OVERDRIVE PEDALS

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Overdrive was originally developed as a reaction of cranking a tube amp, as the true definition of the term ‘overdrive’ is what happens when you send too much power to a tube amp. Feeding too much power to the amp makes the amplifier ‘clip’, which is what makes the amplifier send out the overdriven tone. In other terms, overdrive pedals exert your valves to a state of mimicking what it would sound like if you were to have a solid-state amplifier.

What Is Overdrive?

Using an overdrive pedal allows musicians to imitate the sound of cranking up an amp as loud as it will possibly go, to get the sound of pure amp distortion.

Overdrive was originally developed as a reaction of cranking up a tube amp all the way. The actual definition of the term “overdrive” is what happens when you send too much power to a tube amp.

MADE TO BE LOUD Overdrive

Phat Mod Full Range Overdrive

Feeding too much power to the amp makes the amplifier ‘clip’, which is what makes the amplifier send out the overdriven tone. In other terms, overdrive pedals exert your valves to a state of mimicking what it would sound like if you were to have a solid-state amplifier.

An overdrive pedal will also provide musicians with the same dynamic range that they can achieve while playing on a cranked tube amp, which means that the effect of the pedal will answer to your touch.

Conspiracy Theory Professional Overdrive

Death By Audio Germanium Filter

When playing around with an overdrive pedal, you may notice that when you play softly, there isn’t a strong presence of gain. Take a second and dig in a little bit more, as you should start to notice that your signal breaking up as you dig in further.

One type of overdrive pedal is soft-clipping. This means that there are diodes within the loop of the op-amp. This causes the signal to not be fully distorted or “clipped.” The clipping is what creates harmonic overtones. The sounds that are created by soft-clipping are natural and transparent.

Plumes Small Signal Shredder Overdrive

Fault V2 Overdrive

This overdrive effect is not a heavy, punching distorted sound. Soft-clipping introduces warm overtones when used as a clean volume boost. Expect a mellow, smooth tone with a nice sustain. It will sound warm with a classic overdrive tube amp.

Warhorn Mid-Range Overdrive

Caline USA Digital Overdrive

La Grange Overdrive

The most popular, and most used soft-clipping overdrive pedal is the legendary Tube Screamer. Just about every guitarist has heard of, or used this pedal. They came out in 1962 and have remained extremely popular for a reason. Over the years, The Tube Screamer has been cloned, copied, modified, revised and replicated thousands and thousands of times.

Ibanez TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer

Ibanez Nu Tube Screamer Overdrive

The thing that makes the Tube Screamer so special is that it’s sound is not transparent. Just like its name, the Tube Screamer wants to be loud for everyone to hear. It adds boost to the mid frequencies. The tone, drive, and level controls bring out a warm, amp-like overdrive that’s touch sensitive.

It delivers impressive dynamics, and tube-like compression. You can blend dry tones from your guitar with over-driven sounds, a create genuine tube tones. It’s a great pedal to mix, expand, color, distort, sustain, and twist any tone. The distinctive sounds feel thicker, and more saturated than other soft-clippers.

Ibanez TS808 Overdrive

LANDTONE GOLD Overdrive

If you push a tube amp hard enough, it will create its own overdrive. Many Blues guitarists prefer doing this instead of using an overdrive pedal to achieve the same effect.

Another type of overdrive is hard-clipping, which is opposite of soft-clipping. This effect puts the diodes at the end of the circuit. The result is that all the signals from your guitar will be clipped or distorted in some way. Just like it sounds, hard-clipped overdrive effects are rough, and can be hard on your guitar.

DIKTATOR Preamp Overdrive

Archer IKON Overdrive

There are many different styles of hard-clipping that blur the line between overdrive and distortion. The Klon Centaur pedal is a perfect example. It was popular in the nineties, due to its unique sound. What makes it unique is the actual construction of the pedal. The gain control is actually two potentiometers turning at the same time. This blending creates a clean gain signal all the time.

Compared to other hard-clipping pedals, the Klon Centaur stands out. Hard- clipping is a rough effect and has a raspy, dirty sound. The Klon Centaur is always clean regardless of how dirty your settings are. You want to have your gain turned up pretty high, so that you can hear the diodes. The sound is very unique. Now there are many great replicas available.

Harby Centauri Overdrive

There are also some musicians out there are using an overdrive pedal just to boost their volume and keep the original tone that their amp is producing. (through the use a clear boost pedal).

Caline Electric Crushing Overdrive

Golden Boy Transparent Overdrive

AZOR Chicken Overdrive

Transistor-based overdrives work without an op-amp. These pedals doesn’t have soft or hard-clipping. They are designed to work the way a tube amp works. They are made up of transistors that rotate in stages, but react of eachother.

Brent Mason Signature Overdrive

Marshall ShredMaster Overdrive

As you increase the volume, the transistors are saturating and hitting other things inside. This operation is similar to early versions of fuzz effects. They respond to your playing style. Heavy picking produces harsh, dirty tones, and softer picking will give smooth tones.

Similar to the transistor-based overdrives, are pedals that behave like an amp in a box. The ZVEX Box of Rock pedal uses transistors in cascading stages just like an amp. It produces an amazing sound, very similar to a Marshall Amp.

Zvex Vertical Vexter Box of Rock

Wampler Plexi-Drive Deluxe

The Wampler Plexi Drive pedal is another version of this effect. This is a classic British overdrive pedal that delivers powerful, deep tube-style tones It also features a bass boost, and a gain and eq stage in the mid boost circuit. The cascading transistors make an amazing sound, with tons of gain. It’s like having a Marshall Amp in a tiny package, without the price tag or noise level.

If you’re looking to obtain the full range of benefits that come with paying an overdrive pedal, I would highly recommend playing through a tube amp, as overdrive pedals are built to make the tubes in your amp push more intensely at a lower capacity.

.45 Caliber Overdrive

JHS Morning Glory V4 Overdrive

One really cool thing about overdrive pedals is that if you place an overdrive pedal before a distortion pedal, you can use your overdrive pedal to increase the gain of the distortion pedal that you’re using.

This will help to increase the overall sustain and volume, making this a perfect combo for solos! This is one reason why, having a distortion pedal and an overdrive pedal on your pedal board is a good choice.

Vertex Effects T Drive Overdrive

Recommended Overdrive Pedals

Way Huge Smalls Pork & Pickle Overdrive

the Pork & Pickle Bass Overdrive & Fuzz serves up a perfectly balanced diet of gnarly tones for bass players who like to get down and dirty. This delectable dish combines the warm, soft-clipping tones of the Pork Loin Overdrive and the rich, fatty tones of the Russian-Pickle Fuzz in a single pedalboard-friendly package.

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Boss OD-3 OverDrive

Built in the tradition of the legendary BOSS overdrives, the OD-3 overdrive pedal gives guitarists a greatly expanded range of smooth overdrive tones and improved response while staying true to the original.

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Caline CP-70 Dual Overdrive

With VOL, Tone and Overdrive control knobs for you to achieve the charm of overdrive.
True bypass footswitch for switching between distortion effect and bypass status.
With LED light for indicating effects or bypass status.
Different sound effects give you a variety of your dream sounds.

Super Overdrive

this is an incredibly dynamic Overdrive which responds well to your picking strength. By adjusting the controls you can get a range of tones from boost to overdrive with a hint of distortion. Perfect for rhythm guitar tones on the clean channel.

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J. Rockett Audio Archer Overdrive

The Archer is a great clean boost that goes all the way to a chimey classic organic gain.
It can be used as just a clean boost by turning the gain all the way down. As you introduce gain it will attenuate the clean signal but there is a magical blend in between that you will find.

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Caline CP-510 Jaguar Classic

Switch from left to right to reproduce either classic Brit OR American high gain amp tones. If you rock hard, prepare for an eruption of joy when you hook up the Brown Sound into your chain.

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Overdrive will boost your amplifier or will mimic a sound, whereas a distortion pedal will entirely alter your sound.
One way to describe the difference between a distortion pedal and an overdrive pedal is that overdrive pushes your guitar to make new sounds; and distortion takes your guitar’s sound and completely changes it by adding texture and saturation.

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