I want to build a drive pedal for my rig...

[alexjhh]

In my ongoing quest to have a completely modded/built from scratch rig, I now need to put together a few pedals. I'm not at the point of designing my own, and am quite happy getting kits from musikding or wherever for now. So I thought I'd start with a drive pedal. Current setup is:

Partscaster strat/Peerless Songbird

Boost/Drive/Trem/Delay/Reverb

VHT Special 6 Combo (Modded to Blackface Champ Spec)

Occasionally I stack two drives, but that's not necessary if the drive works well with a boost. I rarely get above AC/DC levels of crunch, if that, so it's really just to add some edge. I play with fingers, so the ideal way for it to work out is that I can play cleanly with fingertips, and get the crunch when I hit the strings with the back of my nails or up the aggression generally.

The main problem for me is the difference between the guitars - The strat has texas special type pickups, while the songbird has P90s and flatwound strings. Admittedly it doesn't make much of a difference, and I can just change the tone controls on the amp, but I quite often end up with two effective 'presets', the boost being used to compensate for the darker sound and lower output of the songbird while being played clean, and kicking the overdrive when I need it for the strat.

Thoughts? I have no idea what plays well with this setup as I haven't gone through a lot of pedals generally.

TL;DR - Tell me what drive pedal I can build that goes well with this setup. A boost would also be useful (particularly if it has some treble boost function for my hollowbody).

[Big Paulie]

Landgraff DO clone.

Very versatile. Does straight up TS, but the clipping mode switch allows varying levels of drive/volume to be dialled in.

Awesome pedal!

[Dave_Mc]

a rat is very versatile, and the filter control actually works (unlike a lot of pedals' tone controls) to tame or increase the brightness to suit the amp you're using.

you probably don't need anywhere near the level of dirt that's available from one, but it is very versatile and a really nice pedal. Since you're building it yourself i'd, at very least, make it switchable between normal and turbo rat settings (only difference is diodes or LEDs as clippers).

there are a bunch of other mods which are available (look up BYOC or beavis audio), including one to put clippers in the op-amp's feedback loop so it also functions more like an OD (which would probably be worth considering for the tones you want).

only thing is... if you're not doing the more involved mods, you can get a mooer black secret (which has the aforementioned rat/turbo rat switch) for like £27 from china... which is less than most kits. LOL.

An ocd or something like that might be worth a look, too. Again, though, unless you're doing a bunch of mods, you can get a joyo or mooer version for less than the price of a kit.

Granted if you're really good at soldering and/or enjoy making kits, the kit you make will likely be made better than those cheaper options.

EDIT: fwiw i have a vht special 6 (not modded like yours, though), i've tried a bunch of pedals through mine. the big problem is getting something which allows you to dial in that nice sparkly fendery blackface-style clean tone while not sounding like bees in a jamjar when you kick on the pedal.

What speaker are you using, out of interest?

[alexjhh]

I'm using the stock speaker, as it goes. I agree with you on the sparkly-clean front, as the amp is so naturally dark that it gets really noisy as soon as you kick in any kind of boost to the treble. Actually, the mod really helped with that, although it loses a bit of overall volume. It gives you separate bass/treble controls, which is essential for me as the combination of a full-hollowbody with a dark amp is, without a hike on the tone control, way too dark even for jazzy tones.

Up until now I've been using a Behringer fuzz set in 'boost' mode, with the bass cut to about 9 'o clock and the treble up at around 2-3 o' clock to balance it out a bit. That's less necessary with the mods installed, but still useful. Failing that, there's always the inbuilt boost.

My preference is for a pedal that doesn't cut the bass or the treble too much, as the flatwound strings mean that I need to keep whatever treble I can get. I'll take a look at the milder settings on the rat clones available, as I'd really rather stick to building (as that's the entire point, really) for now.

[Dave_Mc]

yep, if you want to build, that's absolutely fair enough. I just wanted to suggest those other options in case you were building because you thought it was cheaper.

I've never actually used flatwounds, but i'm guessing they're on the darker side of things. and yeah the amp is very dark stock, but i'd have thought the mods would help with that?

I don't think the rat really cuts treble- it can get very trebly. just its tone/filter control has enough range that you can dial the treble back if you need to do that, too.

if you don't want to cut bass i'd avoid anything tubescreamery (unless you go with one of the more involved, modded-ts style builds, which often have a setting that doesn't cut the bass).

if my joyo ocd clone is anything to go by, it can be a bit dark (but supposedly the real thing isn't as dark).

I'm guessing it's really less of a concern if you're building the thing, because if it's too dark often changing the value of one component will fix that.

I'd also say that upgrading the speaker is probably well worth doing. I put an eminence copperhead in mine because I wanted to maximise its sparkle/clean tones; however, as i've suggested already, that can make a lot of dirt pedals sound like bees. Even for that a copperhead is a big improvement on the stock speaker, which was really only much use for cleans. I found it very tinny with dirt pedals. Obviously you have several options regarding the speaker- it depends on what you want the speaker to do, whether you want to improve the sparkliness of the cleans, improve (pedal) distortion tones, increase the volume, decrease the volume, etc. etc. etc.

EDIT: however, the combo's cabinet is pretty small (and it's mdf, as far as i'm aware), so don't expect miracles from a speaker swap. an external cabinet is really the thing, but then that gets comparatively expensive pretty quickly. I have several amps so I was never buying any speaker cabinet solely to use with the special 6, I'm not sure if it's really worth buying one to use with it if it's your only amp (as for what it costs it'd probably just make more sense to buy a better amp).

EDIT #2: It's probably also worth pointing out that if you're looking at lower gain od tones (especially playing with your fingers and with flatwounds), sounding like bees is less of a concern. There was definitely a point (with the dirt pedals i have) where bees started to take over (with the copperhead speaker, i mean... with bigger/more distortion orientated speakers it was much less of a concern)... around about the point where pedals turned from ods into distortions (apart from the rat, being the exception that sorta proved the rule). Tubescreamers and the like were fine even with the copperhead, the ocd clone was more or less ok, anything heavier was bees.

only thing is, ods can sound very tame, even for ac/dc levels of dirt, where you don't really need tons of distortion but you do need that kind of marshally treble bite which most overdrive pedals don't tend to have.

of course, i play with a pick and with non-flatwound strings, so...