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best overdrive box ever


animal69

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well i think i've cracked the code. i've tried the folllowing boxes:

 

chandler bk butler real tube

chandler bk butler blue tube

ibanez ts7 w/ ts808 mod

ehx big muff: russian and usa

digitech screamin blues

digitech bad monkey

damage control womanizer

ehx english muffn

marshall guvnor

bbe green screamer

mxr distortion +

mxr distortion iii

dod fx50b overdrive

dod yjm308 yngwie malmsteem overdrive

mxr doubleshot

behringer vt999 with bitmo mod

 

and the winner is, no bull{censored}, the damage control liquid blues with ..... one special mod .. NOS 12BZ7 tubes in it. i got some NOS Philco tubes from ebay. the 12BZ7s have as much gain as a 12AX7 but they draw way more current and they are alot bigger, almost as big as EL84s. I actually blew up my amp trying to put a 12BZ7 in the reverb slot in place of a 12AT7. 4 serious. It's broken so don't {censored} with these. These are behemoth preamp tubes, the biggest and most powerful tube that will sub for a 12AX7 (dual triode) and the liquid blues seems to handle them fine for hours at a time. The result is pretty frickin awesome. It's like having a tube amp in a stomp box that you can push into some pretty thick distortion. it gives way more possible gain than the stock liquid blues, without sacrificing the sweet ass tone. the tone is better, actually. turn the drive up and up and it gets heavy, bro. kick on the nuclear boost and its a little much ... if you like death metal then you probably won't like it because it sounds sweet and sassy but for anything else i love it.

 

i was going to keep this a secret until i got famous and everyone wanted to know about my secret tone but i figured what the hell.

 

I actually tried all of the following dual triode tubes in the liquid blues, womanizer, real tube, blue tube:

 

12BH7

12AU7

12AY7

12AT7

12AZ7

JAN 5751

12AX7

12BZ7

 

Nothing tops the Liquid Blues with 12BZ7s. Anyways that's Animal69's contribution to the world of music. Enjoy. You heard it here first. Just remember that 12BZ7's really don't belong in there and I still don't know what the long term effects are but 4now it sounds schweeet... I'll post sound clips if anyone wants.

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Depends on OD. People have different perceptions of OD. Especially with gain stages.

 

For a good all around fenderish low gain OD i'd go with a Paul C Timmy.

 

For a bit heavier the Shredmaster, right now that is. Thats almost distortion IMO.

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nothing will ever touch a dimed plexi. i know that's not what we're talking about right now, but a pedal can never touch a naturally driven amp imo. i'm happy that you've found a good combination though and would like to hear some clips. they better be damn good though after all that.... lol.

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I agree with the above posters. If those are the only od's you've tried, you have a long, long way to go my friend:poke: You only have like a bizillian more to play before you can definitively "prove" your theory

EDIT: for christ's sake stop blowing up amps. damn man

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So it's the best ever
after
a mod?

 

 

I really like it a lot better with the 12BZ7 tubes. They sound a lot more like a real overdriven amp than the stock 12AX7 tubes do. It's not really difficult to perform, just unscrew the back and change the tubes.

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i agree that people will disagree. This is just a review based on my own perception. If I post clips, do you want them totally raw -- just guitar to pedal to direct high-Z input on my interface? I usually use Amplitube with the "American Clean 1" setting which is like a Fender amp, just to give the sound some ambience. Let me know which you want.

 

For the poster who mentioned tubescreamers -- yes I used a TS7 modded to TS808 specs which involves changing two resistors, because the TS7 comes with the JRC4558D stock. The TS9 has the same circuit in terms of resistors but usually has the TI RC4558P I believe. I tried the TS9 and TS9DX also though, now that you mentioned it.

 

Yeah I'll try some Boss pedals, then. Ohh.. I forgot to add I also tried the MI audio Tube Zone too. I will also try to get ahold of the OCD and Timmy because I've heard a lot of mention of those before. I don't think I did too bad, altogether, though. The liquid blues pedal really is just pretty unique compared to anything else. No other pedals have tubes running at such a high voltage besides the Gjika mini-amp which is like $600 and his also huge.

 

As for different guitars and cables, that doesn't make a huge difference in the characteristics I was looking for. I was looking, more than anything, for something that sounded very close to a poweramp being overdriven--something with soft clipping and not a lot of transistorish grit.. In terms of other qualities most of those can be adjusted with EQ, pickups and tone knobs on the guitar and the pedal.

 

I agree that nothing can touch the sound of a dimed poweramp but my idea was to look for something that you can use *before* your modulation, reverb, delay, etc.

 

Anyways, this whole thing is based on my subjective opinion about what sounds best. Also, it should be noted, that I used headphones most of the time to listen closely and a lot of the characteristics I was paying attention to are hard to pick out when you're playing through speakers. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else with a trained ear also liked what I picked out, though.

 

I just thought I'd put that out there if anyone else cares to try it. Take it or leave it. Thanks.

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I actually like boosts a bit better than overdrives tonally, but I haven't tried a slew of different ones tonally to compare.

 

Although I reaaaally want to try a Blackstone and a Fat Sandwich with my Vox.

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No OCD or BB Preamp??

 

 

What's the latest version of the OCD? I did check out some samples from that pedal and I must admit it does sound like a much closer facsimile to a tube amp than a Tubescreamer. It is way ahead of the Tubescreamer. From the sound samples I noticed that most of the transistor grit is missing, which is a good thing because very few pedals avoid this grit sound. That's not to say the OCD can touch my dual Philco 12BZ7 liquid blues. I'll need to order one to compare. Anyways is version 4 the latest? Does version really make a difference?

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