead of op amps. Ibanez used a NuTube in their TS9 and its marginally different, although pushed hard enough, the tube starts to collapse like a fuzz circuit does which is interesting, but not THAT interesting. I largely have moved onto more refined versions of circuits like what Free The Tone and Vemuram do. I think making something game changing is going to require new components to be developed but as Paul Ewing alluded, there is no business incentive to create new analog components....unless it is done so in other industries (usually aerospace and/or military)
Hi mate, sorry I didn't reply to this. If I get a bunch of comments across my channel at the same time I tend to miss some. I think you're right, it's pretty difficult to break entirely new ground and I'm not sure many people are looking to for that anyway. Someone could make something new and brilliant, but people probably wouldn't like it until the next wave of nostalgia makes it expensive, ha! I reckon refining something to keep the best bits and ditch the undesirable things is probably where we're at until someone makes some entirely new components. Thanks for the comment, Ben.
