The Great Ongoing Guitar Thread

Cafe Society
541

I’m thinking about going out and getting one of these today:

http://www.fulltone.com/fd2.asp

You got any experience with them, Wordman?

I’ve just joined a new band - my first band in a while - and I’m revamping my pedal board a bit. I was using a Marshall Bluesbreaker II for OD and Boost, but it’s just not doing it for me anymore. This is my current signal path:

Guitar –> Wah –> BluesBreaker –> Boss CS-3 Compressor –> Boss TU-2 Tuner –> Amp (Egnater Tweaker head)

I’m a little worried that the boost on the fulldrive doesn’t work unless the OD is on, which means I’d have to get a separate boost for my clean channel, but I think I can work around that…

542

I haven’t lived with one, but I circled them for about a year, so got a pretty good sense for them. To my knowledge they have a solid clean boost as well as a crunch - that is what makes them a “Fulldrive 2” - they have, in effect, two channels.

It is pretty funny - **squeegee **and I have been talking back-channel after I posted about the Blackstone - he was looking for both clean boost and OD and I ended up suggesting he check out an FD2 - squeegee, hope it is okay if I quote from my email reply back to you…note that he mentions a track by Jonny Lang as illustrative of the tone he is looking for:

Ultimately, I didn’t get the FD2 simply because I am playing through a great two-channel gig amp and was able to use an existing pedal for a clean boost as needed - that works with both channels to get me louder for leads. With my Tweed/home amp, I was only looking for a crunch pedal, and my research on the Blackstone suggested it does that one thing a bit better vs. the FD2. But if I needed those features, I would’ve likely found an FD2 to live with for a while.

There are a TON of clean boost/overdrive/distortion pedals. I really try to avoid getting caught up in all that - find one and done.

543

Not a problem. The tone in question is from Matchbox, which to me sounds like a straight-up Tele plus Fender-ish amp + some secret sauce, at once searing, yet clean and very articulate. I was poking around the intertubes, I found a site that claims Lang uses a Z Vex Super Hardon and a Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere. The description (and short demo on that site) of the Super Hardon makes me think that this is the “secret sauce” I was hearing in that cut, so WordMan and I started chatting about it, back-channel, and ended up talking about the Blackstone and FD2 pedals as well. Pure geekery.

BigShooter, if you get FD2, please let us know how you like it (or not like it) and any other nerdy details you dig out of it.

544

Oh - and here is what I wrote about the Zvex pedal:

545

Well here’s what happened…

Went to the local GC and of course the sales boy was new and had no idea what I was asking for. :rolleyes: But after a bit of looking around, he found an FD2 and we plugged it in along with a few other OD’s: A Tubescreamer, A Delta Labs Tube Drive, a BBE Green something or other (big ugly green pedal), my Marshall Bluesbreaker II, and also the FD2’s little brother, the OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Drive).

Now I haven’t used a OD pedal for anything but a relatively clean boost for solo’s since I was in high school. I just prefer tube driven distortion I get from my amps and I never thought a pedal could match the tone of hot tubes. I was wrong.

I tried the FD2 first - it’s a great sounding pedal. Nice, warm tubey type of distortion and the MOSFET settings weren’t too noisy like most MOSFET pedals tend to be. I new it was going to be good, but not THIS good. Really responsive and just… aaaahhh :smiley:

Next was the Tubescreamer. I knew what these sounded like, but I wanted to have one for a/b comparison with the FD2. The FD2 blew it out of the water IMO.

The Delta Labs pedal really sucked. No character whatsoever and just lifeless. It seemed like when I hit an E chord and let it ring, the tone dropped off super quick. Not enough compression in the circuit, I guess.

The BBE pedal wasn’t much better. Truly sucky tone. It was like a kids toy compared to the FD2.

Next came the Fulltone OCD. I suspected it would sound a lot like the FD2, and it does - almost exactly, actually - it just doesn’t have the MOSFET circuit and the boost channel that the FD2 has. It did have a slightly better tone than the FD2 IMO. It sounded a little fuller, with a little more on the bass frequencies, which I liked.

So it came down to the FD2 or the OCD. The FD2 had the boost channel, but you can only use it when the OD is on, so I wouldn’t be able to boost my clean sound from my amp with it. This and the better tone of the OCD was the deciding factor so I went with the OCD.

For the boost, I went with a separate pedal - the Boss GE-7 Equalizer. A nice transparent EQ pedal when all the sliders are in the neutral position. However, it has a +15 db boost slider as well so it gives me enough juice to get over the top for solos - clean and dirty. :smiley:

I’m pretty happy now. I’ve being playing with the OCD all afternoon. I can’t believe I’m getting this kind of overdrive from a pedal. It’s amazing…

http://www.fulltone.com/ocd.asp

So basically, I set up the clean channel on my Egnater with the gain up to right where it starts to break up. Then I use the OCD for a distortion “channel” and the boost gives me volume whether the OCD’s on or not. Best of both worlds…

546

I dunno. I’ve tried fuzz boxes and various distort pedals, and somewhere in the garage is some brand of “tube overdrive something or other”. But to be honest, they’ve always left me underwhelmed. There’s just nothing like just driving a tube amp, period.

547

AMEN! Preach it, brother! I’ve heard all of (and used a couple of) the digital imitations, and they’re okay - but if you want that sound that hits you in chest and the groin at the same time, there’s nothing like cranking a good amp to 11 and standing at the edge of the feedback zone…

548

You guys really should give the Fulltone stuff a try - even if you’re not in the market for an OD pedal. They really are quite good sounding.

Actually, I found this:

http://www.oldtonezone.com/distortionoverdrive-pedal-shootout/the-od-pedal-comparinator/

It compares a bunch of the boutique OD pedals out there a/b-ing them with synced soundclips. Kind of cool. I still think the OCD sounds the best…

549

Well, got my parts. The new tuners dropped in without a whimper, and now it tunes like a real guitar. Man, that was frustrating.

The new trem? Well, I learned one thing, and I have something else I’m not sure about. Well, two somethings.

First, the thing I learned: Why the cheap stratocaster had brass screws for the claw. Necessary. The new ones aren’t quite rounded out, but they’re on the way. Got to get new brass screws.

Now, my problems: How tight do you screw down the screws across the bridge? If I screw 'em flat, of course the trem pulls out to full whammy. If I leave a millimeter of free space, it seems okay, I just don’t know if I want the screws up in the air or not.

Also, the new trem
http://store.guitarfetish.com/10spiminmebr.html
came with four springs, and a five tooth claw. I have it set up, two left, two right. It kind of needs all four to keep the heel of the bridge on the ground. It’s hard to whammy, but I don’t mind that at all, as I don’t really intend to do that much for a while.

Was that what I was supposed to do?

It sounds fuller, all right. The old trem wasn’t even a full block, it’s got this cutaway at the bottom. I am one happy camper.

Of course, this other guy went all ‘This is your first time luthiering? You’ll never get it to stay in tune.’ and I am now unreasonably nervous. (Intonation at 12th fret is perfect, except low E and A, which are a quarter note off. The E was worse, but I fixed it to approximate, I’ll fix it to perfect later.

550

I’m probably not enough of a musician to fully participate in this thread, but I thought I’d just mention that I just bought a Danelectro 63. Those of you who read my previous thread on buying an electric for Attacklad will notice that this is, in fact, the same guitar as he has. I found I was playing it almost as much as he was, and, well, it seemed like the thing to do.

551

If I’m enough of a musician to participate, you are, man. Congrats on the Danelectro.

552

Well, it sounds like you want the tremolo “blocked” - meaning that you want the bridge plate to sit flush against the body which would, in effect, mean you wouldn’t be able to pull up on the bar to go sharp. This is the way I like my trems set up (I hardly use them) and this is how I do it.

I just screw the bridge screws in to the point where the bridge is just about to raise up. The claw screws I’ll screw in part way and then install the springs - I usually use 3 of them. Then I’ll start to string her up.

As the string tension gets tighter, the bridge will raise up from the body. At that point I start tightening the claw screws, bringing the bridge back down. I keep doing this until all the strings are on and tuned up. At that point, the claw screws are usually pretty deep into the body.

Then, I’ll bend a note on the low E string and see if the added tension raises the bridge at all. If it does, I’ll tighten the claw screws again until I can bend that note and not get any movement out of the bridge.

I’ve also skipped this whole process and just wedged a piece of wood between the block and the tremolo cavity, preventing the block from moving, but that method seems to deaden the tone a little, IMO…

553

This post is pointless without pics :smiley:

554

I’m impatiently awaiting delivery.

555

No, I don’t want it blocked. It’s more I realized, “Wait… was it actually like this originally?” as I looked at what I’d done. Eg, that I hadn’t had a clear enough mental picture of an area I didn’t think was important. I didn’t notice the slight angle the original trem might have been at.

I’m trying to figure out how a normal trem should sit, and how tight the bridge screws should be.

556

Thanks for the full report, very useful.

Great, now I have three expensive OD pedals to obsess about. :smack: :slight_smile:

557

Ah, misunderstood. Forget my previous post then. :smiley:

For setting up trems the standard way, I have a small little wedge of wood that I place between the back of the bridge plate and the body that keeps the bridge raised a little while I adjust the screws, springs, and tuning. If it’s too tight to pull out, that means the claw screws need to come out a little more. If the bridge is raised a little off the wedge, the claw screws need to be tightened. Then, once the claw screws are adjusted, I re-tune the strings and see where I’m at again. It’s a delicate balance between string tension and spring tension and it takes a little patience to get it.

This is the reason I like my trems blocked. Because I have no patience. :smiley: Well, that and I hate it when I bust a string and all my other strings go sharp…

558

Ah, the good old days, when I had a Gretsch with a Bigsby (which I almost never used). It seemed that it was too easy to knock the strings out of tune. Now my guitar is one with a “stop bar” instead. It stays in tune nicely.

559

At any rate, here it is. A 78 Custom, wine red.

560

OK. I went to work on the amp, and got all the controls on the main or “lead” channel free now. I will need to replace the bass and treble pots on the second or “bass” channel (both 50K Ohm). But, I can do that any time, at my leisure.

This is what the head looks like

http://www.carvinmuseum.com/images/yearbyyear/1974/74_stseriesheads-small.jpg