Dirt Boxes: Are they all the same?
Another overkill sonic test, this time of every functional distortion/overdrive pedal I have in the closet. (Notable pedals I haven't tried, and which aren't included: Z Vex stuff, Sparkle Drive, Fulltone whatever, Tim, Rat, Bad Monkey, Fuzz Face...)
Guitar is the 6120 GA w/TV Classics; amp is a Peavey Classic 30 set pretty clean, volume about 3.
All the pedals are connected at the same time (along with a couple not-dirtbox pedals, which weren't used), so signal is definitely lost to cable length and idling circuitry. (When I disconnected everything and went back to my regular pedalboard, I was smacked upside the head by how much punchier and more present the rig sounded.)
So take that into account.
Recorded as usual with little stereo condenser mic into Audacity on the Mac. Mic battery a little weak; a bit of extra distortion may be introduced there. Which is why every sample begins with a similar clean bit before the pedal kicks in, to calibrate your ears...
Good LORD I get sick of my own playing. When I play with others, when I do gigs, when I record in context, I swear this generic 70s bluesrock crunch-n-grind is NOT what I do. It's just a rut I fall into when doing demos. Makes me nuts.
I'm also no better than I ought to be, technique- and cleanliness-wise. So a pox on the slop and the visits to rhythmic Disneyland. (Go ahead, I dare you to count it.) But there's no cleanup or editing...just 2-1/2 - 3 minutes of stuff per pedal. Similar bits, attempting to demo the pedals across a range of dynamics, but not identical. All 3 pickup settings represented.
No other effects, and all cuts normalized to level volume differences.
Each pedal is adjusted kinda middling in settings...not minimal push, not max gain. Just tried to get each one sounding representatively its "best" to my ear - either the pedal's most effective tone, or (if it had a LOT of good settings) the one which I thought sounded most "natural," most like an amp pushed pretty hard.
Part of this was to test how the pedals supported dynamics - how they behaved under under very light picking, and how they responded as the touch got heavier. Interesting results in that regard...some almost cleaned up completely, and built pretty naturally to strong crunch. Others did - other things. You'll hear it.
I don't maintain these are the ultimate settings for any of the pedals. No doubt it's stronger dirt than some of you use, and wimpier than others. But it was what sounded good to me, with that guitar and amp, one morning in March. That's all.
Here's the format. I'll link to the 10 samples (9 pedals and the Peavey's own dirt channel). But I'm not tellin' which is which. The order in which the pedals are listed is NOT the order in which the sound clips are arranged.
It's a blind listening test.
I don't know that anyone should be able to recognize them all (I know I'd be completely clueless about all but one of them); by leaving them unidentified, I'm hoping to avoid biasing our judgment.
Now you can TRY to guess which is which, list your top few most favorite (or least favorite), in whatever order you like. Or just disCUSS how they vary.
In a few days, I'll reveal which is which...
So, the candidates, in alphabetical order (not the order in which they appear below), with tiny descriptions:
• Banzai Cold Fusion: 2 knobs, gain and level. Gain is moderate, but the clean boost function (not demo'd here) is enough to blow the front end out of your amp
• Barber Tone Pump: two channels with gain and level for both, plus a "tone" (treble) and bass control shared by both. Supposedly Tube-Screamer based, but with access to all the lows and smoother response.
• Boss Blues Driver w/Keely Phat mod: supposed to behave like a tube amp breaking up, only in a small diecast form factor...
• Boss Super Overdrive w/JB mod: modded by our own JBGretschGuy with two switches (not sure what they do, but they're both engaged). The pedal supports any of 10 or chips as distortion engines; I'm using the one he puts in by default, the TubeScreameriest one.
• Danelectro Daddy-O: the heavy light cream color metal unit; gain and level PLUS separate knobs for treb, mid, and bass
• Electro-Harmonix Graphic Fuzz: overdrive, level, 6-band eq, and "envelope" and "sustain" controls which can provide wildly disproportionate touch response, like it's aLIIIIIIIVE. With the 6-band, fabulously tweakable...but set up pretty generically here.
• Fender Blender: words are useless. Not an overdrive in any conventional sense of the word. If this is intended to sound like an amp being driven hard, it's an amp on the verge of total meltdown, and not necessarily in a good way.
• Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer w/Keeley mod: ye olde standby, with Keeley switch engaged. It is what it is.
• Loco Overdrive: circa 1985, a cheap (39.00 then) diecast box with two knobs, overdrive and level.
• Peavey Classic 30 overdrive channel: channel gain about 7, volume around 5, using same tone settings as the clean channel which opens all the cuts.
Which brings us at last to the sonic salad which bids fair to answer the age old question: *Dirt boxes? Sure they're all a little different. But is one better than another?"
Here they are, see what you hear. (Remember, the order below has nothing to do with the list above.)
DIrt Box 1 DIrt Box 2 DIrt Box 3 DIrt Box 4 DIrt Box 5
DIrt Box 6 DIrt Box 7 DIrt Box 8 DIrt Box 9 DIrt Box 10
No, of course I did NOT resist the temptation to kick them all on at the SAME TIME, but I'll save that clip for a later post. It's pretty ugly.
