Should i get overdrive or distortion

This will decrease the likelihood of potentially adding the wrong pedal to your rig. It will also help you to develop a deeper understanding of how the two types of pedal function. And this is important in helping you get the most from your set-up. Here then, are some of the further differences between the two pedals that I feel are worth noting:. The characteristics listed here are not universally applicable. There are overdrive pedals that produce high levels of distortion.

Likewise, I am sure there are distortion pedals that respond to your pick attack. Having said though, the characteristics highlighted above do broadly apply to both overdrive and distortion pedals. And so when you are considering what type of pedal to add to your rig, it is important to take all of these factors into account. The significant benefit of distortion pedals, is that they allow you to add a lot of gain to your sound. You can heavily distort your tone with a single distortion pedal.

As such, if you have a distortion pedal on your pedalboard, you can switch from a crystal clean tone to one that is heavily distorted at the push of a button.

This is not really true of overdrive pedals. Of course there are overdrive pedals that allow you to add significant amounts of gain to your tone. Broadly speaking though, they do not produce the same levels of gain as most distortion pedals. So, if you playing genres of music like heavy metal, I would recommend adding a distortion pedal to your rig.

In fact I suspect that you might struggle to create the tones you have in mind without adding a distortion pedal to your rig. The distortion pedal will be necessary to help you create the heavily distorted sound that you have in mind. Outside of this context though — and particularly if you want to produce blues or blues rock tones — I would always recommend adding an overdrive pedals or pedals to your pedalboard.

In short, this is because they are more responsive and give you more control over your tone. In many genres of music, this is not so important. But the blues is all about expression and nuance. And so it is important to have as much control over your tone as possible. In my opinion, this is why distortion pedals fall short in a blues context. If you are playing with a clean tone and you step on a distortion pedal, your tone will instantly become distorted.

This of course is what you expect. And so it might sound so obvious that it is barely worthy of mention. Yet significantly, if you roll your volume control down when using a distortion pedal, your tone will remain unchanged. Your tone will be just as distorted as at full volume.

Now though it will be quieter. Likewise, if you adjust your pick attack when you use a distortion pedal, your tone is unlikely to change. Digging in a bit and using a heavier pick attack may help to make the notes that you play sound more prominent. Again, your tone will be as distorted as before, just quieter. Of course they change your tone. But they preserve the core elements of your sound. And assuming that you like the sound of your guitar and amp, this is a real benefit. It helps you to alter your tone, without changing its fundamental character.

You can see this when you listen to the solos of various famous blues guitarists. Vaughan famously used a range of Ibanez Tube Screamer overdrive pedals in his career. The Tube Screamer helped Vaughan to create the beautiful blues tones for which he is celebrated. It simply enhanced his tone. Shortly after the solo starts around the 2. It suddenly becomes more overdriven — most likely in response to Vaughan engaging his Tube Screamer.

You can still hear the core tone that comes from his guitar and amp. Had Vaughan used a distortion pedal on the same track, this would not be the case. The distortion pedal would have masked his fundamental tone. Not only this, but the tonal change resulting from Vaughan engaging a distortion pedal would have been more profound than is the case on the track.

As a result of these different factors, I tend to think of distortion pedals as operating in a binary way. They are either on or off. Conversely, I tend to think of overdrive pedals as operating on a spectrum. If you have a clean tone and you step on an overdrive pedal, your tone will change and distort. And if you play with your heaviest pick attack and have your volume control turned up to 10, then your tone will immediately shift to being at the higher gain end of the tonal spectrum.

Yet you can choose where you enter in on that spectrum, by altering your pick attack and rolling your volume control down. In other words, you can step on an overdrive pedal, without heavily distorting your tone. This is true, even if you are using a higher gain overdrive pedal, with the drive control set high. This destruction creates a very nasty lo-fi effect which can be glitchy and harsh. Want even more gain, get both a distortion and overdrive.

Stacking overdrive and distortions can yield some pretty good results if done correctly. If you need any suggestions on selecting an overdrive pedal check out The Best Transparent Overdrive Pedals. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Give it a share Like this: Related Articles. Rather crudely drawn sound wave. Like this?

Like this: Like Loading Related Articles. This generally results in a much more square-wave, and saturated distortion sound. Hard clipping is where - usually after the main amplification stages and before any output buffer - diodes are used to selectively pass signal to ground. Like with soft clipping, this can be done symmetrically or asymmetrically, depending on the arrangement of diodes used.

As a result, distortion pedals tend to have a dramatic effect upon your tone, and are much more of a blunt instrument than an overdrive. Where an overdrive will probably react differently to different amps, a distortion pedal's tone is one you should make sure you're happy with the timbre of, because that's what you've got to work with.

If you have a single-channel amp, then distortion can be a godsend. Run the amp loud and clean, and rely on a decent distortion to deliver the saturated high-gain tones you need. Overdrives are relatively low-gain, and rely on a tube amp saturating to get any really high gain sounds. As a result, if you're after high gain without a tube amp, then distortion is a good bet. Finally, as overdrives pair best with tube amps, we've often found that their drive sounds a bit lacking or flat with solid-state amps, and as a result we've tended to use pedals like the ProCo RAT with the drive low as an overdrive with a solid-state amp, rather than a 'true' drive pedal.

Like overdrive, you'll have heard it over and over again. It tends to be that distortion is identifiable from the hugely saturated sound it puts out — think Nirvana's In Utero. The thing is, because amps are able to saturate that much, it's usually hard to tell between a high-gain pedal hard clipping and a high-gain amp. It's used to legendary effect on Entombed's debut album Left Hand Path.

For a modern example, we tend to think of Young Legionnaire's Heart Attack. It's not the best around, and notably tends to suck volume, but all of the key elements are there — a hard clip, heavy saturation and the ability to annoy your parents downstairs. There are several great things about the RAT — it sounds ace at low gain as a dirty drive; it has a cool filter control for a tone stack; and it can push a tube amp into further saturation.

Modern reissues lack one crucial feature, however — the cheap LM op-amp of the original. While this pedal utilises diodes for a hard clipping action, much of the clipping in the original was a nearly triangle-wave clip caused by the low slew rate of the op-amp.

Amptweaker Tight Rock Jr One of the best modern distortion pedals on the market. Designed by James Brown - no, not that one, the one that designed the legendary Peavey - it's a compact, low-noise drive with plenty of range, and a whole kitchen sink of options, including a decent noise gate.

If you need more chug, you can opt for its more metal brother, the Tight Metal Jr. If you like its general tone but want something that can do slightly more vintage and open sounds, then maybe try the Hamstead Odyssey instead. There's a huge range of output on offer, too - unity volume lies at around 10 o'clock.