Looking for a distortion pedal that...

[rutledj]

Can anyone recommend a pedal (bought or homemade) that can retain the basic tone of the guitar while still providing mild to medium distortion?

In particular what I seek is one that will allow the hollow sound of a strat still come through when in position 2 & 4. Most pedals I've tried completely lose the hollowness (is that a word?) when you turn on/up the distortion.

Thanks,
Rut

[JasonG]

The red Llama is a popular one that may get you what your looking for. I also like the boss OD-1 that was a great mild distortion.

[foxfire]

i'm not a strat guy by any means so forgive me. but if you looking for a scooped sound i like the harmonic jerkulator, http://www.home-wrecker.com/harmonic.html. again i haven't played a strat through it but, if you roll the gain back to almost nothing you get a nice scooped/hollow sound with some mild distortion. if you drop the 22µF down to 10µF it'll give you a bit more scoop. any lower and it starts to oscillate, with humbuckers anyway. it's a low part count/easy build that would take about 5min. to breadboard.
rylan

[Ben N]

DIY or store-bought, a BD-2 at up to noon on the gain.

[Joe Kramer]

IMHO, an overdrive with a clean-blend works extremely well for retaining your original guitar tone.  Commercial examples include the Sparkle-Drive, or your could hack your own version using your favorite overdrive circuit as a starting point. . . .

Regards,
Joe

[ACS]

Valvecaster with a 12AT7 for more drive.  I love mine for exactly that reason

Then toss a Rangemaster in front of it for some bite when needed

[dschwartz]

Any 4049 based OD..
+1 on red llama..
those are quite transparent and dynamic

[brett]

+2 for CD4049 distortions.  Very sweet and tube-like, especially when run at low voltages (simply put a 47 ohm to 220 ohm resistor in the power supply line).
Mark Hammer is a guru.  He has several posts and designs concerning gain and distortion from these things. 
I also had one somewhere - search for "a little different".
cheers

[reverbie]

Boss OD-3 stock is optimal for mass produced pedal. It does not muddy up the bass and or do the hotdog-down-a-hallway contouring to you tone like a lot of the "transparent" OD's. Do the popular and simple mod of removing the two 1N4*** diodes (D6 and D7 maybe?) and keep the drive set noon or below. Far superior and more natural in the 2 and 4 position than the BD-2, which has some harsh and overly bright buzz on note decays. And OD-1 is sweet, but will cost ya extra. I like to run a simple AMZ booster at the END of my chain with a strat setup. Killer 2 pedal combo for about $100 total.

[8mileshigh]

My modded  SD-1 (T-Von Ebay kit) does just this is a very good way.  The single coil character comes through in spades,  also sounds great with a telecaster.  The pedal new cost me $45.00 + 20.00 for the kit.  The OD-3 is supposed to be better right out of the box but I haven't tried it yet.

Chris

[rutledj]

Any 4049 based OD..
+1 on red llama..
those are quite transparent and dynamic

Can you tell me which OD's use this chip?

Thanks
Rut

[Ben N]

Boss OD-3 stock is optimal for mass produced pedal. It does not muddy up the bass and or do the hotdog-down-a-hallway contouring to you tone like a lot of the "transparent" OD's. ... Far superior and more natural in the 2 and 4 position than the BD-2, which has some harsh and overly bright buzz on note decays.

Matter of taste and opinion. I have, like and use both unmodded pedals, and agree with your description of the OD-3, but I think it sounds better at higher gain settings. The brightness is an issue on the BD-2, but if you turn the tone down I find it better and more natural for the boost into low overdrive thing. Then again, I like it bright and jangly--the BF Fender or boosted Vox cranked tone. As for mods, I think the best mod for a BD-2 has to be to give that tone control some useful range.
So YMMV.

[reverbie]

The coolest mod i've heard for the BD-2 is replacing the two pairs of silicon diodes with a single pair of germanium ones (just install them across the whole length of each removed pair). It removes the brittleness but also makes the tone more spongey and saturated at the expense of volume, which can easily be adjusted. Also a trimmer on R51 works well and might be a candidate to replace the tone control with an actual 16mm pot. I actually think the OD3 is more VOXy like my AC15 clone pushed hard.

Anyway, does anybody know a pedal that implements the wet/dry mix like a sparkle drive but to something more along the lines of an OD3 than a TS808? That would be a pretty sweat pedal.

[calpolyengineer]

On the subject of overdrive blended with clean and 4049 based distortions, I think you should check out runoffgroove's UBE Screamer. It isn't linked to on the main page but you can find it here: runoffgroove.com/ubescreamer.html. There is no layout yet (thats why its not on the main page) but there are some great sound clips. This is definitely the next pedal I'm building.

-Joe