you guys should try this!!

[nero1985]

i usually have a PODxt but the sound is just so @#$%ing FAKE so i thought of using stompboxes...now i remembered my band's bassist has a pedalboard that he doesnt use at all and i thought maybe i could use his pedals...now wat did this pedalboard have..... BOSS Bass overdrive (yellow box), BOSS Bass Chorus (same controls as the super chorus for guitah), BOSS Bass GE7 (EQ), BOSS Octave pedal (OC-2) and a "Tube Screame TS-9" i tried this bass overdrive and damn, its a great pedal! it has 2 band EQ high and low, a level knob, drive and the best part on is a BLEND knob to blend the distortion and the clean sound!!! that is just out of control! the cool thing is that i like that 80's guitar sound, HIGH GAIN but at the same time CLEAN! thats the way i see it, the overdrive itself has a lot of gain! almost like a FUZZ i dont like FUZZ pedals cuz the sounds is just too messy to me but in this case the sound is like a high gain distortion and not an overdrive and then wat i did as well was i put the tube screamer before the overdrive and works amazing! now it has more gain and then signal thats supposed to be clean is now overdrive so its its like a Brian May sound its great!

well i just wanted to share this with u guys! this proves that DIGITAL is GARBAGE!

i have a question tho..

the tube screamer and the overdrive make a lot of noise when they r together alone each one dont make much noise so im thinking about a Noise Gate,, the one i want is the ISP Decimator wich is supposed to be the best gate out there designed by the creators of the rocktron's HUSH, now my question is, would a noise gate clean the noise of 2 distortion pedals?  now, could u recomend me a noise gate thats would work with this?

ok guys thanks alot!

[Dan N]

Glad you are happy.

I used to be a tube snob. Solid state was garbage.

Then I was O.K. with transistors. Germanium. All else was garbage.

Then maybe silicon transistors were O.K. No integrated circuits please, 'cause they are garbage.

Etc, etc...

Now I can usually find a way to have fun with and enjoy any technology thrown my way.

I build analog because I don't understand digital.

[Stevo]

Maybe you dont need a noise gate but a buffer....simple one on guitar gadgets...I never liked any kind of noise pedal it ruins the sustain and envelope of your tone..

[DDD]

The Tube Screamer is quite noisy device. Try something more modern and less noisy instead of it.
As they say "noise gate improves some problems but creates the same number of the new ones"

[RandomRedLetters]

when you run 2 distortion pedals together its going to be noisy regardless. If you really need that much distortion, go for a thrid pedal designed for high gain. A noise gate on high level hiss might dull your overall string attack.

[Transmogrifox]

A noise gate only eliminates hiss when you're not playing.  It doesn't do a 'search and destroy' FFT noise filtering.  Then when you use FFT filtering, it doesn't leave the sound you're inputting unscathed.

Like said in another post here, the excess noise can soften your attack, and generally adds a bad 'taste' to your sound.

Here's one potential solution:  Most commercial distortion pedals are built using carbon film resistors.  The thermal noise generated by these resistors is many times that generated by metal film resistors.  If you replace all of the resistors in both pedals with metal film--that will make a noise reduction.  You could even do this selectively, but you would have to have substantial electronics knowlege to know which ones are important, and which are not great sources of noise.

After that (if it's still too noisey), you can start replacing IC's with lower noise devices.  I have a circuit using MC33078's that has 40dB gain and I cannot tell whether it's on or off when not playing.

For as much hype goes into IC's, the effect on the pedal's tone will be subtle, and maybe even an improvement, so sacrificing the sanctity of the JRC4558 in the TS-9 for a lower noise device may not be as sacreligious as you think.

That's about all you can do short of re-designing the pedal with more noise considerations in mind...which takes an engineer's knowlege...and that takes a few years of studying mean math and making your head hurt in ways you didn't think were possible.

What it all boils down to is that one cannot completely eliminate noise from a circuit.  When you have a lot of gain, you amplify inaudible noise to an audible level.  The more you can minimize noise on the input of the gain stages, the less noise you will hear.  Therefore, your first pedal in line is the most important pedal for reducing noise (the TS-9).  

Does that help?

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

:roll:

i wish people would give digital equipment a break...

[RandomRedLetters]

:roll:

i wish people would give digital equipment a break...

The little digital effects... not that great, once you get into the better rackmount stuff, with higher sampling rates, then they sound more natural.

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

:roll:

i wish people would give digital equipment a break...

The little digital effects... not that great, once you get into the better rackmount stuff, with higher sampling rates, then they sound more natural.

you say that like you're still physically capable of hearing the 20k harmonics your guitar cannot create and your speaker cabinet cannot replicate... someone around here has an arguement against digital with sampling rates taking the real payload.    biggest shortcoming, yes, but not *that* big, imho

i, myself, can probably only hear 12k (a fact that fills me with sadness). my guitar can only make 3k (i think), and my cabinet can only hit 5k ( the one thing i am sure of).

[nelson]

:roll:

i wish people would give digital equipment a break...

The little digital effects... not that great, once you get into the better rackmount stuff, with higher sampling rates, then they sound more natural.

you say that like you're still physically capable of hearing the 20k harmonics your guitar cannot create and your speaker cabinet cannot replicate... someone around here has an arguement against digital with sampling rates taking the real payload.    biggest shortcoming, yes, but not *that* big, imho

i, myself, can probably only hear 12k (a fact that fills me with sadness). my guitar can only make 3k (i think), and my cabinet can only hit 5k ( the one thing i am sure of).

When this scene gets into DIY digital programming.....then perhaps...just perhaps.......digital will get a better rep, as it stands digital sucks because we cant build it. The monoliths of the effects world are firmly in control......They cant program for EVERY taste.....I have "some" experience with digital plug ins and a crappy Zoom multi FX device, Digital in my experience isnt as tweakable and just doesnt have the level of experimentation I am after, nor does it sound "right"......I have very limited experience with digital effects though, I am sure there are decent Digital effects out there, the holier grail comes to mind...its on my wish list....I just dont see digital ever becoming as "user friendly" nor do I see it getting to the tweakable level that exists with analog circuits because a programmer cant account for every user contingency, and they have to program for the most mass marketable sound......until the average DIYer/booteeker gets his/her claws into it I dont see the situation improving.  

Perhaps there will soon be a generation of "digital Keeleys" sales pitch would go like

"We take a russian computer made out of old soviet submarines, we Hack into the Memory chip, we get rid of all those tone suckign zeros and replace them with the & sign, this dramatically improves your tone and stops the 2nd order harmonics from escaping into the holes in the zeros, delivering you the tone you deserve. Guitarist magazine agrees with us. For this we only charge 40 bucks. Those & signs are expensive seeing as we use the pure silver font".......ok I think I went too far, btu hey, I am bored....at work....



anyway, if it sounds good to you, thats all that matters. This is just my 0.02 pence.

[DDD]

In any case pickup noise and hum and RF interference and ... e.t.c. are considerable independently of the first stages' noise. Even if you'll create "zero-noise' preamp you get a lot of noise from the guitar.
Too much gain = too much noise. What a pity :-)
Maybe some tricky filtering will help?

[nero1985]

thanks guys!!!!

i really like the sound im getting out of it right now, i tweaked both pedals to get less noise i lower the gain on the  Bass Overdrive and and turned the tube screamers drive up now the exact setup is:
Bass overdrive. drive, bass and balance 3o'clock, treble and drive 2o'clock,
Tube Screamer. drive 12o'clock, tone and level all the way to up

this reduced the noise and still gives me lots of sustain, i have tube screamer before the overdrive but im going to switch them to see wat i get out of it..

im still looking forward to a NOISE GATE maybe the HUSH or the DECIMATOR for the overal noise filtering, if i use a buffer where in the chain should i use it?

THANKS AGAIN TO ALL OF U!

[Paul Marossy]

Even I, Mr. Analog, have to say that digital effects have come quite a long way from what was available 10 years ago. However, you do get what you pay for. Don't expect stellar sounds from a $99 effects unit, you're going to be disappointed. Digital FX have their place, and you have to know how to approach them and how to use them to get the most out of them. Some things work better than others. I like digital for recording and not for live use, and analog for live use more than recording, but that's me.

[petemoore]

I lowered the noise floor.
 It hasn't gone under the 1rst floor completely yet.
 In order of the biggest differences:
 I turned off the CRT, EMI output is a real problem with computer recording using a CRT.
 I double shielded a Clone my Own LP, copper sheeting and shielded wire all around the SP. Quietest guitar I've ever had.
 Messing with different gain circuits for high gain/low noise.
 A good place to start with fancy resistors would of course be the near *input R's, and large R's because they tend to make more thermal noise.
 Reduceing any noise before the *signal and noise get multiplied.
 I use 47uf-100uf or so from V+ to V- using batteries.

[Yun]

Mr.Nero,

i think that a lot of your opinion comes from just the EQ, you know?  i myself can not stand to play electric without an EQ.  i have 2 EQ pedals (Danelectro 7-band EQ, and a vintage MXR 10-band EQ)  And for recording i use a 31 band EQ (rackmounted).  

i now use:

Guitar--->Compressor or booster---> Fuzz boxes--->Leslie---> wah--->EQ--->amp.  

Without an EQ- you'll never hear your amp's true potential, dude.  Especially with me, i use an old marshall stack!  Without an EQ; it's Mushy, muddy, muffled, and farty.  

I believe everyone needs an EQ from time to time; but with my taste in tone- it's ALLWAYS on....

[Stevo]

Build a simple buffer and put it at the end of the chain it should clean up some stuff .....noise could be a problem though if gain is to high....on your effects that is..

[Transmogrifox]

You could get a digital synthesizer keyboard.  I hear those are pretty low noise.  I guess you'd just have to sacrifice the guitar.  Digital synthesizers are lacking in good guitar sounds...but they're completely rad.  You could be just like Vangelis or the guys that play soundtracks for science documentaries.  :roll:

Sorry.  I'm responding sarcastically to the digital vs. analog discussion.

Good digital compressors, noise gates, delays, yadayada... are great effects.

A problem you have in digital systems, especially in digital IIR filters and delays is the quantization error multiplication.  A digital filter will process a sample at its given value,  feed it back to the input and add it to the next input sample, so now you have a potential worst-case scenario where you have quantization error 1 plus error 2, so now it's doubled.

An IIR filter feeds this loop hundreds of times, and as the amplitude of the impulse response gets lower, the greater the error is.  The lower the input signal amplitude, the greater the error is since less of the total possible bits are being used.

This is my theory why high end digital rack units have higher quality sound:

They probably put more effort into their software to minimize the multiplication and addition of error upon error.  They may use companders to keep input signal levels more constant on the input.

It's a similar effect to analog distortion.  We know this is why we can't cascade an unlimited number of BBD's in a delay chain and expect good results.  We can't make a 24 stage phaser without special considerations for distortion and noise.

I think this brings us back the the original opinion of us analog junkies:
There is something interesting and "warm" about analog distortion.  Digital repeat error gets to be rather harsh and makes the decay of the signal lose its natural flow.

High end digital gear addresses these issues with not only better hardware (faster sampling rates, higher bit resolution) but also with care in writing software for the DSPs that is more effiecient and doesn't perform superfluous operations just because they provide for easier programming.

My argument, then, is that more of the digital artifacts we hear are generated within the digital processing algorithm itself, and not so much in the A/D and D/A conversion stages as are so commonly blamed for "digital" sound.


I came to this line of thinking while playing with a Line6 delay modeller.  It boasts of 24 bit resolution and more than adequate sampling rate, but the longer delays with multiple repeats get to sounding very digital and bland to me.  It's over processed, literally.

When using delays with only one or two repeats the sound was pure and clean.  It was not digital sounding going straight through the A/D, D/A process---only upon using the effects and the "tweak" and "tweaze" knobs.  These things seemed to add up the "grainy" and thin sounds

Geeze--now I've gone on a digital rant over a noise gate!

Heck ya.  Get a Hush.  It's probably just fine.

[Paul Marossy]

It's over processed, literally.

I like your viewpoint on this topic of digital effects, transmogrifox. That really is my biggest complaint about digital effects units is that they sound overprocessed and I know that my definition of overprocessed is probably different than yours. I hate a lot of those settings - they make everything sound like you're in a cave that has blankets hanging on the wall.

But, like I said before, I like digital FX in certain situations. I just wouldn't use them all the time in all situations.