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Gain inquiry with pedals


valvestate

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So after acquiring a fairly number of Overdrive pedals lately, I finally decided to buy a distortion pedal. I'm playing to my lil Vox Pathfinder 15W through a Strat and Ibanez humbucker equipped guitar. Here are my choices:

 

* Zvex Box of Rock

* Mi Audio crunchbox

* EHX Little Big Muff

* USA Big Muff

* Tube Zone

 

I mostly play in a church but sometimes I also enjoy listening to 70's rock like Hendrix, Santana (hence the big muff), Cream, etc... and also some old school grunge Soundgarden, Pearl Jam stuff.I'm looking for some gain but can also do some good low overdriven sound.

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have you considered getting a larger amp? the reason I ask is that whenever I play any fuzz into a small amp, it sounds horrible, like maybe the speaker is ripped and shredded. Playing a fuzz into a larger amp, esp tube-based, sounds much warmer.

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I have a Box of Rock, a Crunch Box, an MI Audio Blues Pro Overdrive and a muff-esque Skreddy Mayo.

 

I'll start by saying that the Crunch Box probably has too much gain for you. It has overwhelming gain on tap and is my favorite distortion pedal EVER... BUT you probably wouldn't want to kick that in during church.

 

The Box of Rock is great. Nails the Marshall JTM-45 sound. Nails it. This has probably become my main dirtbox (sounds great with HB's & Singlecoils too!) and that 'Boost' feature is priceless. Great pedal for low-mid gain. This is probably your money pedal.

 

However, I mentioned that I have a Blues Pro because that's probably the bottom end of the Tube Zone. You can get similar gain to the Crunch Box ... but from everything I've heard ... that pedal is a pain when it comes to tweaking. If you're willing to spend time with it though ... you might want to go that direction. It's easily (IMO) the most versatile pedal you listed ... but again, you'll probably have to spend a lot of time with it to get it 'just right.'

 

I'm not sure fuzz is where you want to go ... so the Muffs may be out. Fuzz is great ... but if you're just looking for some dirt, you might want to look elsewhere.

 

Since I mentioned the Blues Pro ... that might be worth a look too. It's basically a modded tubescreamer ... but it goes from light crunch to pretty dirty ... so think about that too. But that might make things harder for you.

 

I'd say -- Box of Rock

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