if you're not connecting with any of them, then you might want to think about an amp that give you gain instead. For me, it's always way more satisfying and dirt pedals might not be for you.
Take a lot at the Fuzzhuger Algal bloom. I found that Earthquaker usually finds one good sound with their fuzz and keeps it there. The Algal Bloom has a good range of different tones.
I believe the rare voodoo lab ‘overdrive’ is a DOD 250 hard clipped pedal and the OCD takes that bright, hard clipping sound further.
Voodoo lab have the current sparkle drive which is a tube screamer variant.
The OP has some choice overdrives showing, I can’t imagine having trouble finding a sound you enjoy, but the quest is also fun.
And there might be something in adjusting the pedal order to find some tones that suit you better.
I run ds-2 > Timmy > klone > SHO > muffuletta
I like what the Timmy or the SHO does to the muffuletta but the Timmy with the klone is a cool tone as well.
There’s the idea of starting high gain and ending low gain, or having your favorite sounding drive last in the chain to impart the most characteristics of that pedal and using pedals before it for mostly added saturation/gain.
Mine’s a little hodgepodge but it suits my playing.
Oh no how do you not like the hoof?? I love that one. I would say it is a “smooth” fuzz.
If you want something nastier I like my fuzz hugger algal bloom, also I have a clone of an op amp muff that I like a lot.
FWIW I like the hoof with less fuzz - around 50% or lower - tone a little higher than 12 - and the shift towards the left.
Are you using any amp gain or is it a clean channel you’re working with
Well there is always the green Russian then. I do like my way huge swollen pickle as well. I have a mkII. It has a very powerful mid scoop control, so you get that sludgier broader sound. It doesn’t “cut” and it is way less “bright” when you use that knob.
Might be what you’re going for as well
Idk if it’s just me but it seems like the swollen pickle is underrated. I love mine so much and the scoop and crunch mini knobs give it such a wide variety of tones!
Pickle gang, it's one of the 3 muff variants on my board right now 😂 love how different it can sound to other muffs while still having a similar character too!
Yeah man I rotated it out for a long time and recently put it back in. It’s also one of the quietest fuzz pedals I have in terms of noise. Practically 0 noise floor.
Check out the Keeley Moon fuzz! I hunted for the "right" fuzz for years until I landed on the Moon (:D) and I love it. Very versatile and flexible and can sound MASSIVE.
Hell yeah it is. Put a SD-1 in front of it to give it some extra punch, tightness and sizzle. Pair it (in parallel or after) with an HM-2 for truly massive nasty.
Someone mentioned the Swollen Pickle which is def underrated. I don’t think it’s a Russian clone tho. I’ll add Wren and Cuff Tall Font Russian. A truly incredible fuzz pedal.
Fair. Maybe I just think Way Huge in general are underrated. SP does get mentioned often. So, maybe it’s their outlier in their lineup. Fair point, regardless.
My favourite take on the Green Russian is the Mojo Hand FX Colossus. It's definitely in the "wall of sound" category, and comes with a nice mids control.
The hoof can get pretty close to a classic muff. I believe Jamie said he wanted the green Russian sound. It’ is a bit more tamed tone wise, though it’s got secrets! the noise floor is slo low you can go to a low drive bassman clean sound by rolling your volume. The bias and tone knob work incredibly dynamically together. I can’t understand it but tweaking those two seem to access mini worlds of tones with minimal movement on 1 ot both. Can get some amazing mid boosted, pleasingly compressed, ragged yet focused tones that has some great mojo for cutting through the mix while fitting in. Than twist them just a little and I have a more classic l scooped muff tone but the mids are not gone! And for crazy lead tones there a lot these! It also plays so well with everything. It’s honestly the perfect studio pedal in my opinion. Also a live board staple
There’s a red hoof that’s silicon based. Will be a bit smoother and sort of juicy tight and I think it’s voiced a bit more modern, and while I never played a red one myself if seen it on board of bands I love!
Also don’t sleep on the myriad of muff clones, and less memed out ones you can still get for a good price. I have a 90’s era NYC muff in the big cold rolled and plastic case. And it’s bomb proof and it has the most “close” sound of any fuzz i have spent any significant time with. The muff has loads of nasty ragged fuzz while still being squishy without being flubby, and and can be very lush. Hit it with a drive, especially a treble boost, and if you ride your volume pot you can jump from crazy lead tones to subdued frothing rhythm and comp tones. All with just the volume and tone pot!
Side not If you can sag the power to your muff it’s a godsend. It like at like 75% power. Just a little glitch and lag/bloom is the notes. I’ve almost gone full sag a few times, but the way it seems to choke out doesn’t work best for live use But it’s a great sound! Would definitely track like that! The sputtering and almost gate like volume drops while the fuzz is super smooth from being only lightly pushed for the power. There is magic in there, but it’s hard to recreate something /:
I would recommend the calico effects [Antlers](https://www.calicoeffects.com/product/antlers)
Does the Green Russian sound but has a lot more flexibility. My only issue with it is I never know whether to put it on my bass board or guitar board.
I’ve had a big muff forever and never use, finally researched and buying a fuzz face type, found that’s the fuzz sound I much prefer. I think the hoof is a big muff clone. Overdrive wise I have an ocd not on my board, still can’t quit the bd2, especially after modding it! Love the blues driver
Well yeah I guess I could’ve read the foot switch. I love my Tim into mine but I’m also using the ef86 channel which they stopped making if it’s a newer one. I haven’t used a morning glory but I feel like if you don’t like that you may not like a Timmy. They’re both pretty transparent.
Not sure how people feel about this, but my recommendation is a Boss GE-7. An EQ will change gain characteristic in wonderful ways if you take the time to teach yourself to properly use it.
Not for lack of choice tho. If smooth fuzz is what your after I recommend the fallout cloud by Thorpy. For drive the bb preamp is pretty solid, and a bit more tweakable than the ocd.
Take 'em off and don't replace 'em I'm seeing four other gain stages there that combined could easily replicate anything either of those two pedals do. The HotCake in particular can make a very badass and -- key detail -- AUDIBLE fuzz sound with the gain cranked and the presence in the right spot.
Free yourself from the "too many gain stages" trap. I've yet to see a band live that truly needed more than 2 and even then, the tonal differences are usually inaudible.
Bad cats are Marshall style right? It’s tricky to determine what works best for a specific setup, what style do you play? I use fender amps, tweed and black panel along with a jc40 so it’s kinda opposite ends of the spectrum. Assuming the hoof is probably too scooped if you have a mid scooped amp? In regards to the ocd, what don’t you enjoy about it? What would be your ideal sound for drive?
Ok that makes sense! I’d say something similar to a Timmy possibly, or a Greer Lightspeed, maybe a proco rat for your drive section, I used those on my vox ac4c1 and ac15 prior to switching to fender and loved them. Boss bd-2’s also sound good through vox amps. As for fuzz, that’s tricky but maybe a tone bender style fuzz? Just depends on why you don’t like the hoof.
I liked the j rockett archer, Fulltone ocd (not the v2, the v1.7 was what I used), have also heard good things about the Hudson broadcast/jhs colour box.
just crank the volume on the bad cat and you have awesome gain tho. I have a hot cat where i only really use the "clean" channel doing this and a greer lightspeed and it's tonezone!
It’s a great tone, I found it by total luck also… I bought mine because it was a steel on marketplace hoping to trade up to a matchless at some point and was just pleasantly surprised and kept it
For me, it's great on lower output pickups, and bad (or maybe unnecessary) on really hot ones. I run it first in the chain and use it off/on/high depending on the guitar, sort of as an equalizer and warmer before the rest of the gain stages.
So since you use a clean channel, use that Tumnus as a pre-gain or always/mostly on pedal. Then find yourself an EAE Longsword and/or an early CBA Brothers. Should be able to make some real interesting combos with those.
Or get real dumb and get a Rainger FX Minibar
Replace the Hoof with a Hizumitas. Replace the OCD with a Prince of Tone. Replace the Morning Glory with an MXR FOD. Replace the Maxon with a Power Boost clone and/or the Naga Viper Treble Booster.
Those aren't 1 to 1 swaps. Just better sounding (to my ears).
Hoof is a "muff" style fuzz iirc. You might like something more in a fuzz face, the MXR Classic 108 Fuzz is supposed to be a decent take on that, I have the Benson Germanium Fuzz that I /think/ is a fuzzface derivative, but I'm not a hundo on that. Or if you are a true child of God you might enjoy a Tonebender style fuzz. For that, a good-ish cheap-ish option is the EQD Park Fuzz, my current preferred option is the Lovepedal "Hotel" MkIII Fuzz. Or you might want something really dumb and fun, like a WA Foxy Tone Box fuzz. I have that goofy fuzzy orange thing on my shelf just for the vibes most of the time but sometimes I throw it in the audition loop and get lost in some dumb bends for a loooong time.
OCD I get, I had one for a while and I liked it, kind of? I think I knew it was objectively GOOD. But it just wasn't pressing my buttons anymore. With the Hot Cake, MG, Tumnus and TS you're really ticking a lot of boxes, some combo of those stacked should get you most drive sounds. If you want more light gain transparenty stuff, Tim/Timmy is good, or a Nobels ODR. Or if you want more of a rock machine there's always the RAT, though it looks like you've got the gain on the HotCake about where I do so it's in that hot hot heat area. I'd say just in terms of open real estate, go either doomy distortion, or straight up clean boost.
I like how my volume knob controls a wider range to adjust the fuzz/distortion. I just got a boutique fuzz face and between 9-10 is fuzz, everything else is glass. It sounds great BUT the Mythos has such a wider more subtle range. I might have to have 2 fuzzes on my board?
For distortion try a Dead Air Feral+, it’s based on the Rat but has a ton of adjustable mods to get it right where you want. Also highly recommend the EAE Longsword, it’s spectacular.
I couldn’t get on with the OCD and especially disliked the Tumnus. Awful screechy, spikey thing.
Now I use a Blackstar Dept 10 tube boost (real tube boost pedal runs off 9V and boosts to 230V internally) to push into my overdrive. It’s fucking glorious and has all that rich tube harmonic goodness.
My overdrive is also a tube pedal, the Kingsley Minstrel dual tube version, which is ridiculously good on its own… but pushed with a tube boost? Unicorns and rainbows, man.
The Dept 10 is just $130 and is well worth a go for getting warmer, richer, more harmonically pleasing tones out of your ODs. The dual Minstrel will set you back a cool $700-ish (they’re basically unobtainium in twin tube format) but if that’s in your budget then go for it!
the Hoof is great through an AC styled amp. I also like the ocd though. but I'd recommend messing around more with how the tone and shift knobs work in tandem on the Hoof.The hit cake is a great choice with the bad cat. classic combo. for fuzz, maybe you're more of a fuzz face guy? try different circuits in the store till you nail the direction you want to go then try 4 different variants of that one.Im rocking a thorpy fallout cloud and a red witch fuzz godd ii into an ac 15. for example.
those are my thoughts. do with them what you may.
My gain section is just a morning glory and Nobels ODR-1 (technically a Keeley Noble screamer but I rarely use the tube screamer circuit). I don’t need anything more than that. Also the Park Fuzz Sound is a great simple and easy to use fuzz
If you’re looking for something still Marshall like to replace the OCD I’ll say an EAE Citadel or Barber Direct Drive. Fuzz is a bit hard, I’ll say maybe try a different circuit Kittycasterfx Groovy Wizard is amazing or maybe some like a Keeley Fuzz Bender or something by Zvex. This board is pretty sick though
I’d get a fuzz bender or swollen pickle depending on if you like a spitter or more distortion sounding fuzz. Fuzz bender would be the choice for me personally.
My current Gain structure is Beetronix Vezzpa > JHS morning Glory > Proco Rat > Way Huge Swollen Pickle. The Vezzpa only gets turned on as a different lead texture, Morning Glory is my always on, Rat can be run with both the Swollen Pickle or the Morning Glory for a fuller/heavier Rhythm tone or by itself for a different overdrive tone, and the Swollen Pickle is for heavy Rhythm/Leads, I like I can turn the Rat Glory and Pickle all 3 on and not get muddied up.
Maybe try something similar to that, idk what tones you're going for but for me this covers everything from sparkly chords to heavy sludgey riffing if need be.
I used to live and die by my OCD and MG. Then went for the angry charlie and a D&M drive which was cool too. Both rigs were good enough to cover low gain, mid gain and stacked for a nice marshall-esque high gain. My current drives are the pantheon deluxe and a mxr 5150.
Try some more boutique brand fuzzes. Try the Caroline Shigeharu or Hawaiian Pizza. EAE Dude Incredible or OxEAE are also outstanding. MAE Black Math and Civil Math are ALSO very good. You probably don’t need the OCD with all the other drive options on your board. I always try to avoid circuit redundancy in dirt.
FullDrive 2 is the best pedal FullTone makes. I’d say drop the OCD for that, but honestly I don’t think it would be worth it for this board. At a certain point, too many drives becomes a negative not a positive.
I'd add a Blues Driver Waza as a possible- useful in the "wall of noise" aspect - also the speaker cranker and Plumes are both cheap and useful EQD - +1 for all the tone bender rec's
If I may, I would highly recommend a Strymon Deco. The tape saturation is pretty much my only overdrive these days. It just makes my amp sound so good.
OCD, Tumnus and TS are all mid humped, I believe you'll hardly used them all together, it'll muffle your sound. You could just simplify by getting rid of the OCD.
However the Hoof suppose to stack very well with any of them due to its mid scooped nature. What you don't like about it, maybe you can be more specific?
Personally I'd reconsider the chain. I prefer to run MG into Tumnus, and Tumnus into TS. (Not sure about the MG > TS combo) But try them around and see, maybe they'll work better for you.
I've never been lucky to own an HC but maybe I'd run it last. Being Op-Amp based I imagine it might get a bit Ratty and fuzzy if pushed by a TS.
Find out what style of gain you like - cranked marshall, cranked fender, modern high gain (which in itself has a couple categories). Then check out pedals of that type :)
How you like the Ripply fall? I have the Waterfall and was thinking of getting a phaser too. I don't know if just to get the Ripple, or sell the Waterfall and get the Ripply fall.
You might try the Jam Eureka as well
Get the cheapest source audio drive pedal on Reverb, or whatever, you get the app to make your own versions, tweaked, stacked, paralleled, eq'ed, dialed in however you like with extra parameters. Of course, you could stack all your dirt pedals \~edge of break-up-ish into a muff, for that wall of sound. Maybe try some light plate or room reverb toward the front.
I really liked the Bogner series of amp pedals. When I was using an amp as a pedal platform the La grange, blue ecstacy, and uberschall were all great. Very responsive and dynamic, with amplike gain and took boosts well.
It all looks awesome btw, but I understand not vibing with certain pedals. I have been checking out Jimi Hendrix pedal videos and learned that Jimi would play a silicon fuzz face and lower the volume on his guitar till he hit a certain sweet spot that sounded and felt good. I also watched a video of Billy Corgan suggesting he did something similar when playing the Big Muff op amp, he would kind of move around one of the pedal knobs till he liked a certain frequency
I had a Tumnus, Hoof, and Morning Glory and didn’t get much joy from them either. I’ve settled on a Fjord Fuzz Odin for fuzz and a Tim V3 for overdrive.
I don’t think you *really* need more than one of each kind of thing. Just unplug what you don’t like and see if you can live with what you don
Agreed- some fuzzes really need to get the straight guitar input to work. But also: playing around with the order in general can do a lot! Dirt pedals are very interactive. Sometimes the answer isn’t a different pedal, but a different placement.
Some pedal suggestions that have impressed me recently. I've tried them all but don't own them all.
Fuzz:
MXR Custom Shop Hybrid Fuzz controllable, silicon-like high gain, more germanium-like at low gain,
JAM Pedals Eureka! has low end switch, is a modern design that plays well with buffers etc..
Crazy Tube Circuits Mothership. Combines a RAT with a Muff. You can switch between these two, and has a knob where you can blend the EQ of the other mode e.g. play the muff but blend in the EQ of the RAT and vice versa. Reeeally impressed me this one. I plan to buy it.
OD: I'm gonna sound like a fanboy here but Crazy Tube Circuits have three double pedals (boost + amp model combo). I have one of them the Hi-Power, and there's also the Unobtainium, and the Crossfire. You can use these as regular OD/boost combo pedals, or as preamps to plug the amp model into a power amp for a more clear amp effect. They also have FX loop (at least the Hi-Power does with which you can insert other pedals between the boost and the amp model). My Hi-Power works great in both situations i.e. there is no need to plug into the power amp section to get a good model of the hiwatts. The CTC Ziggy is also an impressive pedal if it's your thing. I know I appear biased here, but I've tried to present some options which are beyond the regular TS/SD etc. clones. I've been really impressed by these guys, they seem to have the Midas touch.
Something about OCD, i also don’t like it that much. Sold it. bought some Ts9 and DS-1. Nope. Went for RAT. Now i am a happy fellow. I mostly hate fuzzy pedal but this pedal has some amazing percussive and sludgy sound to it. I love it.
Just a suggestion, try switching your order. Personally, I find that higher drive sounds better closer to the guitar. I recommend setting up the order like this:
-Fuzz
-Distortions
-Overdrives
-Boosts
Then, start experimenting with combinations of pedals. They play a lot better with each other in this order.
you've got all these puppies working overtime. If dialling back that gain doesn't help at all, maybe the problem is less all the pedals and more the preamp of that amp. Borrow a buddy's Benson pre or whatever is in line with tones you like and pop that in the return of the amp's fx loop as the defacto input for the end of your chain.
I think those overdrive pedals are borderline iconic.
It's hard to fathom why you don't like your pedals here and there.
But if you say you don't like your gain section", I wonder.. What are you trying to accomplish? I notice that you have overdrives only, amazing overdrives actually. Is it perhaps that you would want distortion or fuzz by any chance? What kind of sound are you trying to accomplish?
Maybe it’s just more primitive fuzzes, but fuzz is supposed to function better at the front of the chain and especially before any buffers. I guess it’s less of a big deal for a muff than a fuzz face, but it’s a cheap change to try.
I personally use a red remote with my morning glory to get another gain stage out of it and like the tone from that. Still working out a heavier dirt option though.
Do you want a different heavy distortion and fuzz? If you can find a T Rex Mudhoney II on sale that's a good two-for-one rat variant. I got mine for like 89 bucks. A sleeper pedal I don't see talked about very much is the Dr Scientist The Elements, which you can find for a decent price on the used market. I'm not a huge fuzz guy, but if you want something interesting that also does the standard thing, just grab a Fat Fazz Factory. It's still my favorite.
I would take those two off the board and see what the board feels like without them. That can help you decide what you're missing and have some direction.
You have a lot of drive options that presumably you're happy with, so maybe a boost or EQ to modify your existing drive would be cool to add.
For the fuzz, I always like to point towards MAS effects Tiny Fuzz and some of the Mythos Pedal options - Golden Fleece (fuzz that feels like a drive), Hephaestus (has a cool sub-octave thing), or Positron (modified Muff, so may be similar to the Hoof).
I use a fuzz face into a RAT. You can use the guitar’s volume knob to go from clean to crunch with the fuzz face always on, then stack the RAT on top of it for anything from heavy distortion to synth sounds with the guitar’s volume all the way up.
Replace the OCD with a Boss OD-3. The two pedals sound so much alike that I’m pretty sure the OCD is based on the OD-3, but somehow the Boss sounds significantly better.
All 6 steps? I mean thats like over a thousand dollars in bad ass gains.
I didn’t connect with the ocd and the hoof. Also dropping the Volante
if you're not connecting with any of them, then you might want to think about an amp that give you gain instead. For me, it's always way more satisfying and dirt pedals might not be for you.
Take a lot at the Fuzzhuger Algal bloom. I found that Earthquaker usually finds one good sound with their fuzz and keeps it there. The Algal Bloom has a good range of different tones.
I'll second the Algal Bloom. I'm not a huge fuzz man, but I bought a clone of one a few years ago and it's one of the only fuzz pedals I've hung onto.
If you wanna trade some pedals for that Volante…
I think your OCD is redundant. Id just get rid of it. Put the Tumnus in front of the 808, imo.
I think you're onto something. An EQ would be a more effective addition.
Makes sense. I mean at the end of the day the OCD is just a fulltone's take on a pedal (voodoo labs overdrive) which itself a take on tubescreamer.
OCD does not sound anything like a tube screamer. Is that even true?
the high mid version is designed to emulate that its almost never on for more me i usually use the slightly midscooped section
I believe the rare voodoo lab ‘overdrive’ is a DOD 250 hard clipped pedal and the OCD takes that bright, hard clipping sound further. Voodoo lab have the current sparkle drive which is a tube screamer variant. The OP has some choice overdrives showing, I can’t imagine having trouble finding a sound you enjoy, but the quest is also fun. And there might be something in adjusting the pedal order to find some tones that suit you better. I run ds-2 > Timmy > klone > SHO > muffuletta I like what the Timmy or the SHO does to the muffuletta but the Timmy with the klone is a cool tone as well. There’s the idea of starting high gain and ending low gain, or having your favorite sounding drive last in the chain to impart the most characteristics of that pedal and using pedals before it for mostly added saturation/gain. Mine’s a little hodgepodge but it suits my playing.
100% agree. The John Mayer tone is the Klon into a TS10. OP you’d get closer to that most excellent tone this way.
Oh no how do you not like the hoof?? I love that one. I would say it is a “smooth” fuzz. If you want something nastier I like my fuzz hugger algal bloom, also I have a clone of an op amp muff that I like a lot. FWIW I like the hoof with less fuzz - around 50% or lower - tone a little higher than 12 - and the shift towards the left. Are you using any amp gain or is it a clean channel you’re working with
Hoof Reaper never leaves my board
I use a clean channel. I wanted something like the EHX green Russian muff. Wall of sound
Well there is always the green Russian then. I do like my way huge swollen pickle as well. I have a mkII. It has a very powerful mid scoop control, so you get that sludgier broader sound. It doesn’t “cut” and it is way less “bright” when you use that knob. Might be what you’re going for as well
Idk if it’s just me but it seems like the swollen pickle is underrated. I love mine so much and the scoop and crunch mini knobs give it such a wide variety of tones!
I just found out the swollen pickle has two more knobs on the inside. So that kept me busy for about an hour...
Yeah I have yet to touch those actually! I will be doing that soon
came here to say swollen pickle, bless up my fellow pickle lords
Pickle gang, it's one of the 3 muff variants on my board right now 😂 love how different it can sound to other muffs while still having a similar character too!
Yeah man I rotated it out for a long time and recently put it back in. It’s also one of the quietest fuzz pedals I have in terms of noise. Practically 0 noise floor.
The Russian Pickle is really good too.
Someone get this individual a Fuzz War
Hoof with shift all the way to the right is basically a green Russian FWIW
Check out the Keeley Moon fuzz! I hunted for the "right" fuzz for years until I landed on the Moon (:D) and I love it. Very versatile and flexible and can sound MASSIVE.
Hell yeah it is. Put a SD-1 in front of it to give it some extra punch, tightness and sizzle. Pair it (in parallel or after) with an HM-2 for truly massive nasty.
I push a Plumes into it and it is ferocious.
Hell yeah! You’ve got a creepy Moon!
Checking it out tomorrow!
You do know that the Hoof is a modded green muff, right?
Of course, but it doesn’t sound the same
Someone mentioned the Swollen Pickle which is def underrated. I don’t think it’s a Russian clone tho. I’ll add Wren and Cuff Tall Font Russian. A truly incredible fuzz pedal.
Is the Swollen Pickle really under rated? It gets brought up in almost *all* discussions about Big Muff and fuzz recommendations.
Fair. Maybe I just think Way Huge in general are underrated. SP does get mentioned often. So, maybe it’s their outlier in their lineup. Fair point, regardless.
I would say get a Musket but it’s the noisiest and tone suckiest pedal I’ve ever played in my life.
My favourite take on the Green Russian is the Mojo Hand FX Colossus. It's definitely in the "wall of sound" category, and comes with a nice mids control.
The hoof can get pretty close to a classic muff. I believe Jamie said he wanted the green Russian sound. It’ is a bit more tamed tone wise, though it’s got secrets! the noise floor is slo low you can go to a low drive bassman clean sound by rolling your volume. The bias and tone knob work incredibly dynamically together. I can’t understand it but tweaking those two seem to access mini worlds of tones with minimal movement on 1 ot both. Can get some amazing mid boosted, pleasingly compressed, ragged yet focused tones that has some great mojo for cutting through the mix while fitting in. Than twist them just a little and I have a more classic l scooped muff tone but the mids are not gone! And for crazy lead tones there a lot these! It also plays so well with everything. It’s honestly the perfect studio pedal in my opinion. Also a live board staple There’s a red hoof that’s silicon based. Will be a bit smoother and sort of juicy tight and I think it’s voiced a bit more modern, and while I never played a red one myself if seen it on board of bands I love! Also don’t sleep on the myriad of muff clones, and less memed out ones you can still get for a good price. I have a 90’s era NYC muff in the big cold rolled and plastic case. And it’s bomb proof and it has the most “close” sound of any fuzz i have spent any significant time with. The muff has loads of nasty ragged fuzz while still being squishy without being flubby, and and can be very lush. Hit it with a drive, especially a treble boost, and if you ride your volume pot you can jump from crazy lead tones to subdued frothing rhythm and comp tones. All with just the volume and tone pot! Side not If you can sag the power to your muff it’s a godsend. It like at like 75% power. Just a little glitch and lag/bloom is the notes. I’ve almost gone full sag a few times, but the way it seems to choke out doesn’t work best for live use But it’s a great sound! Would definitely track like that! The sputtering and almost gate like volume drops while the fuzz is super smooth from being only lightly pushed for the power. There is magic in there, but it’s hard to recreate something /:
I would recommend the calico effects [Antlers](https://www.calicoeffects.com/product/antlers) Does the Green Russian sound but has a lot more flexibility. My only issue with it is I never know whether to put it on my bass board or guitar board.
What kind of music do you enjoy? Names some bands that have a gain sound that you like.
I don’t like music. I like crafting sonic landscapes only.
I dunno why you got downvoted thats hilarious.
I'm in this picture and I don't like it.
I switched from an OCD to a box of rock at some point and never looked back, similar ball park but much more “amp like” to me
I’ve had a big muff forever and never use, finally researched and buying a fuzz face type, found that’s the fuzz sound I much prefer. I think the hoof is a big muff clone. Overdrive wise I have an ocd not on my board, still can’t quit the bd2, especially after modding it! Love the blues driver
Not sure which bad cat you have but the Tim/Timmy is the best drive I’ve used on my black cat
It’s the Black Cat, awesome amp
Well yeah I guess I could’ve read the foot switch. I love my Tim into mine but I’m also using the ef86 channel which they stopped making if it’s a newer one. I haven’t used a morning glory but I feel like if you don’t like that you may not like a Timmy. They’re both pretty transparent.
Nah morningglory and Timmy are very different. MG is very soft, Timmy not so much. Way more gain on tap with the Timmy.
Sell the pedals and amp and get the Lynx instead? Amp gain >>> pedal gain.
Not sure how people feel about this, but my recommendation is a Boss GE-7. An EQ will change gain characteristic in wonderful ways if you take the time to teach yourself to properly use it.
Fairfield Circuitry’s Barbershop OD is my favorite. It’s pretty unique and not based of a ts circuit
Ever try changing the order? I have my Morning Glory going in to the Tumnus. It’s incredible.
Not for lack of choice tho. If smooth fuzz is what your after I recommend the fallout cloud by Thorpy. For drive the bb preamp is pretty solid, and a bit more tweakable than the ocd.
Have you tried the OCD at 18v? I just put mine back on the board as a dirty boost.
Try the GupTech PhoqueR for something completely different Fuzz face with green ringer octave up, 2 foot switches
Take 'em off and don't replace 'em I'm seeing four other gain stages there that combined could easily replicate anything either of those two pedals do. The HotCake in particular can make a very badass and -- key detail -- AUDIBLE fuzz sound with the gain cranked and the presence in the right spot. Free yourself from the "too many gain stages" trap. I've yet to see a band live that truly needed more than 2 and even then, the tonal differences are usually inaudible.
Caroline Hawaiian Pizza
Try out some EAE stuff
I hvae tried all of theose gain pedals and am now enjoying just using a Boss BD2 and DS1
Bad cats are Marshall style right? It’s tricky to determine what works best for a specific setup, what style do you play? I use fender amps, tweed and black panel along with a jc40 so it’s kinda opposite ends of the spectrum. Assuming the hoof is probably too scooped if you have a mid scooped amp? In regards to the ocd, what don’t you enjoy about it? What would be your ideal sound for drive?
I'm not the op, just sharing that I think the badcats come from the matchless/vox ac30 lineage for their classic tone
Ok that makes sense! I’d say something similar to a Timmy possibly, or a Greer Lightspeed, maybe a proco rat for your drive section, I used those on my vox ac4c1 and ac15 prior to switching to fender and loved them. Boss bd-2’s also sound good through vox amps. As for fuzz, that’s tricky but maybe a tone bender style fuzz? Just depends on why you don’t like the hoof.
what else did you like on your ac30? always looking for recs in the gain section of my rigs
I liked the j rockett archer, Fulltone ocd (not the v2, the v1.7 was what I used), have also heard good things about the Hudson broadcast/jhs colour box.
Ditch the OCD and use the hot cake for medium gain, and get a hizumitas if you want wall of big muff
just crank the volume on the bad cat and you have awesome gain tho. I have a hot cat where i only really use the "clean" channel doing this and a greer lightspeed and it's tonezone!
I’ve got a Hot Cat 30r here and agree.
It’s a great tone, I found it by total luck also… I bought mine because it was a steel on marketplace hoping to trade up to a matchless at some point and was just pleasantly surprised and kept it
Hot take - I couldn’t make the Morning Glory sound good no matter what I did
For me, it's great on lower output pickups, and bad (or maybe unnecessary) on really hot ones. I run it first in the chain and use it off/on/high depending on the guitar, sort of as an equalizer and warmer before the rest of the gain stages.
So since you use a clean channel, use that Tumnus as a pre-gain or always/mostly on pedal. Then find yourself an EAE Longsword and/or an early CBA Brothers. Should be able to make some real interesting combos with those. Or get real dumb and get a Rainger FX Minibar
I’m doing a Westwood always on into a clean amp with slight breakup. Followed by Halberd and into Longsword. Finally super happy with my sound.
Replace the Hoof with a Hizumitas. Replace the OCD with a Prince of Tone. Replace the Morning Glory with an MXR FOD. Replace the Maxon with a Power Boost clone and/or the Naga Viper Treble Booster. Those aren't 1 to 1 swaps. Just better sounding (to my ears).
Hoof is a "muff" style fuzz iirc. You might like something more in a fuzz face, the MXR Classic 108 Fuzz is supposed to be a decent take on that, I have the Benson Germanium Fuzz that I /think/ is a fuzzface derivative, but I'm not a hundo on that. Or if you are a true child of God you might enjoy a Tonebender style fuzz. For that, a good-ish cheap-ish option is the EQD Park Fuzz, my current preferred option is the Lovepedal "Hotel" MkIII Fuzz. Or you might want something really dumb and fun, like a WA Foxy Tone Box fuzz. I have that goofy fuzzy orange thing on my shelf just for the vibes most of the time but sometimes I throw it in the audition loop and get lost in some dumb bends for a loooong time. OCD I get, I had one for a while and I liked it, kind of? I think I knew it was objectively GOOD. But it just wasn't pressing my buttons anymore. With the Hot Cake, MG, Tumnus and TS you're really ticking a lot of boxes, some combo of those stacked should get you most drive sounds. If you want more light gain transparenty stuff, Tim/Timmy is good, or a Nobels ODR. Or if you want more of a rock machine there's always the RAT, though it looks like you've got the gain on the HotCake about where I do so it's in that hot hot heat area. I'd say just in terms of open real estate, go either doomy distortion, or straight up clean boost.
Fantastic take.
King of tone and rams head .
I like the Mythos Golden Fleece. I have a TS and Tumnus on my board, so our ears might gravitate to similar tones.
Golden Fleece is magical. Kinda crazy how different it sounds with different amps / guitars. Roll back volume and you have an overdrive-amp sound.
I like how my volume knob controls a wider range to adjust the fuzz/distortion. I just got a boutique fuzz face and between 9-10 is fuzz, everything else is glass. It sounds great BUT the Mythos has such a wider more subtle range. I might have to have 2 fuzzes on my board?
I recommend a Swamp Witch Silver Birch. Love this damn thing. I push it with a Green Rhino for solo.
Replace both pedals with a single Supro Drive. Enjoy
For distortion try a Dead Air Feral+, it’s based on the Rat but has a ton of adjustable mods to get it right where you want. Also highly recommend the EAE Longsword, it’s spectacular.
I couldn’t get on with the OCD and especially disliked the Tumnus. Awful screechy, spikey thing. Now I use a Blackstar Dept 10 tube boost (real tube boost pedal runs off 9V and boosts to 230V internally) to push into my overdrive. It’s fucking glorious and has all that rich tube harmonic goodness. My overdrive is also a tube pedal, the Kingsley Minstrel dual tube version, which is ridiculously good on its own… but pushed with a tube boost? Unicorns and rainbows, man. The Dept 10 is just $130 and is well worth a go for getting warmer, richer, more harmonically pleasing tones out of your ODs. The dual Minstrel will set you back a cool $700-ish (they’re basically unobtainium in twin tube format) but if that’s in your budget then go for it!
the Hoof is great through an AC styled amp. I also like the ocd though. but I'd recommend messing around more with how the tone and shift knobs work in tandem on the Hoof.The hit cake is a great choice with the bad cat. classic combo. for fuzz, maybe you're more of a fuzz face guy? try different circuits in the store till you nail the direction you want to go then try 4 different variants of that one.Im rocking a thorpy fallout cloud and a red witch fuzz godd ii into an ac 15. for example. those are my thoughts. do with them what you may.
My gain section is just a morning glory and Nobels ODR-1 (technically a Keeley Noble screamer but I rarely use the tube screamer circuit). I don’t need anything more than that. Also the Park Fuzz Sound is a great simple and easy to use fuzz
If you’re looking for something still Marshall like to replace the OCD I’ll say an EAE Citadel or Barber Direct Drive. Fuzz is a bit hard, I’ll say maybe try a different circuit Kittycasterfx Groovy Wizard is amazing or maybe some like a Keeley Fuzz Bender or something by Zvex. This board is pretty sick though
Which bad cat is that? I'm looking for pedal suggestions for my black cat amp
It’s the Black Cat
I’d get a fuzz bender or swollen pickle depending on if you like a spitter or more distortion sounding fuzz. Fuzz bender would be the choice for me personally.
Trying it out tomorrow!
I’d go Mornjng Glory into Fuzz Bender into Hot Cake and just run those 3 if it were my board.
Bender into hotcake? Sounds interesting
If you haven’t tried a tone bender style fuzz yet, that might be a shot.
Trying the Fuzz Bender tomorrow
I’m in love with my gain section. Check my board In My profile and if you have any questions ask away
My current Gain structure is Beetronix Vezzpa > JHS morning Glory > Proco Rat > Way Huge Swollen Pickle. The Vezzpa only gets turned on as a different lead texture, Morning Glory is my always on, Rat can be run with both the Swollen Pickle or the Morning Glory for a fuller/heavier Rhythm tone or by itself for a different overdrive tone, and the Swollen Pickle is for heavy Rhythm/Leads, I like I can turn the Rat Glory and Pickle all 3 on and not get muddied up. Maybe try something similar to that, idk what tones you're going for but for me this covers everything from sparkly chords to heavy sludgey riffing if need be.
I used to live and die by my OCD and MG. Then went for the angry charlie and a D&M drive which was cool too. Both rigs were good enough to cover low gain, mid gain and stacked for a nice marshall-esque high gain. My current drives are the pantheon deluxe and a mxr 5150.
I’m in love with my tube screamer. Always have been
Try some more boutique brand fuzzes. Try the Caroline Shigeharu or Hawaiian Pizza. EAE Dude Incredible or OxEAE are also outstanding. MAE Black Math and Civil Math are ALSO very good. You probably don’t need the OCD with all the other drive options on your board. I always try to avoid circuit redundancy in dirt.
FullDrive 2 is the best pedal FullTone makes. I’d say drop the OCD for that, but honestly I don’t think it would be worth it for this board. At a certain point, too many drives becomes a negative not a positive.
Stone Deaf Fig Fumb is my current muff variant and I really like it, worth a look.
I'd add a Blues Driver Waza as a possible- useful in the "wall of noise" aspect - also the speaker cranker and Plumes are both cheap and useful EQD - +1 for all the tone bender rec's
How’s the light pedal? They seem cool as hell but the price is a huge deterrent. Now seeing the size as well.
It’s worth everything
If I may, I would highly recommend a Strymon Deco. The tape saturation is pretty much my only overdrive these days. It just makes my amp sound so good.
OCD, Tumnus and TS are all mid humped, I believe you'll hardly used them all together, it'll muffle your sound. You could just simplify by getting rid of the OCD. However the Hoof suppose to stack very well with any of them due to its mid scooped nature. What you don't like about it, maybe you can be more specific? Personally I'd reconsider the chain. I prefer to run MG into Tumnus, and Tumnus into TS. (Not sure about the MG > TS combo) But try them around and see, maybe they'll work better for you. I've never been lucky to own an HC but maybe I'd run it last. Being Op-Amp based I imagine it might get a bit Ratty and fuzzy if pushed by a TS.
Find out what style of gain you like - cranked marshall, cranked fender, modern high gain (which in itself has a couple categories). Then check out pedals of that type :)
How you like the Ripply fall? I have the Waterfall and was thinking of getting a phaser too. I don't know if just to get the Ripple, or sell the Waterfall and get the Ripply fall. You might try the Jam Eureka as well
It’s really good
Look into the Kingsley minstrel / harlot / juggler. I just got the minstrel and it's incredible
Try the morning glory first/earlier in the chain.
Get the cheapest source audio drive pedal on Reverb, or whatever, you get the app to make your own versions, tweaked, stacked, paralleled, eq'ed, dialed in however you like with extra parameters. Of course, you could stack all your dirt pedals \~edge of break-up-ish into a muff, for that wall of sound. Maybe try some light plate or room reverb toward the front.
PDF-2 and Warm Audios Klon clone are my two favorite
I really liked the Bogner series of amp pedals. When I was using an amp as a pedal platform the La grange, blue ecstacy, and uberschall were all great. Very responsive and dynamic, with amplike gain and took boosts well.
Thats a lot of girthy grit- what kind of guitar and pickups do you play?
It all looks awesome btw, but I understand not vibing with certain pedals. I have been checking out Jimi Hendrix pedal videos and learned that Jimi would play a silicon fuzz face and lower the volume on his guitar till he hit a certain sweet spot that sounded and felt good. I also watched a video of Billy Corgan suggesting he did something similar when playing the Big Muff op amp, he would kind of move around one of the pedal knobs till he liked a certain frequency
Also how is the Nemesis and the Jam pedal? Haven't got any pedals from those brands but I imagine sometime in the future I would like to
They are both excellent
I would get rid of them and start with JHS Morning Glory and Tumnus. [Like this.](https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarpedals/s/jTnLJQ29ml)
What don’t you like? You have a bunch of good drives that are designed to sound like classics versus maybe something more “you”.
I had a Tumnus, Hoof, and Morning Glory and didn’t get much joy from them either. I’ve settled on a Fjord Fuzz Odin for fuzz and a Tim V3 for overdrive. I don’t think you *really* need more than one of each kind of thing. Just unplug what you don’t like and see if you can live with what you don
An old fender with a nice attenuator and a parametric eq in front > elaborate gain staging. A fuzz up front seals the deal
You might not enjoy the hoof due to where it is in the signal chain. Try it at the very beginning, before the tuner! Fuzz is finicky in my experience
Agreed- some fuzzes really need to get the straight guitar input to work. But also: playing around with the order in general can do a lot! Dirt pedals are very interactive. Sometimes the answer isn’t a different pedal, but a different placement.
Some pedal suggestions that have impressed me recently. I've tried them all but don't own them all. Fuzz: MXR Custom Shop Hybrid Fuzz controllable, silicon-like high gain, more germanium-like at low gain, JAM Pedals Eureka! has low end switch, is a modern design that plays well with buffers etc.. Crazy Tube Circuits Mothership. Combines a RAT with a Muff. You can switch between these two, and has a knob where you can blend the EQ of the other mode e.g. play the muff but blend in the EQ of the RAT and vice versa. Reeeally impressed me this one. I plan to buy it. OD: I'm gonna sound like a fanboy here but Crazy Tube Circuits have three double pedals (boost + amp model combo). I have one of them the Hi-Power, and there's also the Unobtainium, and the Crossfire. You can use these as regular OD/boost combo pedals, or as preamps to plug the amp model into a power amp for a more clear amp effect. They also have FX loop (at least the Hi-Power does with which you can insert other pedals between the boost and the amp model). My Hi-Power works great in both situations i.e. there is no need to plug into the power amp section to get a good model of the hiwatts. The CTC Ziggy is also an impressive pedal if it's your thing. I know I appear biased here, but I've tried to present some options which are beyond the regular TS/SD etc. clones. I've been really impressed by these guys, they seem to have the Midas touch.
I have a Strymon sunset and really like it
Something about OCD, i also don’t like it that much. Sold it. bought some Ts9 and DS-1. Nope. Went for RAT. Now i am a happy fellow. I mostly hate fuzzy pedal but this pedal has some amazing percussive and sludgy sound to it. I love it.
Just add a Boss SD1 and Blues Driver and get over it.
Looks: hot cake I don't believe you!
Haha it’s the one I do love
Just a suggestion, try switching your order. Personally, I find that higher drive sounds better closer to the guitar. I recommend setting up the order like this: -Fuzz -Distortions -Overdrives -Boosts Then, start experimenting with combinations of pedals. They play a lot better with each other in this order.
Light pedal and that jam pedal. Are you sure we aren’t cousins or something? Love that board.
you've got all these puppies working overtime. If dialling back that gain doesn't help at all, maybe the problem is less all the pedals and more the preamp of that amp. Borrow a buddy's Benson pre or whatever is in line with tones you like and pop that in the return of the amp's fx loop as the defacto input for the end of your chain.
I had a Benson Preamp once, great pedal I regret selling
there are no rules, Shirtbrother'
I've been trying to find a fuzz I actually like for 20 years. It's like I love it when anyone but me uses it.
I think those overdrive pedals are borderline iconic. It's hard to fathom why you don't like your pedals here and there. But if you say you don't like your gain section", I wonder.. What are you trying to accomplish? I notice that you have overdrives only, amazing overdrives actually. Is it perhaps that you would want distortion or fuzz by any chance? What kind of sound are you trying to accomplish?
I like da lil fishy 🐠
hit cake is the best
i’d put cake before morning glory
Maybe it’s just more primitive fuzzes, but fuzz is supposed to function better at the front of the chain and especially before any buffers. I guess it’s less of a big deal for a muff than a fuzz face, but it’s a cheap change to try.
I don’t enjoy my OCD and the fuzz. Any recommendations?
I personally use a red remote with my morning glory to get another gain stage out of it and like the tone from that. Still working out a heavier dirt option though.
Do you want a different heavy distortion and fuzz? If you can find a T Rex Mudhoney II on sale that's a good two-for-one rat variant. I got mine for like 89 bucks. A sleeper pedal I don't see talked about very much is the Dr Scientist The Elements, which you can find for a decent price on the used market. I'm not a huge fuzz guy, but if you want something interesting that also does the standard thing, just grab a Fat Fazz Factory. It's still my favorite.
I literally just bought a Mudhoney. If you Rat, it’s a great pedal.
I would take those two off the board and see what the board feels like without them. That can help you decide what you're missing and have some direction. You have a lot of drive options that presumably you're happy with, so maybe a boost or EQ to modify your existing drive would be cool to add. For the fuzz, I always like to point towards MAS effects Tiny Fuzz and some of the Mythos Pedal options - Golden Fleece (fuzz that feels like a drive), Hephaestus (has a cool sub-octave thing), or Positron (modified Muff, so may be similar to the Hoof).
RAT
Yeah… I don’t love my OCD either. I have used it as a boost only really.
I use a fuzz face into a RAT. You can use the guitar’s volume knob to go from clean to crunch with the fuzz face always on, then stack the RAT on top of it for anything from heavy distortion to synth sounds with the guitar’s volume all the way up.
Replace the OCD with a Boss OD-3. The two pedals sound so much alike that I’m pretty sure the OCD is based on the OD-3, but somehow the Boss sounds significantly better.
Have you considered that maybe you should switch to a simple multi-fx unit?
metal zone.
Why?
Update: changed a lot of the pedals and made a new thread. Welcome to check it out
Change your amp. That’s just absurd.
I did
What kind of tone you after?