I need some distortion

[Princeton]

I have been looking for a good distortion pedal for a long time and have not found one yet... I have played the bad monkey, tube overdrive, metal boss pedal, and an analog overdrive pedal... is there any that anyone would prefer. need lots of distortion but controllable.

[Suburbanite]

theres lots out there... Rats and Big muffs or the Ibenez ts range. depends on what you want from it, overdrive? fuzz?

for me I gotta say tech21 GT2, its excellent for palm muting, has loads of gain and lots of variations around the fender/marshall/mesa, it does colour your sound alot but it does mean if you play through different amps at gigs its a lot easier to get "your" sound,

My 10 cents worth anyway

best thing to do is goto shops and play them

[Princeton]

has anyone

has anyone ever tried an arion distortion pedal?

[JohnR242]

Have you tried the Boss Metal Zone?

If you have not tried the Boss Metal Zone MT-2 I would say try that.
I have one that I just picked up a few weeks ago and it is just awesome.
Unlike other Fuzz or Distortion pedals it has a neat EQ section that allows a huge change in EQ settings Bass, Treble, Mid and Mid frequency. I have other distortions but by far this one is miles ahead of any others that I have tried.
Hope that helps.
Keep on rocking man.

[BritishSteel]

What amp are you playing through? I does matter. The amp and even more important the speaker(s) in it, if it's a combo. Some pedals are designed to with tube amps in mind and sound horrific on Solid State. Carl Martin pedals are like that. Also there is a difference between Overdrive and Distortion. What are you trying to accompish? Give an example of what type of sound you are going for.

[Princeton]

I am playing on a 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb sometimes hooked up to a hartke cab or a peavey cab. I'm looking for a heavy distortion, great palm mutes but keeps the warm tone of my tube amp. If any one listens to the ramones or the clash then that is what I am looking for.

[BritishSteel]

The Princeton uses 6V6 power tubes.. If the bias adjustment has enough range you might be able to load it with 6L6GC big bottles if there is enough room. I would strongly suggest calling Bob over at Eurotubes and ask him if this swap will work ok and he will supply you with what you need based on what you are doing with the amp.

Fenders are not known (general statement) for thier distortion character but the cleans are wonderful. The Ramones type tone is Marshall all the way, very mid rangey with limited bottom end. Classic British. Most of your Overdrive in any amp (if you choose to do it without pedals) comes from the preamp gain stages and is one of the most important starting points. The Princeton was not designed to be a gain banshee but will produce beautiful clean and blues tones, warn and rich, so you will be limited and the range of tone you can get which is probably why you have been unhappy with the results so far.

Suggestions:
If you have not retubed in a while:
JJ tubes ecc83S Gold Pin pre tubes
JJ Tubes 6V6S Power Tubes (call him first)
"Get to a known, good, position, and tweak from there"

Your pickup(s) have a lot to do with it, if it's not a hot pickup you are already starting at a disadvantage, as well as the speakers in the cab. The stock Hartke and Peavey cabs could be a boom or a curse depending on what they are loaded with. I've heard lots of people complain about both but it may just be subjective.

Honest Recomendation:
Let the Princeton do what is does best (although I'd still retube as suggested) you might like it even better after.
Buy a second amp that was designed for distortion in mind. Keep in mind that even quality distortion/overdrive boxes will cost $100 - $300 clams so buying 3-4 boxes to try to "fix" your problem is already amp money. The Peavey Valve King is the Baskin & Robbins of a quality amp at a killer price try one you'll buy one like I did. If this is so not an option for you I'll try to assist further.

Final Thought:
If you still wish to find and overdrive/distortion to your liking I suggest the following in order of pref.

Radial ToneBone Hot British
Radial ToneBone Plexitone
Damage Control Solid Metal
Tech21 PSA2
Fulltone OCD
use the last 2 with a Tube Screamer or simillar(Xotic BB Pre is UNBELIEVABLE)
And if you don't already have one get an eq pedal (I can't stress this enough) DOD, MXR, BOSS all make great eq'sThis is a MUST HAVE in my book and you'll be suprised what just an eq will do all by itself.

[Shea]

I wouldn't put 6L6s in a Princeton Reverb. They'll probably overtax the power transformer, and even if they work, they'll just make the amp cleaner anyway. You can get a nice overdriven sound out of a Fender with 6V6s - not identical to Marshall tone , but a good one. But you'll probably never get 6L6s to break up in that amp. If you want to try getting an overdriven tone out of that amp without pedals, turn the bass all the way down and turn the volume all the way up. Set the treble wherever you like, but the bass has to be down really low or you'll just get a bunch of mud. (BTW, I blew the stock speaker in my '79 Princeton Reverb after playing it like this for a few months, so be warned). You'll need a guitar with pretty strong pickups.

So, if you like the distortion you hear with the amp set that way, just about any overdrive or distortion pedal will give you more of it. I think one reason why tubescreamer-type pedals are so commonly used with Fender amps is that they cut out a lot of bass, and cutting bass is the name of the game when you want to get crunch out of a Fender amp without a bunch of flub.

If you prefer to take the approach of setting the amp clean, at a relatively low volume, and getting all your distortion out of a pedal, I like the Fulltone OCD for that purpose. The way it crunches has a nice, amp-like feel to it. You leave the little toggle switch set in the up position for Marshall-like midrange response.

Shea

[Jag]

You'll get lots of opinions! In the end, you'll nedd to let your own ears decide.

Here's my $0.02.

I have ALOT of overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals. Our music is not metal but for some tunes I do need a metal tone. My two favorite pedals for this purpose are the Damage Control Solid Metal and the Keeley Fuzz Head. If you don't want to go for that kind of $$$ pickup an old Ibanez Metal Charger or Distortion Charger off the 'bay.

As BritishSteel said, you might find that the Priceton just won't do it for you.

[Princeton]

Yeah, thanks a lot for all of the opinions and advice. I'm planning on putting in some new pickups in an old squier that I picked up. Has anybody ever rebuilt a squier or has any pickups that they prefer. I was thinking about some invader pickups but I'm looking for a wider range and more versatile sound.

[Rob Mercure]

Princeton,

Two suggestions: If you're familiar with the "played to death" 1960s hit by the Guess Who Randy Bachman's unforgettable lead sustain was created by something called a "Herzog" which was essentially a Champ amp played into a dummy load (10 ohm variable resistor) and then shot into the input of a Traynor amp. The Herzog is easy to build and the topology creates the sound - not the particular tubes and such. So all you need is a high gain dual triode - 12AX7 is "traditional" and an output BPT such as a 6V6 (the original) or a 6AQ5/6CM6/12AB5 or maybe a 6AK6. Or one could tinker around with the tubes designed for battery powered radios (BPR) such as a 3V4 and a 1W5. The BPR tubes don't provide a dual triode and actually few triodes at all. But the pentodes can be wired as a triode and using two of them and a BPR beam power tube you can create a battery powered "Herzog" with three 20V batteries in series for B+ (Mouser has 'em - can't remember the number but slightly smaller than a AAA cell). I made one of these around five years ago and used it until I started using this option:

With the two channel Fender amps you can take the output of the first channel and feed it into the second jack (formerly input) of that stage. Then using a short patch cord (1/4" inch) feed that into the second input of the second channel - pad that channel down as necessary. This gives you two volume controls and two sets of tone controls which with some tweaking provides a range of distortion (which can be returned to stock in about 45 minutes). Now if you want to switch the distortion on/off you'll have to create an external box if you don't want to carve up the innards of the amp but I've made a couple easily.

Works for me.

Rob

[Princeton]

To Rob,
Have you ever had any trouble or anything that you didn't like about that second technique because it sounds too good to be true. Did you come up with that yourself?

[BritishSteel]

The Duncan Invader is good pickup so is the Dimarzio Breed and the Duncan Full Shred. I prefer the active pickups like the Duncan Blackout and EMG81's. I use 81's I like the active pickups because they are very quite. Visit the Dimarzio and Seymour Duncan websites and view the sound character specs and any clips they might have to what flavor you like. I would check EMG as well is you think you might be interested in an active pickup.

[BritishSteel]

Are you refering to the power tube choices? I know you can do the 6L6 swap with a Deluxe but don't know about a Princeton thats why I suggested you call him and ask about that. The 6V6S tubes are just an improved 6V6. My knowledge is limited on Fender amps. Most of my gear was always geared toward high gain applications. Like all combo's high wattage or not it's never a good thing to blast the S**T out of it on a constant basis. I wrecks havoc on your tubes among other things. Plus, to my ear, combos sound worse the more you raise the volume due to the open back (my opinion). Remember you guitar rig is a chain, you sound(tone) starts at the guitar and everything in the chain will effect your end result all the way to the speaker.

Guitar>Effects>Preamp>Loop Effects(if you have a loop)>Power Amp>Cabinet>Speaker

All these things come into play so to build a high gain rig (if thats what you want) it's like building a high performance street machine everything from the air filter to the tailpipe plays it's part.

Rob

[Steve Conner]

To Rob,
Have you ever had any trouble or anything that you didn't like about that second technique because it sounds too good to be true. Did you come up with that yourself?

No, I believe the guy from Mesa started it in the 80s. That's how they invented the high gain thing and gave birth to 80s metal. However, the Ramones and the Clash were 70s bands and wouldn't have had access to this technology. It would have been cranked Marshalls all the way for them.

Peavey and Hartke are probably bass cabinets, not guitar. You might want to try a cabinet with 12" speakers designed for guitar, unless you actually play bass and forgot to mention it.

Chaining the channels will involve modifying your amp, though. It's not difficult, but it needs some electronics knowledge. If you don't want to do that, a pedal would be the way to go, and when all's said and done, I think it's hard to beat the Tube Screamer type pedals. They just seem to work well in front of most amps. They don't sound "metal", but neither did the Ramones or the Clash. If you want heavy palm mutes, get the bass player to double the root notes of your power chords, and if he can't do that, get another bassist