ShortScale.org

Why has the humble distortion pedal fallen out of favour? T'internet is full of overdrive and fuzz pedals and discussions on the the best of these, but very few on distortion. Or have the lines between each of these just become so blurred it's just a term that doesn't get used any more?

Most calssic dist pedals(DS-1, Big Muff, Proco RAT) are nowadays considered fuzzes. The warm, fuzzy distortion sound has died with the sudden rush of shit to the brain of 99% modern bands and producers(probably thanks to the nu metal wave or something) who say that you need a fucking dual rectifier or a 5150 to get distortion and that everything has to be tight to sound good.

The Rat and the Marshall guvnor are about the only ones you ever hear mentioned in a good light... And the DS-1 usually has the term dog shite in any post about it. Yet folk can write pages on the quest for the perfect overdrive. And rightly or wrongly I have always thought of the Big muff as a fuzz.

I used a DS-1 and an HM-2 for years pre internet and TGP toan bellends and no-one ever told me my sound was shit. Loads of the bands I was in to in the late eighties/early nineties used them too.

You're right though, everything seems to be called an overdrive or a fuzz these days. Distortion seems to be a dirty (ho ho) word.

It would be interesting to get the opinions of some of the shortscalers who built pedals on what the subtle differences are and why we seem to have left distortion in the past.


Ps: The HM-2 is by far my favourite dirt pedal.

Tim's site describes several of his lovely pedals as being distortions.

BearBoy wrote:Tim's site describes several of his lovely pedals as being distortions.

I found an incredible tone that i'm in love with and its one of tims.. My version of unglued right now has this Josh Homme sound to it and i'm digging it. (i also used tech 21 double drive 3x mod for some of the homme sounds)

The mesa i use has this great crunchy sound with no effects. But i can't leave well enough alone. I'm using the fuck out of the scrambled brainz blend control to mix the sound of the amp with this nasty snappy octave rad fuzz sound.. i love love love the way it sounds. Blend control is a fucking winner.. Now i'm obsessing about how much to blend to get it perfect.. but its awesome. I'm also using it on the bass parts and it's spot on perfect. Most other effects seem like i lose low end in the fuzz and it sounds cool but it doesn't sound heavy if that makes sense. With that blend control i can dial it in tight. I'm a fan of tim

Ha thanks!

Um, I honestly have no idea what the difference between an overdive, distortion and fuzz pedal is. Run a Harmonic Perc at low gain and it's a much more interesting overdrive than a Klon or TS. A Dist+ makes a wonderful fuzz pedal when full-on. Some descriptions say the differences lie in the means of clipping, but something like the Shin-Ei FY-2 has no clipping at all and is a proper fuzz.

brandonwinmill wrote: I'm using the fuck out of the scrambled brainz blend control to mix the sound of the amp with this nasty snappy octave rad fuzz sound.. i love love love the way it sounds. Blend control is a fucking winner..

feel free to use this as a testimonial on your website... haha.. If i read "nasty snappy octave rad fuzz sound" then i'm immediately buying it.. haha

I absolutely adore the DS-1 I love the sound it makes and i think, that with the right amount of treble rolloff on the geetar(or Humbuckers with 250k pots you know) it sounds really really good. I don't see where the actual problem is or why everybody calls it a shite pedal. I understand why the metal zone is shit. but the DS-1 sounds fucking great. You just get the tone to like 11,5 and everything else full crank and bang here comes the big muff in a smaller package.

And there are a lot of good ODs, too. Neither of them is the Tubescreamer... Maybe the spark. Geez i hate the tubescreamer, 5150, no mid, moderate amp gain, "super tight" sound.

vojtasTS29 wrote:I absolutely adore the DS-1 I love the sound it makes and i think, that with the right amount of treble rolloff on the geetar(or Humbuckers with 250k pots you know) it sounds really really good. I don't see where the actual problem is or why everybody calls it a shite pedal. I understand why the metal zone is shit. but the DS-1 sounds fucking great. You just get the tone to like 11,5 and everything else full crank and bang here comes the big muff in a smaller package.

Quit worrying about everybody.. most are assholes and trolling anyways.. snobs. i like it also. It's the best deal going and if i go on the road then my setup will have one because they're cheap and readily available and they get the job done. i'll use 2 probably. FUCK IT

I just found this on the czech used musical stuff site.

vojtasTS29 wrote: I just found this on the czech used musical stuff site.

I'm gonna use one tonight i think. I can't remember how good or bad they sound but i have some somewheres.. I stopped using it because i like the old rat pedal and i wanted one for a while with the lm whatever chip in it.. I never stopped using it because it sucked. I stopped because i bought more stuff

brandonwinmill wrote:I never stopped using it because it sucked. I stopped because i bought more stuff

Precisely my experience. Going to give mine an airing this weekend.

holy shit. I just started the orange three knob pedal revolution. Time to kill myself before somebody starts throwing tubescreamers and 5150s at me.

It's a wonder no-one ever cloned the DS-1. Even one with the uncle monty mods already there or whatevs.

Behringer and Carlsbro did

we should do a ds-1 comp haha.. all your favorite songs played through a ds1 loud as fuck

90% of them would be pretty close. but i currently want to get the bass big muff instead (don't have the money to get a green russian )