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GFS dual hi-gain pedal - anyone have one yet?


wagdog

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Most seem to dig their pedals. I seem to recall hearing good things.

 

I would assume, like any cheaper dirt box, the amp it's going into will matter a lot. It probably won't turn a Fender FM into a Mesa stack, but I'd wager it would sound pretty durn good through almost any 6L6 based 100w tube head, being run through a cabinet with some decent, appropriate speakers. :idk:

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Most seem to dig their pedals. I seem to recall hearing good things.


I would assume, like any cheaper dirt box, the amp it's going into will matter a lot. It probably won't turn a Fender FM into a Mesa stack, but I'd wager it would sound pretty durn good through almost any 6L6 based 100w tube head, being run through a cabinet with some decent, appropriate speakers.
:idk:

 

I'd be running it through my twin, which is very clean - it's like the telecaster of amplifiers, very honest. If the pedal doesn't sound good, this amp isn't going to help it.

 

My tubescreamer sounds pretty good, and I built a nice clean vol boost - but I'd really like something that can hit a compressed, not fuzzy, but overdriven/dirty tone and not sound fizzy... and not sound nasily (which tubescreamers tend to be).

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How high of gain tones are you wanting to get Wagdog? Are you wanting to go beyond JCM800 tones?

 

The Barber Direct Drive is an absolutely AWESOME pedal for turning clean Fenders into 70s - 80s Marshalls. The key is the right speakers. I mentioned it in one of your speaker threads, but Doc Morbius, lowbrow and I did a comparison between three Twins. The Weber Californias sounded absolutely spectacular clean, but with gain... not so much. Another Twin had one stock Utah and one Weber 12F150 and the tones we got with that Direct Drive would have blown any Fender player's mind. It worked better with deep 800 and slightly boosted 800 type tones more than cranked Super Lead type tones so 80s tones better than AC/DC 'open crunchy' tones, but I really think much of that vibe is from having EL34s cooking more than just from the preamp.

 

I got my first Twin in about 1993 or so... tried about 12 different pedals trying to make it sound like my old 800 combo but it absolutely NEVER sounded right. I could get decent ratty punk tones (no offense Noah ;) ) using an original RAT, but for believable Marshall tones... forget about it. Just wasn't happening. Tried the RAT, original Guvnor, a Chandler Tube Driver, Butler Tube Driver... Old Tube Screamer... BD2... several others.

 

The Direct Drive and the Utah/Weber speakers in that one Twin... flat out awesome. And I have no doubt that there are pedals that will do it even more convincingly. The Dirty Little Secret for one, but it's kinda pricey.

 

I got my Direct Drive for $90 and I've seen them as low as $75. I have no idea on the GFS pedal, but if you get a used Direct Drive and don't like it, you can sell it and just lose shipping.

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Haha, none taken Cratz. Heh, ask lowbrow if my Stiletto sounds "ratty" or not though. It's pretty {censored}in intense. :D

 

Yeah, anyway, OP, I'm thinkin cratz is right about a not so hi gain type box. TS Pedals are INCREDIBLE for stacking into a slghtly gainier box/amp channel for some really great higher gain tones.

 

If you have your TS set for a milder overdrive, nice and touch responsive, blusey type drive, you then run that into some kind of distortion set for a very low gain, muffley kind of tone. Just like a louder, darker, slightly fuzzier clean. The TS in to that bassy-mush-tone will make it sound like a pissed off Marshall really quick. I've tried this with several different combinations. From two $200 range boutique pedals and an all tube head, to a crappy BBE Green Screamer into a Boss Bass OD into a small solid state Fender practice amp... it always sounds awesome.

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Too bad Jay hasn't considered actually putting up some samples for ALL of his pedal offerings, as I'm not inclined to buy something I can't even get an ear on first. I'd be interested in one of his dual gain pedals too...if I could hear one.

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Too bad Jay hasn't considered actually putting up some samples for ALL of his pedal offerings, as I'm not inclined to buy something I can't even get an ear on first. I'd be interested in one of his dual gain pedals too...if I could hear one.

 

 

This.

 

I'm done buying gfs stuff that I can't hear first.

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That, or the GFS Blues pedal, which looks versatile too, or even the GFS TS pedal which has the switch for variations.

 

Back when I was running a tube rig, I had a super clean Fender Hot Rod and tried several pedals out front. The Marshall Jackhammer in "OD" mode actually worked really well, and the "DIST" mode kicked it way up a notch too if that's your thing. Their pedals are really sweet IMO.

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The Bluesdrive is a good pedal. It tames the highend just a touch and has a somewhat compressed response which will be a blessing or a curse depending on your tonal goal. Here's a clip from my review. If you want a bit more openness in the highs, less compression, and more tonal control (at the expense of some low end grunt) the Boss BD-2 would be a very good choice.

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The Bluesdrive is a good pedal. It tames the highend just a touch and has a somewhat compressed response which will be a blessing or a curse depending on your tonal goal. Here's a
from
. If you want a bit more openness in the highs, less compression, and more tonal control (at the expense of some low end grunt) the Boss BD-2 would be a very good choice.

 

 

Read the review, listened to the clips - sounded nice and nice playing too. That's sort of the tone I'm looking for, especially the less gainy ones. Going to look for some clips of the boss pedal as well as the barber direct drive.

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Oh man, sounds like a different OD is what you want, not a high gain pedal at all.


Find a guv'nor clone like the crunch box or super plextortion. GFS Brownie is supposed to be Marshally.

 

 

Danelectro Daddy O' is a Guvnor clone and an excellent, cheap pedal to boot... another dirt box not to sleep on is the Behringer VT-999, drop a Tungsol 12AX7 in her an your golden.

 

here's a clip of my VT-999 with the Tungsol tube through the clean channel of my Crate VC3112 played on my cheapo parts Tele with Rose Pickups Westerlands...

 

 

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=9914975

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Thanks for the clip Dice.

 

I watched a barber direct drive on ebay last night, was sitting at $60 w/an hour to go. Went for over $90 + shipping - no thanks. I'll keep my eye out for a used one. Also looking at a boss bluesdriver on CL.

 

Still interested in the gfs bluesdriver as well, mostly due to Will's clips - that sounded really nice.

 

We'll see....

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How high of gain tones are you wanting to get Wagdog? Are you wanting to go beyond JCM800 tones?


The Barber Direct Drive is an absolutely AWESOME pedal for turning clean Fenders into 70s - 80s Marshalls. The key is the right speakers. I mentioned it in one of your speaker threads, but Doc Morbius, lowbrow and I did a comparison between three Twins. The Weber Californias sounded absolutely spectacular clean, but with gain... not so much. Another Twin had one stock Utah and one Weber 12F150 and the tones we got with that Direct Drive would have blown any Fender player's mind. It worked better with deep 800 and slightly boosted 800 type tones more than cranked Super Lead type tones so 80s tones better than AC/DC 'open crunchy' tones, but I really think much of that vibe is from having EL34s cooking more than just from the preamp.


I got my first Twin in about 1993 or so... tried about 12 different pedals trying to make it sound like my old 800 combo but it absolutely NEVER sounded right. I could get decent ratty punk tones (no offense Noah
;)
) using an original RAT, but for believable Marshall tones... forget about it. Just wasn't happening. Tried the RAT, original Guvnor, a Chandler Tube Driver, Butler Tube Driver... Old Tube Screamer... BD2... several others.


The Direct Drive and the Utah/Weber speakers in that one Twin... flat out awesome. And I have no doubt that there are pedals that will do it even more convincingly. The Dirty Little Secret for one, but it's kinda pricey.


I got my Direct Drive for $90 and I've seen them as low as $75. I have no idea on the GFS pedal, but if you get a used Direct Drive and don't like it, you can sell it and just lose shipping.

 

I also have a Twin and the only Distortion/OD that I have liked for it is a Fulltone OCD .

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I've seen the reference to the Daddy-O being the same circuit as the Guvnor... I don't know... I was never really all that crazy about the Guvnor myself, but the Daddy-O seemed pretty over the top. As a clean to low gain to a mid gain guy, the Daddy-O was useless to me and it sounded radically better into an already dirty-ish amp. Into a clean amp, it sounded almost like a fuzz, even with the gain almost all the way down. The Marshall didn't sound like that every. It just kept getting rattier and rattier, but never really sounded like a fuzz.

 

One thing I kinda hate about Dano dirt pedals is their circuits all seem to want to cram a {censored}load of gain between 0 and 1 on the dial. I also compared the silver Dano Cool Cat Drive to the OCD v4 or 1.4 or whatever you want to call it. Their type of drives were very similar, but the OCD... you could use it almost as a clean boost if you wanted to. And with the gain below about 4/10, it sounded somewhat like a fully cranked clean channel on a DSL50. The Cool Cat with the gain on like 0.5 was more than than I'd usually ever use.

 

So without really comparing the Guvnor and the Daddy-O back to back, I wouldn't comment on their tones but I will say that I can see how many, many guitarists could love the Guvnor and hate the Daddy-O, if just for their range of gain if nothing else.

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I also have a Twin and the only Distortion/OD that I have liked for it is a Fulltone OCD .

 

 

Yeah, I have an OCD. It was fine into my Twin with the big square magnet CTSs, but like I said, I just came to the conclusion that I don't care for much gain into JBL speakers or the Weber California knockoffs.

 

I would say that with the right speakers... and there are lots of 'right' speakers... CTS, Utahs, Oxfords, bigger magnet ceramic Jensens and certainly many Celestions... the Direct Drive is incredible for getting Marshall tones. Like I said, we compared a few of Doc Morbius's amps with the Direct Drive and a guitar with 57 Classics and we simply couldn't believe the Marshall tones that were coming out of his Silverface that had the one Utah and one 12F150. The Twin with the Californias... not happening. Sounded holy when clean and loud, but not good at all with gain.

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I've seen the reference to the Daddy-O being the same circuit as the Guvnor... I don't know... I was never really all that crazy about the Guvnor myself, but the Daddy-O seemed pretty over the top. As a clean to low gain to a mid gain guy, the Daddy-O was useless to me and it sounded radically better into an already dirty-ish amp. Into a clean amp, it sounded almost like a fuzz, even with the gain almost all the way down. The Marshall didn't sound like that every. It just kept getting rattier and rattier, but never really sounded like a fuzz.


One thing I kinda hate about Dano dirt pedals is their circuits all seem to want to cram a {censored}load of gain between 0 and 1 on the dial. I also compared the silver Dano Cool Cat Drive to the OCD v4 or 1.4 or whatever you want to call it. Their type of drives were very similar, but the OCD... you could use it almost as a clean boost if you wanted to. And with the gain below about 4/10, it sounded somewhat like a fully cranked clean channel on a DSL50. The Cool Cat with the gain on like 0.5 was more than than I'd usually ever use.


So without really comparing the Guvnor and the Daddy-O back to back, I wouldn't comment on their tones but I will say that I can see how many, many guitarists could love the Guvnor and hate the Daddy-O, if just for their range of gain if nothing else.

 

 

 

you musta had a bad one brother... mine can go from clean boost to fuzz no problem... it does the Vox early break up thing EXTREMELY well... then again, my Crate Vintage Club has an AMAZING clean channel and takes pedal very, very well,,, hell, even the Dano Minis sound great through my amp:idk:

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Have you tried a Bad Monkey?

 

 

Nope. I was sort of under the impression (maybe incorrectly?) that is more or less a tube screamer type overdrive / tone? No?

 

I've heard clips of the OCD and thought it was OK, but it sounded a little fizzy to me.

 

Really need to get to a store that has all of these pedals and give them a go. I just hate going through tons of buying and selling of pedals to find the right one... but suppose that's really how the game is played.

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you musta had a bad one brother... mine can go from clean boost to fuzz no problem... it does the Vox early break up thing EXTREMELY well... then again, my Crate Vintage Club has an AMAZING clean channel and takes pedal very, very well,,, hell, even the Dano Minis sound great through my amp:idk:

 

You have all the luck, man! I guess it could have been modded... or broken... I did buy it used, but it was in perfect condition and I read a couple other reports of folks saying they thought it had WAY too much gain WAY too early on the dial.

 

That really does seem to be a Dano 'thing'... Like I said, the exact same is true of the silver Dano Cool Cat Drive.

 

:idk:

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Nope. I was sort of under the impression (maybe incorrectly?) that is more or less a tube screamer type overdrive / tone? No?


I've heard clips of the OCD and thought it was OK, but it sounded a little fizzy to me.


Really need to get to a store that has all of these pedals and give them a go. I just hate going through tons of buying and selling of pedals to find the right one... but suppose that's really how the game is played.

 

I never thought of the OCD as fizzy, but again, I usually run it with the gain somewhere between 9:00 and 1:00. And I suspect I probably dial in a chunkier sound that you do. EQ-wise.

 

I think the OCD, Direct Drive and the LTD SR sound decent into a clean amp, but I really think the reason a lot of folks tend to not get on with pedals is either they want to run the pedal into a crystal clean amp, or they aren't running the power section of their amp hard enough. I think that's why I tend to like 12-22 watt amps... It's easy enough to get their power tubes really cookin' which I think as a tendency to smooth things out for lack of a better word. A hot-running power section tends to make a pedal sound more like part of the amp rather than a pedal goosing a clean amp.

 

That's my take anyway. I see a lot of folks that run Twins and 100 watt Marshalls that can't seem to get along with many pedals, but I see a lot of guys with low powered amps that get along with them great.

 

:idk:

 

Out of curiosity, do you ever stack pedals? Even if it's just to experiment at dialing in one particular tone? Try it... it's free. Set your amp clean, take the pedal closer to the amp and dial in just enough gain so that it's barely starting to sound like overdrive... then maybe nudge it up just a hair... like half of a number setting higher. Then try a couple different pedals in front of that, one at a time. It can have a similar effect, as long as you don't use pedals that accentuate the same frequencies such as two Tube Screamer types. I know SRV did it, but he did it at crazy volumes.

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You have all the luck, man! I guess it could have been modded... or broken... I did buy it used, but it was in perfect condition and I read a couple other reports of folks saying they thought it had WAY too much gain WAY too early on the dial.


That really does seem to be a Dano 'thing'... Like I said, the exact same is true of the silver Dano Cool Cat Drive.


:idk:

 

 

oh no, i don't doubt you at all cratz... i do know that mine is as old as dirt:idk:

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