Best distortion for baritone guitar?

[Carlos]

Hi everybody,

I bought a Epiphone Les Paul Baritone a few months ago and I love playing it with a dropped A tuning . I'm not into Nu/whatever metal, but we found out that the mellotron sounds of our keyboard player  cut through much better when there is no ordinary guitar in that particular frequency rage. The mellos, however, do not have good bass sounds, that's why I use the baritone. (Yes, there is a bass player, too;)

Anyway, is there a DIY or commercial distortion that retains the low mids / bass of a baritone guitar and is not "flabby"?
What do you recommend?

Regards

Carlos

[SISKO]

I think the boss MD-2 would fit here

[runmikeyrun]

you might try something like the MXR M-80 bass di.  I have one for bass and i think it sounds great on bass and guitar, so it might fit right in there for ya.  On bass it has a very thick opamp-y distortion, sounds like Meshuggah's bass sound.  On guitar it's a bit fuzzier but is reminiscent of a Boss Metal Zone.  The nice thing is it has a blend control built in so you can give it a slight amount of clean tone underneath to retain some low end and punch at high gain settings but if you do it subtly you can't hear a clean sound in the mix, you just feel the difference.  It also has a noise gate, clean channel, 3 band eq, plus a DI out.  All around very flexible and i have seen them going used on ebay for $60.  New i think they're about double that.

[Taylor]

Nu-metal with Mellotron? This I would like to hear. I applaud your band's attitude.

[soggybag]

Great question. I have a baritone. A lot of effects that sound good with a regular guitar don't sound as good with the baritone. I like the baritone, it's got a great sound that is different from just down tuning to C or B.

[Carlos]

Thanks for your contributions! Any DIY distortion? Dr. Boogey?

BTW I'm NOT into Nu/whatever metal. We play progressive rock. Mellotron sounds are really cool. Guitars, however, often interfere with mellos, because guitars are right in the frequency range where mellos sound good.
But you're right, they don't seem appropriate in a nu-metal song

[kupervaser]

I've always used Boss SD-2, which worked fine for me, the guitar was tuned to B. However I had lots of feedback with that pedal.

No I am using Vox Duel OVerdrive, cooltron series, i think it is better, however still a bit too much of a feedback.

Maybe you should try it?

[duckpow]

The Russian Big muff sounds great on baritone and bass! On of the guitarist from my band plays with a baritone tuned to B, and trough the russian muff. Sound awesome!

[petemoore]

  The ''slower'' time constants at lower frequencies [bass / baritone to some degree, compared to guitar] can make the clipping sound a bit more like a series of clicks that make a buzz tone.
  That's how I think about it, as compared to distorting a guitar.
    It seems like there is sufficient time allowance for the speaker and everything to make a 'time mark' for the clipped content before being asked to get back to doing the other 'normal' work.
  The speaker, as always, has somethings to say about distortion you will hear.

[wavley]

The M-80 is really nice with baritone.  I also like the russian muff.  I really love the ehx english muffin.  All of those things go pretty great with my baritone.

[Carlos]

I bought a cheap Hughes & Kettner Warp Factor at ebay and modded it (R19 adjustable mids). It sounds fantastic with my ENGL amp (Clean channel) and 4x12" cab.

[reubster]

I play baritones exclusively these days, mainly heavy-punkish rock stuff and then I noodle around a bit with jazz.

Generally, I haven't found the bass rolloff from guitar pedals to be a big problem, since that low B string is pretty loud anyway.
[Especially if you use 68's] but many pedals just don't seem to "inspire"  on the bottom end.
The bigger issue is pedals voiced with high distorted bass content, as these do tend to flab out.

Best pedal for me by far [for open backed and single/double cabs] is the Carl Martin Plexitone.
It has that  great plexi-tone if thats what you are looking for, and has superb clarity [due to the 12V rails] but what makes it ideal for Baritone is that the clipper circuit rolls of the bass at 1540Khz  and the Active Tone circuitry brings it back with a bass boost.
You get a clean powerful tight bottom end.
This gives a very similar effect to a quadbox ...where you get that big punchy 100Hz hump......
But, the CM pedal does not work so good with a quaddie [for the same reason] so with my JTM + Quad rig I tend to use a boss turbo overdrive.

[LP Hovercraft]

I've found that the Axis Face from Fuzz Central sounds pretty nice w/a baritone-my fave.   The Supreaux, 18, Tripple Fuzz, F%xx T*ne Machine, and even the Obsidian are all pretty good too...  It just depends on how menacing you want to get.

[chev]

interesting thread!

I use the new Bass Big Muff on my my Epiphone Lespaul Baritone and it's the best growling tone I've eared for now.

I also have a Big Muff Tone Wicker on my second amp but I don't find enough definition with it...my Graphic Fuzz works better.

But, I'm waiting for a BYOC Mighty Mouse which should growl better...can't wait to ear it!

[WGTP]

One of the techniques used around here for tweaking lows for a tighter or less flabby bass (whatever guitar your using) is to reduce the bass going thru the distortion and boosting it back up before output.  This can be accomplished thru a variety of circuits, both active and passive.  How much the bass is rolled off before and boosted after is a matter of taste and the limits of the circuit.  It can be done with a single pole 6db/oct. or double pole 12db/oct. or something in between by cascading filters.

As mentioned above, another technique is to mix undistorted or clean signal with distortion.  If your amp has 2 inputs (or if you have 2 amps), you might try getting some Y connectors and running one side clean and the other thru a distortion which you can usually adjust the bass content of by tweaking the input cap value.

Some of the splitter/blender type circuits might be handy to allow you to combine clean and dirty signals.

Just some general ideas.  

[mrscientificterms]

I have a first run Korean RI Dane Bari.  Bought it the first week it came out, love it.  I'm trying to keep in mind the difference between the lipsticks p'ups and the Epis.  I have been recording mine a good bit lately (sub for bass gtr).  A Russian Muff works great, I agree.  I sometimes uses a Japan Ibanez Tube King, I swapped the tube for a JJ.  My super secret trick for baritone guitar, I look to put an old DOD Meat Grinder, a subharmonic generator/Bari sounds great out of a bass amp with a 15" speaker.  I love baritone guitar!  A basic old Boss EQ will put sparkile and thump to em, too, and add some presencde to the distorition.  Have fun, I'd like to hear your band sometime.

[jkokura]

The various suggestions sound good. I'd also like to recommend the Bass guitar version of the Fulldrive - I think it's called the Bassdrive?

Pretty much any bass guitar specified fuzz, od or distortion should work with a Baritone guitar. I've not used the bari with a pedal myself, mostly just amps, but I found they can sound really, really good in vintage Fender Bassmans - amps designed for bass guitar that often got used by guitarists. Perhaps thinking about what amp to use it with will matter more than the pedal itself... just a thought.

Jacob

[chev]

That's why I use old 1970 Sunn Amps and two 2x15''...

I found out that the Graphic Fuzz(Fuzz off) let me roll off low frequency 125Hz and 250Hz, and boost the 500Hz, 1000Hz, 2000Hz, and cut the annoying fuzzy 4000Hz coming for The BigMuff Tone Wicker with Tone bypass which is full band...this way it blends way better with the bass Muff and is less flabby. It actually sound closer to an overdrive this way...

The Bass Big Muff as an Fx and a Dry out, so in blend mode you can dial in just a bit of fuzz...

Also playing with just the bridge pick-up helps, but I like playing with the two for more chest thump but less tight...the best would be to split the guitar output plug in stereo, one pick-up per amp...