And for a.
Best vintage sounding overdrive pedal.
Think of it like the sauce on a plate of food.
In this case we re defining vintage as any pedal produced before 1990 which seems as good a cutoff as any.
There are so many overdrive pedals out there many of them virtually identical that creating a best of list is borderline silly.
A good overdrive pedal can do all this while still maintaining the nuances and dynamics of a player s raw expression.
Most of us will never get to play through an original dumble amp and in all likelihood nobody reading this article will ever own one.
On a lower gain setting it does sound like a plexi but it sounds like a really bright modern plexi.
As for drive we re including any fuzz distortion overdrive or boost pedal.
The best overdrive pedals in 2020 at a glance.
Dialling in just the right amount of gain boost could give a flat sounding lead line the bite and sustain that it needs in order to sing or add colour to a bland rhythm tone.
In short our interest here focuses on older pedals that can increase your gain or push your amp into breakup.
The 11 best overdrive pedals.
And it gives you more room to tweak the sound.
This versatile overdrive pedal comes in a compact form with boutique like appearance that matches the quality of its tone.
It provides a clean boost that preserves a guitar s tone making it sound bigger badder and more bodacious with just the right amount of natural sounding distortion.
The best overdrive pedals are traditionally there to add flavour or colour to an existing sound usually achieved from a driven tube guitar amp.
Along with fuzz and delay overdrive is the essential guitar effect.
Most of those lists will only mention the latest releases with a buy button linking to amazon so you can pay full price for a shiny new example.
The basic components are already there but by adding one other subtle element the overall effect can be so much more pleasing.
One such product is the vintage tube monster vt999 an overdrive pedal with genuine 12ax7 vacuum tube within its preamp.
While overdrive pedals tend to have a smaller range of gain than say distortion or fuzz pedals their ability to interact with a tube amp and tap into tube saturation means that in practice an overdrive with a decent volume boost available will have as much gain as you ll ever need depending of course on your choice.
This article was updated on september 9 2020 check out also our guides to klon clones and plexi style pedals.
The xotic sl drive is a high gain marshall voiced pedal that actually excels at giving you the sound of a jcm 800.
With a two year waiting list the analog man king of tone is one of the most sought after overdrive pedals and for a very good reason.
