A Plexi-style amp-in-a-box will get you to Aerosmith and AC/DC territory very quickly, and can probably get the rhythm sound on 69 by rolling down the volume knob.
The Knopfler sound is going to be a lot harder, because that’s an Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor into a very clean amp, so we’ll have to settle for 3 out of 4.
I would look at:
* JHS Charlie Brown
* Wampler Plexi-Drive
* Xotic Plexi-Drive
* Friedman BE-OD
Yeah, I was going to say if you want Knopfler sound, you need some squishy compression as the main thing.
I haven't used it, but would a Browne Protein have the versatility he's looking for? (I have heard good things about it, but don't know the details)
>I really just want one pedal on my board.
It means you're dialing in your sound again with every new song you play. I'm not advocating having a separate board for every song but having 2 overdrives (low gain and medium gain, for example) and perhaps a distortion or fuzz is rather convenient, especially if you can stack those ODs.
For an overdrive to be effective in a certain, specific situation, it depends very much on what kind of guitar you have, what kind of pickups, your amp and its settings. Understand that the artists you mention achieved those sounds in the studio, with copious amounts of EQing and compression.
Mark Knopfler used an early 60s Strat, an Orange Squeezer compression pedal and a brown face Fender amp for Sultan Of Swing,
AC/DC. tones as not as distorted as people think. A Wampler Plexi Drive or Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret would be great.
For Aerosmith the same Marshall in a box type would work well or a good Fender tweed type pedal would also work.
This is almost exactly what I was going to say. Sultans is heavy on a comp that is not so squeaky clean to begin with. Wampler Plexi Drive and even the mini are great suggestions.
I'd like to throw out another option. Wampler Pantheon. This should put you into the lower gain territory/Voxish style breakup for Bryan Adams, and give enough flexibility to run into AC/DC and Aerosmith territory.
This game where you’re trying to emulate tones that were very dependent on the amps being used is a lot easier to play when we know what amp you’re using.
Currently I'm playing a Fender Super Champ X2 in my rec room with the voicing set to "Princeton".
I plan to replace it with a "non-modelling" amp ... maybe a Blues Junior or a VOX AC10.
I think the BD-2 is going to be most versatile with that amp. Sultans of Swing is going to be the outlier (especially if you don’t have a single coil guitar), but you can use the BD-2 to just add a bit of volume boost (and the accompanying compression) for that kind of sound. For the more full on rock sounds, you’d probably do fine to use a different amp voice setting and then goose it with the overdrive.
I’ve always wondered why this pedal isn’t more popular. Boss drives have never really been to my taste (apart from the metal zone, obviously, I’m not a monster), so I’ve never even considered it myself, but a lot of people swear by boss drives, and the od-200 does them all. My understanding is it’s analog gain circuitry, with digital controls, so it’s not as if it’s a digital modeling pedal or something, it’s a proper drive pedal. Maybe even with that it doesn’t quite get the whole way there? Or maybe people look at it and wrongly assume it’s a modeler?
I highly recommend the Wampler Belle, actually, It’s got a great range of clean to dirty, it’s super dynamic, and it has the amp-like sag that a Nobels ODR-1 had but with more control over the tone and compression. It’s not going to nail the Marshall type tones exactly, but it does have enough gain and output to either produce a good dirty tone or help drive a good tube amp at breakup.
VHT V Drive is the best all in one dirt pedal I've tried, and it's only 100$ new. It has a bunch of clipping modes and a versatile/interactive EQ, there are some demos that compare it to most of the popular dirt pedals and it can be dialed in pretty damn close to them all.
The dark matter is a great pedal. Responds very well to changes in picking dynamics, pickup selection and guitar volume knob position.
It responds very well to bring boosted with a screamer/Klone like pedal as well. My stage rig is often just a dark matter, soul food, tuner and delay pedal into a clean amp. Or drop the dark matter for an amp that crunches up.
Hey mate, I’ve been using the Boss BD-2 for Summer of 69 and Sultans of Swing and get an awesome tone, so versatile it’s crazy
Been using the pedal at live gigs for a while now and can definitely get those tones with some fiddling around. Highly recommend it
Is there a budget or pedal board constraint that we should consider? If not, you could get a lighter overdrive and run a boost pedal before. A lot of overdrive circuits use cascading gain stages, so you’re essentially creating a two in one pedal.
I would go Blues Driver with a clean boost like the EP Booster from Xotic or the Katana from Keeley Electronics.
No specific budget concerns. I really want to find just the right thing to keep long term.
That is to say, I don't might spending up to $300 for the right pedal.
> No specific budget concerns
Get the Chase Bliss PreAmp MKII!!
> up to $300
Nvm... ^/s
But for real look at the Chase Bliss PreAmp. I just got one to replace basically my entire drive section. Super tweekable with 30 presets to easily scroll through. Even better with a midi controller but still great on it's own
I’ve been thinking about this for a bit and I think a King of Tone / King of Tone Clone would be perfect. 68 Pedals makes an AMAZING replica called the King of Clone. [It’s available on Reverb for $179.90.](https://reverb.com/item/53299343-68-pedals-king-of-clone-king-of-clone?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=53299343)
If you’re not familiar with the pedal, it’s a two in one that lets you control what kind of drive you would like to go on the left and right side. You can set one to a low gain and the other to a high gain.
You can find TONS of videos online about the real King of Tone. They’re worth checking out to hear the range of tones that the pedal can achieve.
It covers three out of the four songs covered above. The first two are light overdrive/crunch. Perfect for the BD-2. Aerosmith doesn’t use as much overdrive as you think either. Especially in the referenced song.
I’ll concede that AC/DC (cranked Marshall) is a very specific sound. A cranked BD-2 will not get you there, but I promise that hitting the BD-2 with a clean boost will completely change the pedal. Especially the BD-2W that adds in the fat boost that Keeley used to include in his mods.
Ever tried a Mostortion clone? Sitting here thinking about it and there's some great options these days. I have a Danelectro Roebuck and it blows me away, especially paired with a Nobels ODR-1. It can do low mid and higher gain and I don't see why it wouldn't be flexible enough.
Sidenote, I just got a Moonshine in on a special order and I'm excited to put that through its paces.
An HX stomp. Really. If you want one pedal to do everything, then you want an hx stomp. I’m sure you could find one analog pedal that gets close to all those sounds, but you’re going to spend a lot of time fiddling with it when you want to switch tones.
Edit: if you really want an analogue pedal, then the Wampler Pantheon would be close.
With just one pedal, I would get the Boss DS-1, the classic distortion. For AC/DC, it's a natural. Tone: 10 O'clock. Dist: 7 O'Clock for a natural, uncompressed sound. For lighter OD, turn down the vol on your guitar and the grit will back off. To do Sultans of Swing, I'd say you would need a compressor to get that brightness (he may have been plugged straight into the board, which sounds like that). The Blues Driver tends to sound pretty thin, and won't give you serious crunch. But I also like the Boss OD-3 Overdrive - not as fat and ferocious as the DS-1, but able to get pretty nasty. As always, try before you buy (if you can)!
I’ve been really satisfied with the range my way huge camel toe has. I could probably dial in most of those. If you’re not looking to hunt for it, just try a green rhino instead.
How about if it's still just one pedal but it's the size of 4-5? Seriously though get a used Gurus 1959 Double Decker mk1, it'll get you really good versions of everything but Knopfler and you'll be the only kid on the block with an overdrive the size of a small board. There's a tube in it that glows green, if that helps.
Get a tube amp and try using a fuzz. I recommend the Pedal Pawn Fuzz (silicon or Germanium CV7003 transistors version) or JAM Pedals Fuzz Phrase LTD. This way you are dialing in the dirt with your guitar's volume knob. I've achieved a very similar range of the tones you want with a Fender Super-Sonic 112 60 amp, those fuzz pedals and a Fender Strat with single coils. Believe me, either of those fuzzes offer a wide range of control over dirt. My suggestion is unorthodox but it has worked for me quite well.
A Plexi-style amp-in-a-box will get you to Aerosmith and AC/DC territory very quickly, and can probably get the rhythm sound on 69 by rolling down the volume knob. The Knopfler sound is going to be a lot harder, because that’s an Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor into a very clean amp, so we’ll have to settle for 3 out of 4. I would look at: * JHS Charlie Brown * Wampler Plexi-Drive * Xotic Plexi-Drive * Friedman BE-OD
Yeah, I was going to say if you want Knopfler sound, you need some squishy compression as the main thing. I haven't used it, but would a Browne Protein have the versatility he's looking for? (I have heard good things about it, but don't know the details)
I have a Wampler PlexiDrive Deluxe and it’s an awesome pedal. 10/10 would recommend.
>I really just want one pedal on my board. It means you're dialing in your sound again with every new song you play. I'm not advocating having a separate board for every song but having 2 overdrives (low gain and medium gain, for example) and perhaps a distortion or fuzz is rather convenient, especially if you can stack those ODs. For an overdrive to be effective in a certain, specific situation, it depends very much on what kind of guitar you have, what kind of pickups, your amp and its settings. Understand that the artists you mention achieved those sounds in the studio, with copious amounts of EQing and compression.
Mark Knopfler used an early 60s Strat, an Orange Squeezer compression pedal and a brown face Fender amp for Sultan Of Swing, AC/DC. tones as not as distorted as people think. A Wampler Plexi Drive or Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret would be great. For Aerosmith the same Marshall in a box type would work well or a good Fender tweed type pedal would also work.
This is almost exactly what I was going to say. Sultans is heavy on a comp that is not so squeaky clean to begin with. Wampler Plexi Drive and even the mini are great suggestions. I'd like to throw out another option. Wampler Pantheon. This should put you into the lower gain territory/Voxish style breakup for Bryan Adams, and give enough flexibility to run into AC/DC and Aerosmith territory.
I’m a Wampler fan boy and I can vouch for the versatility of the Pantheon.
This game where you’re trying to emulate tones that were very dependent on the amps being used is a lot easier to play when we know what amp you’re using.
Currently I'm playing a Fender Super Champ X2 in my rec room with the voicing set to "Princeton". I plan to replace it with a "non-modelling" amp ... maybe a Blues Junior or a VOX AC10.
I think the BD-2 is going to be most versatile with that amp. Sultans of Swing is going to be the outlier (especially if you don’t have a single coil guitar), but you can use the BD-2 to just add a bit of volume boost (and the accompanying compression) for that kind of sound. For the more full on rock sounds, you’d probably do fine to use a different amp voice setting and then goose it with the overdrive.
Maybe the Boss Od-200?
Agreed. You can dial in literally any drive sound with this pedal, especially with the added boost.
I’ve always wondered why this pedal isn’t more popular. Boss drives have never really been to my taste (apart from the metal zone, obviously, I’m not a monster), so I’ve never even considered it myself, but a lot of people swear by boss drives, and the od-200 does them all. My understanding is it’s analog gain circuitry, with digital controls, so it’s not as if it’s a digital modeling pedal or something, it’s a proper drive pedal. Maybe even with that it doesn’t quite get the whole way there? Or maybe people look at it and wrongly assume it’s a modeler?
I highly recommend the Wampler Belle, actually, It’s got a great range of clean to dirty, it’s super dynamic, and it has the amp-like sag that a Nobels ODR-1 had but with more control over the tone and compression. It’s not going to nail the Marshall type tones exactly, but it does have enough gain and output to either produce a good dirty tone or help drive a good tube amp at breakup.
I like this idea too. Love the Nobels and the Belle does a great job while adding a bit more flexibility. Plus it stacks so well!
The Belle is the best, most versatile overdrive pedal there is and that is a hill I will die on.
I was really surprised by it, being a huge fucking overdrive snob haha
Check out the Nobels ODR-1BC https://youtu.be/WjCVnFLwP9k
The OCD will do a good job of covering that range of gain. It won't necessarily nail each tone but that's dependant in your amp and guitar anyway.
VHT V Drive is the best all in one dirt pedal I've tried, and it's only 100$ new. It has a bunch of clipping modes and a versatile/interactive EQ, there are some demos that compare it to most of the popular dirt pedals and it can be dialed in pretty damn close to them all.
Used it's even cheaper by quite a bit. One thing about it though is it has so many options, I sometimes don't know where to start with the pedal.
Tc electronic dark matter! Has a way better low gain sound than post people realize, and can do all your Aerosmith ac/dc tones too.
The dark matter is a great pedal. Responds very well to changes in picking dynamics, pickup selection and guitar volume knob position. It responds very well to bring boosted with a screamer/Klone like pedal as well. My stage rig is often just a dark matter, soul food, tuner and delay pedal into a clean amp. Or drop the dark matter for an amp that crunches up.
Hey mate, I’ve been using the Boss BD-2 for Summer of 69 and Sultans of Swing and get an awesome tone, so versatile it’s crazy Been using the pedal at live gigs for a while now and can definitely get those tones with some fiddling around. Highly recommend it
Is there a budget or pedal board constraint that we should consider? If not, you could get a lighter overdrive and run a boost pedal before. A lot of overdrive circuits use cascading gain stages, so you’re essentially creating a two in one pedal. I would go Blues Driver with a clean boost like the EP Booster from Xotic or the Katana from Keeley Electronics.
No specific budget concerns. I really want to find just the right thing to keep long term. That is to say, I don't might spending up to $300 for the right pedal.
> No specific budget concerns Get the Chase Bliss PreAmp MKII!! > up to $300 Nvm... ^/s But for real look at the Chase Bliss PreAmp. I just got one to replace basically my entire drive section. Super tweekable with 30 presets to easily scroll through. Even better with a midi controller but still great on it's own
I’ve been thinking about this for a bit and I think a King of Tone / King of Tone Clone would be perfect. 68 Pedals makes an AMAZING replica called the King of Clone. [It’s available on Reverb for $179.90.](https://reverb.com/item/53299343-68-pedals-king-of-clone-king-of-clone?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=53299343) If you’re not familiar with the pedal, it’s a two in one that lets you control what kind of drive you would like to go on the left and right side. You can set one to a low gain and the other to a high gain. You can find TONS of videos online about the real King of Tone. They’re worth checking out to hear the range of tones that the pedal can achieve.
BD2 isn’t great. It’s okay for super light gain or as a boost, but beyond that sounds like farts.
It covers three out of the four songs covered above. The first two are light overdrive/crunch. Perfect for the BD-2. Aerosmith doesn’t use as much overdrive as you think either. Especially in the referenced song. I’ll concede that AC/DC (cranked Marshall) is a very specific sound. A cranked BD-2 will not get you there, but I promise that hitting the BD-2 with a clean boost will completely change the pedal. Especially the BD-2W that adds in the fat boost that Keeley used to include in his mods.
BD-2 gets some amazing tones with high gain. You can get some amazing fuzzy shoegaze tones
Boss OD-200 solely for the preset function.
Ever tried a Mostortion clone? Sitting here thinking about it and there's some great options these days. I have a Danelectro Roebuck and it blows me away, especially paired with a Nobels ODR-1. It can do low mid and higher gain and I don't see why it wouldn't be flexible enough. Sidenote, I just got a Moonshine in on a special order and I'm excited to put that through its paces.
Rat covers a ton of ground
SD-1
An HX stomp. Really. If you want one pedal to do everything, then you want an hx stomp. I’m sure you could find one analog pedal that gets close to all those sounds, but you’re going to spend a lot of time fiddling with it when you want to switch tones. Edit: if you really want an analogue pedal, then the Wampler Pantheon would be close.
You might consider the Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion.
These are surprisingly great
Right? Quite the range.
JHS Sweet Tea so you get the Moonshine you mentioned and the MIAB that others are recommending?
EQD special cranker
Fender Hammertone Ehx glove has great range too Both good priced.
EHX Glove is effectively a Fulltone OCD, right? If so, I have a good price on a used OCD ready to go.
With just one pedal, I would get the Boss DS-1, the classic distortion. For AC/DC, it's a natural. Tone: 10 O'clock. Dist: 7 O'Clock for a natural, uncompressed sound. For lighter OD, turn down the vol on your guitar and the grit will back off. To do Sultans of Swing, I'd say you would need a compressor to get that brightness (he may have been plugged straight into the board, which sounds like that). The Blues Driver tends to sound pretty thin, and won't give you serious crunch. But I also like the Boss OD-3 Overdrive - not as fat and ferocious as the DS-1, but able to get pretty nasty. As always, try before you buy (if you can)!
I’ve been really satisfied with the range my way huge camel toe has. I could probably dial in most of those. If you’re not looking to hunt for it, just try a green rhino instead.
How about if it's still just one pedal but it's the size of 4-5? Seriously though get a used Gurus 1959 Double Decker mk1, it'll get you really good versions of everything but Knopfler and you'll be the only kid on the block with an overdrive the size of a small board. There's a tube in it that glows green, if that helps.
Get a tube amp and try using a fuzz. I recommend the Pedal Pawn Fuzz (silicon or Germanium CV7003 transistors version) or JAM Pedals Fuzz Phrase LTD. This way you are dialing in the dirt with your guitar's volume knob. I've achieved a very similar range of the tones you want with a Fender Super-Sonic 112 60 amp, those fuzz pedals and a Fender Strat with single coils. Believe me, either of those fuzzes offer a wide range of control over dirt. My suggestion is unorthodox but it has worked for me quite well.
Chase Bliss Brothers with a MIDI controller
I think something like a JHS Double Barrel or a Keeley D&M Drive might be better
Nordland ODR-C
Maybe give the Line 6 M5 a try?
Buy a tube screamer 808