The Transparent/Neutral Overdrive Fallacy
A question from viewer: “Which pedal is going to be more of a natural or neutral overdrive tone, product x or product y, since the frequency analysis plots show that they are transparent drive pedals”
In this video I explain/show why and how there is much more to an overdrive than just viewing the output eq frequencies.
#TransparentNeutral #Overdrive #Fallacy
Originally posted by UCdVrg4Wl3vjIxonABn6RfWw at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNpzh-xaoiI
always great knowledge you share with us all about this stuff, and myth busting! ???? ????
Less bass is more good
“Transparent” may be a bit of a misnomer, but I think most of us understand it’s pedals that don’t drastically alter your eq (particularly the midrange) like say a tube screamer does. I think a bass cut/boost knob is a must on any of this style of drive. My favorite is the Timmy style pedals, my danelectro transparent OD is the one pedal that never leaves my board.
To me, a transparent overdrive doesn't make my amp sound like a different amp, but makes my amp sound like itself breaking up a bit more.
I want you to throw the pedals onto the table harder
Any of the Wampler pedals geared for Bass? Or more useful for bass?
Man, nothing touches that Euphoria. Such a nice tone sounds more like an amp than a pedal
Transparent overdrive to me means the Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor. I set the eq to 12 and turn the gain down and can barely tell when it’s on or off.
The Wampler Belle seems to be another good transparent option.
The BD2 is the boss.
I think this whole idea of "transparent" is why I've never been a fan of blues breakers and klons. To me, they don't really "sound" like anything. I am a big proponent of DSP and modeling, so I don't need to worry about volume. I feel like klons and blues breakers just sound like the amp but a little more driven. Which for me, I could just turn the drive up on the amp. Personally, I don't care for the way a blues breaker saturates, so that's a huge turn off for me. I've got a duke of tone, and no matter how I set it, it really just doesn't sound nearly as pleasing to me as my odr1 or my mostortion. Ironically I'm not the biggest fan of clean blend, which is a little funky since I'm actually a bass player at heart and tons of us swear by having clean blend. I feel like I never notice the blend when it's there, and if anything, when I want to cut through more, I'll actually decrease the gain and that gets all the definition I need.
Idk, I know lots of people LOVE those two circuits. But I've tried them, and to me, I just don't like how they change my saturation. And the fact that they don't really sound like anything to me already makes me question why they're even on the board when I could do the same job with a boost and keep the saturation that I like.
Your list is incomplete. You forgot the Metal Zone. (Joking) ????
Which amp are you playing into here?
For me it is all just noise….
If I recall, the Nobles has a switch on the inside… and I think they newer ones may even have an external switch to deal with the bass.
The king of tone gave me rebel rebel Bowie feels
The other one with a bass dial is the Nordland ODR made by the designer of the original Nobels ODR-1. The knob is much more effective than the poorly implemented in bass cut the Nobels ODR-mini and nano-switch inside new BC.
the OD-3 is more transparent than the BD-2
May I make 1 suggestion and request?
I think it’s time for content creators to spend a little more time on showing us what your exact guitar chain is going into your DAW and your channel settings in your mixer, compression etc. etc. etc. and final stereo bus signal output ( what’s on your stereo bus?) for a finished pedal and/or guitar demo.
Guitarists who admire your tone or any creator’s tone would like to actually know how to set up that tone in our DAW’s
Most of us our pretty familiar with how to dial in a decent working pedal tone for our gigs, but a lot of us want to reach great or greater DAW tones with our recordings or our own demos.
Can you consider making an in depth look at what goes into making a great guitar demo from the DAW out to the public?
I mean as a mixing engineer I know how mixing influences a final demo such as this and you all seem to know or be practicing similar mixing techniques that seem to give you all a similarly fantastic finished demo. Which in my opinion doesn’t sound exactly like any pedal in a live situations or simply playing at home…..
By the way this demo sounded great! ????
Nice wasn't the Euphoria formerly known as the Ecstacy ???
Transparent drive pedal? = Hotcake.
I do not have the King of Tone, but the Wampler Pantheon Deluxe which I love. I have all the others except the Euphoria – need one now. ❤
The best transparent drive pedal is the first LPB-1. lt still is. Pure clean boost.
Tumnus Deluxe
My Dude. I have that shirt.
The Rat…what a hooligan!
One of very many fallacies
I barely hear any difference between any of these pedals.
Out of all these pedals which would be your favorite?
All I’ve ever meant by “transparent” was keeping the frequency range intact when I hit the “more” button. I guess I figured it was a forgone conclusion that what anyone would be looking for in different clipping styles would be the change in the texture of the gain.
To me, transparent means that when I'm playing with a band and I step on the drive pedal, my tone hasn't drastically changed. It still sounds like the guitar and amp, but crunchier. Some pedals are so drastic that it doesn't seem to matter what guitar you plug in – it sounds like the pedal. Those pedals can be useful, for sure, just not what I'd prefer for my base tone.
Since mixing my own songs, these videos have been invaluable to see the frequency ranges of each pedal. I’ve been using an ODR-1 mini with an EQ behind it to.
Might check out the Belle.
I purchased the ego mini and plexi mini going into a fender mustang 3 amp with the deluxe reverb 65 modeling. I had a fantastic tone but I added the digitech drop compact pedal,now there is a very loud hiss unless I turn the sustain in the ego mini nearly off. On the amp I am using the noise gate on the max setting. Do you think a noise gate pedal after the ego mini will help. I'm sure I will figure something out. Just curious what you think. I love your videos and products. I have been using the 1spot power supply. Maybe if I upgrade the power supply it will help. I ordered the Godlyke power all supply,I hope that cleans it up. Thanks
What a great shirt
If it's a "fallacy", all the Josh Scott's speech about the transparence of the textures is totally a lie?
Who is right?
Hi, Brian. I didn’t get the similarity of the frequency response of those pedals. The curves you presented seemed different from each other. ????
After watching this video, I bought an Euphoria. Looks and sounds great side by side with my Pantheon! Regards from Vienna, Austria
The absolute best thing about this video is…It tells me what pedals "not" to waste my retirement fixed income buying.
"Pretty similar frequency response" as in they all have frequency responses. I would not call them similar….
I have 3 of those pedals, and I must say the Euphoria was by far my favorite. Ive had one for years now, alongside a Hot Wired. Appreciate the knowledge, thanks.
This video is going to cause an uproar on TGP, if it hasn't already ????
Great video. The Euphoria is my favorite of the group. I am surprised that you didn't include the Tumnus though.
Very cool video… what bridge pickup is in that guitar? Sounds great.
Makes sense distortion is a nonlinear transform. Frequency and phase can't reliability model nonlinear systems very well. X-Params instead of S should be a more accurate measurement.
I love the chunkiness of the mids and lower mids, but hate that 2k to 4k 'speaker rattle' that, to me, seems extraneous to the core tonality. Some might call that fizz, but to me its just an upper mid to high range rattle that I would never want in my music. Great music is all about tones and textures, and that specific texture I find very 'misdirecting'. I have heard many crunchy textures that don't have that annoying rattle which sounds more like hearing damage to me. Harmonic distortion is somewhat soothing but this specific texture is anything but. It's extraneous, like 'clipping buildup' in the upper register. In the studio, I would use a de-esser or dynamic eq to get rid of it. We need an overdrive pedal that has that dynamic eq built into it. Just saying, because not everything is for everybody.
One overdrive not shown in the video was the Timmy. To me that is the most neutral that I have played. It seems to sound the most like the amp naturally overdriving. Sometimes that is what you want, but sometime you might what something a little different.
I love my Euphoria. I'm a jazzer and use an Benedetto acoustic archtop. This pedal is so smooth yet will get pretty nasty if you want it too, even with an archtop. Love it!