Distortion +

I picked up the DemonFX Overdrive Preamp recently
which has a Distortion+ mode. It is exactly how you describe, great in front of an overdriven amp with the volume up and distortion down. Adds sustain and a bit of chewiness.
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When I think of the Distortion+ pedal; I think of Randy Rhoads tone.





:oops:

I did too, but this doesn’t sound anything like that to me. I think the RR thing must be about the combination of this pedal + the 10-band EQ settings into a Marshall. Or maybe how he had the pedal set? Or maybe old ones sounded different?

I’m finding it fills out the sound and adds some nice texture going on in the highs
 
Are they that similar? I guess my hope would be that as the circuit evolves, eventually the stuff I don’t like gets improved

They are similar in ways but different in others. That’s why I was curious, I don’t know a ton about the differences so I was wondering what your thoughts were.

I think they came out around the same time… maybe there was a year between them?
 
Played a little more today and liked it just as much as yesterday. It’s even better in front of the Nobles! Those two pair really well together.

One problem I noticed today is tone suck. I have a split path setup with an A/B toggling between two signal paths. I had both the script Phase 90 and the D+ in one and I noticed a significant reduction in high frequency response when I toggled between them. Removing pedals until I found the culprit it turned out to be those MXR pedals.

That’s a bummer… I’ll have to think about what that means for adding these to a board for shows. It’s making me tempted to dig into boutique versions… or maybe I should try the JHS Overdrive Preamp.
MXR buffers suck…that’s why I had to sell my mxr chorus.
 
I think all the EQD takes on these circuits sound great, though I'm not sure if they've ever sold well considering how they've been in and out of production so much.

The old Gray Channel is nice for tweakability. Lets you toggle between 250 and Distortion+ sides with a footswitch, and with different clipping options on toggles for both sides. Used prices are pretty good last I checked.

And their White Light is based on a 250, but tweaked, and with a lot more range with the "compression" switch that partially acts as an upper mid boost, and the "weight" control the changes the low end and tightness. It's a really cool version, and used prices on the sold-out reissues are really good.

Also, one side of their current Gary pedal (signature pedal for one of the IDLES guitarists) is the 250 side of the Gray Channel with the clipping diodes removed, but that's definitely more of a specialized pedal lol.
 
I spent some time testing it with my Strat last night and I think I like it even better with a Strat!

Strat -> Distortion + -> Morning Glory = :chef

It’s one of the best stacking pedals I’ve ever heard. I’m liking it better than both my Rat and my SD-1 for boosting another pedal into higher gain. It adds the perfect amount of fullness and adds so much nice texture in the top end. It keeps it Marshall-y

It’s a funny pedal though because it’s complete garbage on its own. Stacking is mandatory.

Two problems with it are:

1. Hardwire bypass sucks
2. It’s noisy

I’m going to have to find a boutique version that fixes those problems because I know I want this sound on my board.
 
Holy shit this just unlocked a mystery for me. I have been fighting noticeable top end rolloff with the EVH Phase 90 in my chain and was so confused because I thought it was true bypass. It apparently is not.
 
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