To me, transparent means that when I'm playing with a band and I step on the drive pedal, my tone hasn't drastically changed. It still sounds like the guitar and amp, but crunchier. Some pedals are so drastic that it doesn't seem to matter what guitar you plug in - it sounds like the pedal. Those pedals can be useful, for sure, just not what I'd prefer for my base tone.
Yes but hard clipping vs soft clipping means something totally different! Hard clipping doesn't effect your rythmm playing soft clipping does ! That's what transparent means ! Unless you have the gainstage on your amp that sounds already over the top modern that the soft pedal clipping is so minimal that doesn't effect your tone for rythmm that is my take as both a rytmm player and lead
@@dmytrotarasov9477except he’s not. Clean boost adds output. A drive adds crunch from input gain, and can, but not necessarily will, add output, depending on where you set the output level.
Since mixing my own songs, these videos have been invaluable to see the frequency ranges of each pedal. I’ve been using an ODR-1 mini with an EQ behind it to. Might check out the Belle.
The Belle was a revelation for me. It's extraordinary, works well pushing an amp (Vox AC15, Fender Blues Junior IV, Laney Cub12R & VC30 - it works great with all of em) or another drive pedal, or stacked after a Muff or another higher gain pedal as a tone-shaper. It works so well I'm considering getting a second one :)
In the past 5+ years,the only overdrive that I have consistently had on my board,is the Euphoria. I've moved it around,a little bit,but has never been removed. Can't say the same,for the other 40+ drive pedals,I've owned. It sounds great on its own,and stacks extremely well!
I picked up your tumnus deluxe…..I love it. I have the mini. I love it also. I took the mini off my board but I’m making a “mini board” and that’s going on there. As always, great content.
I have 3 of those pedals, and I must say the Euphoria was by far my favorite. Ive had one for years now, alongside a Hot Wired. Appreciate the knowledge, thanks.
All I’ve ever meant by “transparent” was keeping the frequency range intact when I hit the “more” button. I guess I figured it was a forgone conclusion that what anyone would be looking for in different clipping styles would be the change in the texture of the gain.
That Nobels reminds me of the DSL I used to have. Cranking it brings a heap of low end you didn’t think was even allowable with the settings you have 😂
Nothing but a crayon box. Finding the right colors.. and dialing the amount of color is the task. Thank you Brian. I don't have any of those pedals. When I was younger, I wanted that eddie brown sound. I eventual found me. It's a journey. Nerdy and fun... but a journey no less. Frustrating at times. You have to fight through that.
I appreciate the visual representation of the pedals. I am working on ear training but I’m visual first (which is probably bad for a musician). Anyway, my ears must be improving because had you put a Klon or TScreamer type pedal in the “transparent” category I would have quit music. For OD pedals, I categorize the in two general umbrellas of mid-pushed & flat EQ pedals. The break up part is more subjective. I don’t really care if the clipping is hard, soft, Cascading transistors, Jfet, MOSFET, or Bobafet. I digress, thanks for this video. You did something similar when the Belle came out showing the frequency of a Nobels ODR1. I bought the Belle & it started me down the path of OD pedals without a significant mud hump
I think that the concept of "transparency ", as far as I can tell, is just an overerstated term to imply that the core tone is not severely altered. To your point, it's impossible not to change the tonal characteristics when introducing some harmonic content in the form of clipping. A compressor set to a 1:1 ratio might be transparent, but what's the fun in that?
Transparent overdrive to me means the Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor. I set the eq to 12 and turn the gain down and can barely tell when it’s on or off. The Wampler Belle seems to be another good transparent option.
Great video! I'm a fan of frequency responses as a part of analyzing a pedal. I think you showed clearly that they only give you part of the picture though.
Excellent. I've chimed in a couple of times on your EQ videos pointing out that one can't match sounds w EQ alone. Harmonic content is not going to be matched. You agreed , but I wasn't 100% sure that you weren't just avoiding a pointless argument. Now I know that's not the case.
I am not sure if a frequency plot of a distorted signal tells you much. Distortion adds a lot of bass and overtones, so it is kind of like measuring dynamics after a compressor. A lot of the character of a distortion seems to come from the filter placed before the distortion circuit, which you can kind of tease out by applying a test signal quiet enough not to distort.
@@obsoletecd-rom The thing is you can get a useful plot of a distortion circuit. You need to show a separate plot for the fundamental and each harmonic. You can recover the harmonics by using a log-sine chirp and some math. The issue with the noise into a FFT method is that it assumes that the test signal is linear and time invariant.
One overdrive not shown in the video was the Timmy. To me that is the most neutral that I have played. It seems to sound the most like the amp naturally overdriving. Sometimes that is what you want, but sometime you might what something a little different.
Thanks for backing up from camera. It was distracting Great vid. Your pedal s are. Great top to bottom. The green reverb pedal. Was really great for bluesy reverb jam
May I make 1 suggestion and request? I think it’s time for content creators to spend a little more time on showing us what your exact guitar chain is going into your DAW and your channel settings in your mixer, compression etc. etc. etc. and final stereo bus signal output ( what’s on your stereo bus?) for a finished pedal and/or guitar demo. Guitarists who admire your tone or any creator’s tone would like to actually know how to set up that tone in our DAW’s Most of us our pretty familiar with how to dial in a decent working pedal tone for our gigs, but a lot of us want to reach great or greater DAW tones with our recordings or our own demos. Can you consider making an in depth look at what goes into making a great guitar demo from the DAW out to the public? I mean as a mixing engineer I know how mixing influences a final demo such as this and you all seem to know or be practicing similar mixing techniques that seem to give you all a similarly fantastic finished demo. Which in my opinion doesn’t sound exactly like any pedal in a live situations or simply playing at home….. By the way this demo sounded great! 😁
I love my Euphoria. I'm a jazzer and use an Benedetto acoustic archtop. This pedal is so smooth yet will get pretty nasty if you want it too, even with an archtop. Love it!
I haven't played in a few years and sold off about 1/2 my pedal collection. I hope when I have my music room back from renovation hell, that I did not include the Euphoria in the ones I let go.😮
“Transparent” may be a bit of a misnomer, but I think most of us understand it’s pedals that don’t drastically alter your eq (particularly the midrange) like say a tube screamer does. I think a bass cut/boost knob is a must on any of this style of drive. My favorite is the Timmy style pedals, my danelectro transparent OD is the one pedal that never leaves my board.
They have a parametric eq for just the kid range with bass and treble knobs. It’s called the Equator. Worth having look if you want a good boost pedal going into an edge of breakup or distorted amp
I'm always amazed how Gilmore is thought of as a tone everyone wants. I do really like his trad Strat thru a tube amp tone, but the second he steps on that piece of garbage Tube Screamer all the Dimensionality leaves. He would have been much better served by a clean boost w the tubes distorting more. But hopefully when you use your pedal, that doesn't happen.
@@terryenglish7132 David Gilmour uses 3 Tube Driver overdrives and so many more pedals to get all his different iconic awesome sounds through history..that’s why he’s a legend among his playing,singing,etc… but definitely he’s not a tubescreamer guy…
@@mdmusic2130 According to the web he did ; and later that other piece of crap, as you said Tube Driver .I have an original , which I guess I should sell since they're coveted, but even taking into account the 12 or 9 volt plate voltage , its a poor design. Bees puking. BUT I'm thinking of Comfortably Numb where his tone was huge, then shrinks to small , after he steps on , something, for the solo. I hope I don't accidentally buy one... Don't get me wrong, I love his playing and he's as good guitarist as anyone, but his lead tone doesn't do him justice. Thanks for the reply, cheers.
@@terryenglish7132 I respect your opinion but there is so much to understand when we want to talk about Gilmour’s guitar tone…his amount of gear and development about his own sound is endless…it’s huge…and it doesn’t matter if we like or not because I was never discussing that…the result of his tone (we like it or not) is not because he’s turning on or off a tube screamer…
@@terryenglish7132 Fun fact: he mostly plugged into an Alembic solid-state preamp for his guitar tone, not the Hiwatts. Those were slaved with the pre-amps decoupled from the power section. IIRC he didn't start going straight into the Hiwatts until the early 2000s
The other one with a bass dial is the Nordland ODR made by the designer of the original Nobels ODR-1. The knob is much more effective than the poorly implemented in bass cut the Nobels ODR-mini and nano-switch inside new BC.
People need to re-learn to not buy into the garbage of strategically buzzword-heavy descriptions on manufacturer websites and to just LISTEN to a pedal to see if it does what they need. Works for pickups and amps/cabs too.
Ive tried all od and boost you can think of.ive setteld on the kot and the pot pedal simply because they have a great boost and power.i wish i could afford a klon .but hey im happy with what i have .
I purchased the ego mini and plexi mini going into a fender mustang 3 amp with the deluxe reverb 65 modeling. I had a fantastic tone but I added the digitech drop compact pedal,now there is a very loud hiss unless I turn the sustain in the ego mini nearly off. On the amp I am using the noise gate on the max setting. Do you think a noise gate pedal after the ego mini will help. I'm sure I will figure something out. Just curious what you think. I love your videos and products. I have been using the 1spot power supply. Maybe if I upgrade the power supply it will help. I ordered the Godlyke power all supply,I hope that cleans it up. Thanks
My KOT clone sounds sounds like a marshall 2x12 ,including the speaker boom ,I found the BJF model H clone also sounds like it emulates the Fane speakers of a Hiwatt stack.
I love the chunkiness of the mids and lower mids, but hate that 2k to 4k 'speaker rattle' that, to me, seems extraneous to the core tonality. Some might call that fizz, but to me its just an upper mid to high range rattle that I would never want in my music. Great music is all about tones and textures, and that specific texture I find very 'misdirecting'. I have heard many crunchy textures that don't have that annoying rattle which sounds more like hearing damage to me. Harmonic distortion is somewhat soothing but this specific texture is anything but. It's extraneous, like 'clipping buildup' in the upper register. In the studio, I would use a de-esser or dynamic eq to get rid of it. We need an overdrive pedal that has that dynamic eq built into it. Just saying, because not everything is for everybody.
I had a Celestion speaker that had that same “fizz” to it and it’s associated with amps that people say are “fizzy” all the time. Kinda funny no one thinks about changing their speakers to change their tone but will do everything else instead.
I agree that freq response doesn't tell you anything about gain, compression, clipping, etc. But I sustain (pun intended) that it's one of the things rarely mentioned when a pedal is described or reviewed. Whether something is high or low gain, fuzzy or smooth, and so on, one can tell by watching TH-cam reviews. But whether it cuts bass, and how much, it's very hard to tell unless you actually play the pedal. I don't doubt you get all sorts of questions and messages about how pedals work, but I personally never came across someone claiming that frequency response comprehensively describes a pedal. I also wouldn't never call the frequency response of a Rat (serious cut below 200Hz and above 5kHz, peak around 1kHz) similar to a Bluesbreaker (significantly more bass below 200Hz, less "hump" and a lot more high frequencies).
Great, ,like I don't have enough OD pedals, this makes me miss my lot and I'm about to buy a Euphoria. I had to quit subscribing a while back bc I was buying 3 new pedals a week lmao. Awesome video btw my friend.
I’m surprised at all the different personal interpretations people in the comments seem to have about what transparency in a pedal would mean. I always considered it to mean a pedal that tonally matches the sound of my driven amp. In other words, no shelving off a bunch of frequencies that would not be shelved off if I just cranked my amp. An ideally “transparent” overdrive would sound exactly like my amp if I pushed the amp into the same level of overdrive, including all the flaws, like if the bass flubs out or the treble gets spikey. Rather than a pedal that aims to give you some kind of “corrected tone”.
@@dougsmith6648 Look into preamp pedals instead of overdrive pedals. Something with a full EQ stack, bass, mids and treble. Something like the Tech 21 Character pedals. I’m using a couple of the Joyo clones of those. 50 bucks each for a Marshall and Fender style amp sounds. Way closer than I’ve gotten with any regular overdrive pedal.
Makes sense distortion is a nonlinear transform. Frequency and phase can't reliability model nonlinear systems very well. X-Params instead of S should be a more accurate measurement.
Whenever I read transparency I always assume that was about soft clipping or the amount of clean signal mixed in the final output sound of a pedal. It is actually a buzz word like "bumble bee" vintage capacitors on guitar circuit were a thing years ago. Best thing is learning how EQ settings works in your rig and others musical environments. And musical theory! ;)
I thought that transparent distortion were when you play light is sounds clean or almost, maybe a bit compressed, bit when you dig a bit it starts to get crunchy.
@@PastelComGini this is more "tube like" sound characteristics. Watch the last video from Vertex where what you described happens with different pedals th-cam.com/video/-NrjtqRZ1V8/w-d-xo.html
Honestly, can you just show us your approach to dialing your tone in. You never miss, and I am very picky 😆. I don’t mean with just one guitar, every guitar you feature in a video lately is dialed in so well to its specific response to the amp. Also, what are you doing in post?! P.S. The Euphoria is very underrated. I may need to try one after watching this!
I have a BD2 and a Euphoria. Both sound great, but unfortunately the Euphoria is doing some weird sound damping. Anywhere I put it in the chain, I get these random drops in sound. Like the volume has been turned all the way down. Remove the pedal, and no issues. That’s unfortunate because I do love the tone of the Euphoria.
In layman's terms its a marketing ploy and church and worship players on forums like to use that word alot. Even a pedal like a jhs morning glory is talked about it being transparent but it still creates a different sonic sound and adds grit to my tone. So it's a weird word used in the pedal business.
When a stock pedal is modded what really changes? Got 3 drives on my board and all are modded. The BD-2 is done by Alchemy and is a bit more dirt sound than a Keeley Waza or stock. I know cause those other 3 are sitting on the shelf. I got a homedone Meat and 3 modded Soul food that I mostly use on the middle switch which is supposedly "open". And got an bias knob modded older 3 knob Butler Tube driver. Also as reference for you Brian I'm the 1 who wrote you in the last yrs about a Indyguitarist modded CH-1 on my board. When modding any stock pedal does it much change the tone and/ or controls? Would what we hear in a stock pedal be pretty much the same as a modded pedal as far as tone controls?
It entirely depends on what the mods consist of. Mods can be very simple, like say a diode change, or something really extravagant like adding entirely different circuitry to it.
@@wampler_pedals Fair enough. On drives seems that a tone change wouldn't happen I guess. But would changing 1 thing also switch others things. Like I said you did my CH-1 yrs ago. Would the changes you made open up the tone wider? Just curious as my last 2 pedals are a dB-1 boost and a silent modded 10 band E Q. So I still control my tone with that EQ. And it's my only always on pedal.
@@sparkyguitar0058 It's just too difficult to say to be accurate, when I was doing mods I wasn't really doing "cookie cutter" mods - I'd modify them according to what the user/customer had asked me for. So it's possible that I did modify the eq of the pedal, but it's also possible that I didn't. :/
@@wampler_pedals Again fair enough. Chorus isn't a very different kinda sound so having a custom modded pedal that a well know builder like yourself on my board is better to me than having a newer more optioned out pedal would be. Much respect for answering and your videos are great teaching tools. So thanks again.
Yes. I just got one a couple of weeks ago and mine has a bass cut (small white switch in bottom of battery compartment). I haven't used the bass cut yet as I like the way it sounds with my single coil guitars.
Nice video! I have a question: I know that the frequency response of a Rat is highly dependent on the gain and also the volume setting. Is this the norm or is the Rat an outlier due to its circuitry?
I never would have thought the rat had a flat frequency response. It cuts a lot of bass, way too much for me and it adds a lot of treble because of the distorsion.
frequency plots are sometimes misleading. To the ear the pedal sounds mid heavy to you but clearly the data from the graph shows it's not. That's kind of what I'm conveying here - a person can't just rely on frequency graphs to try to understand what a pedal sounds like
I think this whole idea of "transparent" is why I've never been a fan of blues breakers and klons. To me, they don't really "sound" like anything. I am a big proponent of DSP and modeling, so I don't need to worry about volume. I feel like klons and blues breakers just sound like the amp but a little more driven. Which for me, I could just turn the drive up on the amp. Personally, I don't care for the way a blues breaker saturates, so that's a huge turn off for me. I've got a duke of tone, and no matter how I set it, it really just doesn't sound nearly as pleasing to me as my odr1 or my mostortion. Ironically I'm not the biggest fan of clean blend, which is a little funky since I'm actually a bass player at heart and tons of us swear by having clean blend. I feel like I never notice the blend when it's there, and if anything, when I want to cut through more, I'll actually decrease the gain and that gets all the definition I need. Idk, I know lots of people LOVE those two circuits. But I've tried them, and to me, I just don't like how they change my saturation. And the fact that they don't really sound like anything to me already makes me question why they're even on the board when I could do the same job with a boost and keep the saturation that I like.
Does it really make an amplifier work harder to reproduce bass frequencies & it doesn't work as hard to reproduce the mids & highs? I only ask this b/c I've heard it mentioned by some others but they did not offer any science to back up what they were saying. My opinion is that the amplifier may make the speaker work harder to reproduce the bass freqs but not work the speaker as hard & that it has really no impact on how hard the amp works. But I really don't have a clue & I know that you have the setup & ability to maybe make this happen, science wise, & give everyone a great video log of you checking this out. Would you be game to figure this out? Mythbusters style?
Amps do have to work harder to produce the bass frequencies, there is a lot more energy in those low waves than high. I was trying to think of real world examples to help explain it: Ever been in a car with ridiculous subwoofers fitted in the boot for listening to bass heavy dance music insanely loud? Have you seen the headlights dim because of the power required to create the insane loud bass frequencies? This isn't the case when powering tweeters that produce the treble frequencies.
I wanted the Ratsbane due to wampler being my favorite brand. I've never had a wanpler I didn't LOVE. But GC had both but the rat was Cheaper . I remember I got 6 pedals 2 EQD,2 JHS and 2 others i forgot and I've never had an OD before and had the tumnus and it blew me away. And I had a angry Charlie and I later got a Plexi drive deluxe and I rarely use the Angry Charlie heheh
good catch! But that's why I included the frequency plot - for those that like to analyze their pedals it can be very misleading, and this is an example.
There's no such thing as a 'transparent' overdrive to start with. It's just marketing/idiots on forums who don't what they are talking about. The Rat does actually become transparent with the gain set to minimum with the filter & volume maxed out. There are very few overdrives that actually do that.
Looking just to the frequency spectrum for complex sounds with tons of harmonics doesn't tell much, there's lots there that is not visible or hidden by the tons of frequency content generated by a distortion pedal. For example you can't tell how much and how soon the pedal compress, or if there's a bleed of clean sound that goes through and other 'time dependent' tone characteristics like sustain.
Great demonstration! For me, "transparent" has always meant that chords won't necessarily "go to mush," which is a highly technical term in my world for when the whole thing sounds like noise and none of the notes are discernible. For example, if I play a Cmaj7sus4 through some fuzzes and distortions, it just sounds like a train wreck during a plane crash while a volcano is going off. Most ODs, some distortions, and several fuzzes will preserve the quality of that and other chords--hence, to me, they're "transparent" and "don't mush out or go to mush." I don't really understand any other attempted meaning, especially when used for marketing purposes. I just have to play some crazy chords to see what a pedal does to them--which I think is the real point of this video.
@@boimesa8190 Right now, my eyes are set on Tone Bender designs. I can get my old DOD Classic Fuzz to clean up a little. Lastly would be my Effectrode Helios, a VERY nice pedal that seems to be discontinued. The rest is mostly stuff like ODs. I'm still looking, myself. Everyone who plays through any sort of dirt pedals tends to either play leads or power chords, and I've had to use careful observation to try to figure out which ones might work for what I want to do. My next idea is parallel distortion signals, which I have some nutty ideas for.
@@robcerasuolo9207 wow then we're definitely on the same path dude! I literally just bought an SA Ultrawave to try stuff out but I'm not really enjoying the workflow on that... Maybe we can team up or sm?
![ILLSLICK - KILLSHOT REMIX [FULL VERSION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RIK8RrqIAzE/mqdefault.jpg)
To me, transparent means that when I'm playing with a band and I step on the drive pedal, my tone hasn't drastically changed. It still sounds like the guitar and amp, but crunchier. Some pedals are so drastic that it doesn't seem to matter what guitar you plug in - it sounds like the pedal. Those pedals can be useful, for sure, just not what I'd prefer for my base tone.
Perfectly stated. For me, the JHS Morning Glory fits that description.
Yes but hard clipping vs soft clipping means something totally different! Hard clipping doesn't effect your rythmm playing soft clipping does ! That's what transparent means ! Unless you have the gainstage on your amp that sounds already over the top modern that the soft pedal clipping is so minimal that doesn't effect your tone for rythmm that is my take as both a rytmm player and lead
That's exactly how I think of it.
You are drscribing a clean boost 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
@@dmytrotarasov9477except he’s not. Clean boost adds output. A drive adds crunch from input gain, and can, but not necessarily will, add output, depending on where you set the output level.
Came for the topic, stayed for the t shirt. May the force be with you.
Nice explanation. Thanks.
Indeed, that's why I prefer to talk about "natural overdrives" instead of "transparent overdrives".
Liking the new specs Brian! Hope you're well!
Since mixing my own songs, these videos have been invaluable to see the frequency ranges of each pedal. I’ve been using an ODR-1 mini with an EQ behind it to.
Might check out the Belle.
The Belle was a revelation for me. It's extraordinary, works well pushing an amp (Vox AC15, Fender Blues Junior IV, Laney Cub12R & VC30 - it works great with all of em) or another drive pedal, or stacked after a Muff or another higher gain pedal as a tone-shaper. It works so well I'm considering getting a second one :)
Wow, the Euphoria sounds AMAZING. This was on in the background while I was working and I had to stop and see which pedal sounded so good. Bravo.
Sleeper pedal
@@0megalul309 what is the Euphoria based on?
@@boimesa8190 dumble amps, I believe.
@@boimesa8190 not based on any particular circuit, it's a non inverting op amp thing
In the past 5+ years,the only overdrive that I have consistently had on my board,is the Euphoria. I've moved it around,a little bit,but has never been removed. Can't say the same,for the other 40+ drive pedals,I've owned.
It sounds great on its own,and stacks extremely well!
The King of Tone and the Euphoria "gained up" sounded great! Very interesting video.
The absolute best thing about this video is...It tells me what pedals "not" to waste my retirement fixed income buying.
The Euphoria sounds great. It retains chime on top of the growling midrange.
I picked up your tumnus deluxe…..I love it. I have the mini. I love it also. I took the mini off my board but I’m making a “mini board” and that’s going on there.
As always, great content.
I have 3 of those pedals, and I must say the Euphoria was by far my favorite. Ive had one for years now, alongside a Hot Wired. Appreciate the knowledge, thanks.
All I’ve ever meant by “transparent” was keeping the frequency range intact when I hit the “more” button. I guess I figured it was a forgone conclusion that what anyone would be looking for in different clipping styles would be the change in the texture of the gain.
I love this guy lol and love that he uses his tele and single coils cause that’s what I play most of the time
Love the shirt! My wife got me one for Christmas. Cheers!
always great knowledge you share with us all about this stuff, and myth busting! 🙏 👍
That Nobels reminds me of the DSL I used to have. Cranking it brings a heap of low end you didn’t think was even allowable with the settings you have 😂
Nothing but a crayon box. Finding the right colors.. and dialing the amount of color is the task. Thank you Brian. I don't have any of those pedals. When I was younger, I wanted that eddie brown sound. I eventual found me. It's a journey. Nerdy and fun... but a journey no less. Frustrating at times. You have to fight through that.
I'm just here for the guitar playing but you really know a lot about pedals! You should make some.
I'm considering it! haha
I appreciate the visual representation of the pedals. I am working on ear training but I’m visual first (which is probably bad for a musician). Anyway, my ears must be improving because had you put a Klon or TScreamer type pedal in the “transparent” category I would have quit music. For OD pedals, I categorize the in two general umbrellas of mid-pushed & flat EQ pedals. The break up part is more subjective. I don’t really care if the clipping is hard, soft, Cascading transistors, Jfet, MOSFET, or Bobafet. I digress, thanks for this video. You did something similar when the Belle came out showing the frequency of a Nobels ODR1. I bought the Belle & it started me down the path of OD pedals without a significant mud hump
I would buy a Bobafet pedal…
Ear training 🤣🤣🤣
It's not bad to be visual man.
@@TorrieSeager ?
@@Hamppzah !
Great content Brian, keep up the good work!
I think that the concept of "transparency ", as far as I can tell, is just an overerstated term to imply that the core tone is not severely altered.
To your point, it's impossible not to change the tonal characteristics when introducing some harmonic content in the form of clipping.
A compressor set to a 1:1 ratio might be transparent, but what's the fun in that?
It's a buzzword most people don't understand and think it's supposed to apply in every situation as ideal.
Honestly I think that what a lot of people describe to be a true transparent OD is just a compressor pedal 😂
Transparent overdrive to me means the Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor. I set the eq to 12 and turn the gain down and can barely tell when it’s on or off.
The Wampler Belle seems to be another good transparent option.
Your rig sounds awesome with them all. Thanks for sharing.
I love my non-transparent OD pedals, with Klon types being my favorites, although I like my TS, Zendrive, and RC Booster clones too
Great video! I'm a fan of frequency responses as a part of analyzing a pedal. I think you showed clearly that they only give you part of the picture though.
Excellent. I've chimed in a couple of times on your EQ videos pointing out that one can't match sounds w EQ alone. Harmonic content is not going to be matched. You agreed , but I wasn't 100% sure that you weren't just avoiding a pointless argument. Now I know that's not the case.
I am not sure if a frequency plot of a distorted signal tells you much. Distortion adds a lot of bass and overtones, so it is kind of like measuring dynamics after a compressor. A lot of the character of a distortion seems to come from the filter placed before the distortion circuit, which you can kind of tease out by applying a test signal quiet enough not to distort.
Doesn’t he say this?
@@obsoletecd-rom The thing is you can get a useful plot of a distortion circuit. You need to show a separate plot for the fundamental and each harmonic. You can recover the harmonics by using a log-sine chirp and some math. The issue with the noise into a FFT method is that it assumes that the test signal is linear and time invariant.
That’s exactly what he said
One overdrive not shown in the video was the Timmy. To me that is the most neutral that I have played. It seems to sound the most like the amp naturally overdriving. Sometimes that is what you want, but sometime you might what something a little different.
Exactly, and this is to me the reason Timmy will probably always be my favourite OD. Just more of your guitar and amp, does it superbly.
Thanks for backing up from camera. It was distracting Great vid. Your pedal s are. Great top to bottom. The green reverb pedal. Was really great for bluesy reverb jam
May I make 1 suggestion and request?
I think it’s time for content creators to spend a little more time on showing us what your exact guitar chain is going into your DAW and your channel settings in your mixer, compression etc. etc. etc. and final stereo bus signal output ( what’s on your stereo bus?) for a finished pedal and/or guitar demo.
Guitarists who admire your tone or any creator’s tone would like to actually know how to set up that tone in our DAW’s
Most of us our pretty familiar with how to dial in a decent working pedal tone for our gigs, but a lot of us want to reach great or greater DAW tones with our recordings or our own demos.
Can you consider making an in depth look at what goes into making a great guitar demo from the DAW out to the public?
I mean as a mixing engineer I know how mixing influences a final demo such as this and you all seem to know or be practicing similar mixing techniques that seem to give you all a similarly fantastic finished demo. Which in my opinion doesn’t sound exactly like any pedal in a live situations or simply playing at home…..
By the way this demo sounded great! 😁
This.
I love my Euphoria. I'm a jazzer and use an Benedetto acoustic archtop. This pedal is so smooth yet will get pretty nasty if you want it too, even with an archtop. Love it!
I haven't played in a few years and sold off about 1/2 my pedal collection. I hope when I have my music room back from renovation hell, that I did not include the Euphoria in the ones I let go.😮
Thanks Brian. You've been a great help!
The best transparent drive pedal is the first LPB-1. lt still is. Pure clean boost.
After watching this video, I bought an Euphoria. Looks and sounds great side by side with my Pantheon! Regards from Vienna, Austria
The king of tone gave me rebel rebel Bowie feels
I do not have the King of Tone, but the Wampler Pantheon Deluxe which I love. I have all the others except the Euphoria - need one now. ❤
Great video! Thanks Brian
“Transparent” may be a bit of a misnomer, but I think most of us understand it’s pedals that don’t drastically alter your eq (particularly the midrange) like say a tube screamer does. I think a bass cut/boost knob is a must on any of this style of drive. My favorite is the Timmy style pedals, my danelectro transparent OD is the one pedal that never leaves my board.
Since the voicing of overdrive circuits is basically a bandpass filter, maybe Wampler could produce a tunable bandpass preamp?
They have a parametric eq for just the kid range with bass and treble knobs. It’s called the Equator. Worth having look if you want a good boost pedal going into an edge of breakup or distorted amp
My Euphoria side of the dual fusion and the blues driver sound fantastic. Texas blues all day, dial the gain back on both for a great David Gimour
I'm always amazed how Gilmore is thought of as a tone everyone wants. I do really like his trad Strat thru a tube amp tone, but the second he steps on that piece of garbage Tube Screamer all the Dimensionality leaves. He would have been much better served by a clean boost w the tubes distorting more. But hopefully when you use your pedal, that doesn't happen.
@@terryenglish7132 David Gilmour uses 3 Tube Driver overdrives and so many more pedals to get all his different iconic awesome sounds through history..that’s why he’s a legend among his playing,singing,etc…
but definitely he’s not a tubescreamer guy…
@@mdmusic2130 According to the web he did ; and later that other piece of crap, as you said Tube Driver .I have an original , which I guess I should sell since they're coveted, but even taking into account the 12 or 9 volt plate voltage , its a poor design. Bees puking. BUT I'm thinking of Comfortably Numb where his tone was huge, then shrinks to small , after he steps on , something, for the solo. I hope I don't accidentally buy one... Don't get me wrong, I love his playing and he's as good guitarist as anyone, but his lead tone doesn't do him justice. Thanks for the reply, cheers.
@@terryenglish7132 I respect your opinion but there is so much to understand when we want to talk about Gilmour’s guitar tone…his amount of gear and development about his own sound is endless…it’s huge…and it doesn’t matter if we like or not because I was never discussing that…the result of his tone (we like it or not) is not because he’s turning on or off a tube screamer…
@@terryenglish7132 Fun fact: he mostly plugged into an Alembic solid-state preamp for his guitar tone, not the Hiwatts. Those were slaved with the pre-amps decoupled from the power section. IIRC he didn't start going straight into the Hiwatts until the early 2000s
If I recall, the Nobles has a switch on the inside... and I think they newer ones may even have an external switch to deal with the bass.
Thanks for this. Now I have something to point people to when I tell them that transparent overdrives don’t exist.
The other one with a bass dial is the Nordland ODR made by the designer of the original Nobels ODR-1. The knob is much more effective than the poorly implemented in bass cut the Nobels ODR-mini and nano-switch inside new BC.
People need to re-learn to not buy into the garbage of strategically buzzword-heavy descriptions on manufacturer websites and to just LISTEN to a pedal to see if it does what they need. Works for pickups and amps/cabs too.
Ive tried all od and boost you can think of.ive setteld on the kot and the pot pedal simply because they have a great boost and power.i wish i could afford a klon .but hey im happy with what i have .
Great video here, Brian!
I purchased the ego mini and plexi mini going into a fender mustang 3 amp with the deluxe reverb 65 modeling. I had a fantastic tone but I added the digitech drop compact pedal,now there is a very loud hiss unless I turn the sustain in the ego mini nearly off. On the amp I am using the noise gate on the max setting. Do you think a noise gate pedal after the ego mini will help. I'm sure I will figure something out. Just curious what you think. I love your videos and products. I have been using the 1spot power supply. Maybe if I upgrade the power supply it will help. I ordered the Godlyke power all supply,I hope that cleans it up. Thanks
Great video. The Euphoria is my favorite of the group. I am surprised that you didn't include the Tumnus though.
The tumnus the complete opposite of transparent in it's frequency response
Great demo!
I love Blue Cat software for analysis!!
My KOT clone sounds sounds like a marshall 2x12 ,including the speaker boom ,I found the BJF model H clone also sounds like it emulates the Fane speakers of a Hiwatt stack.
I love the chunkiness of the mids and lower mids, but hate that 2k to 4k 'speaker rattle' that, to me, seems extraneous to the core tonality. Some might call that fizz, but to me its just an upper mid to high range rattle that I would never want in my music. Great music is all about tones and textures, and that specific texture I find very 'misdirecting'. I have heard many crunchy textures that don't have that annoying rattle which sounds more like hearing damage to me. Harmonic distortion is somewhat soothing but this specific texture is anything but. It's extraneous, like 'clipping buildup' in the upper register. In the studio, I would use a de-esser or dynamic eq to get rid of it. We need an overdrive pedal that has that dynamic eq built into it. Just saying, because not everything is for everybody.
I had a Celestion speaker that had that same “fizz” to it and it’s associated with amps that people say are “fizzy” all the time. Kinda funny no one thinks about changing their speakers to change their tone but will do everything else instead.
Just not sure after watching if I'm more informed or more confused and falling down a rabbit hole. Love the tone and playing on each of them.
I agree that freq response doesn't tell you anything about gain, compression, clipping, etc. But I sustain (pun intended) that it's one of the things rarely mentioned when a pedal is described or reviewed. Whether something is high or low gain, fuzzy or smooth, and so on, one can tell by watching TH-cam reviews. But whether it cuts bass, and how much, it's very hard to tell unless you actually play the pedal. I don't doubt you get all sorts of questions and messages about how pedals work, but I personally never came across someone claiming that frequency response comprehensively describes a pedal. I also wouldn't never call the frequency response of a Rat (serious cut below 200Hz and above 5kHz, peak around 1kHz) similar to a Bluesbreaker (significantly more bass below 200Hz, less "hump" and a lot more high frequencies).
That was fun and informative. I still love my ODR1 as my go to drive pedal but damn that Euphoria has a sexy glassiness ( is that a word ) to it
Interesting video. PS: The Euphoria sounds stellar (not only) today
Very cool video... what bridge pickup is in that guitar? Sounds great.
Great, ,like I don't have enough OD pedals, this makes me miss my lot and I'm about to buy a Euphoria. I had to quit subscribing a while back bc I was buying 3 new pedals a week lmao. Awesome video btw my friend.
Man, nothing touches that Euphoria. Such a nice tone sounds more like an amp than a pedal
Every time I hear the Nobels, I'm struck at how little top end there is. I guess I'm not surprised by the frequency response curve.
I’m surprised at all the different personal interpretations people in the comments seem to have about what transparency in a pedal would mean. I always considered it to mean a pedal that tonally matches the sound of my driven amp. In other words, no shelving off a bunch of frequencies that would not be shelved off if I just cranked my amp. An ideally “transparent” overdrive would sound exactly like my amp if I pushed the amp into the same level of overdrive, including all the flaws, like if the bass flubs out or the treble gets spikey. Rather than a pedal that aims to give you some kind of “corrected tone”.
Thats precisely how I feel....Does an "Actual" transparent OD exist.....I have owned and played through 100's of overdrives..never found one yet!
@@dougsmith6648 Look into preamp pedals instead of overdrive pedals. Something with a full EQ stack, bass, mids and treble. Something like the Tech 21 Character pedals. I’m using a couple of the Joyo clones of those. 50 bucks each for a Marshall and Fender style amp sounds. Way closer than I’ve gotten with any regular overdrive pedal.
The BD2 is the boss.
Makes sense distortion is a nonlinear transform. Frequency and phase can't reliability model nonlinear systems very well. X-Params instead of S should be a more accurate measurement.
Any of the Wampler pedals geared for Bass? Or more useful for bass?
Many of them can be used with bass as well, is there a specific pedal you were looking at?
Out of all these pedals which would be your favorite?
Whenever I read transparency I always assume that was about soft clipping or the amount of clean signal mixed in the final output sound of a pedal. It is actually a buzz word like "bumble bee" vintage capacitors on guitar circuit were a thing years ago. Best thing is learning how EQ settings works in your rig and others musical environments. And musical theory! ;)
I thought that transparent distortion were when you play light is sounds clean or almost, maybe a bit compressed, bit when you dig a bit it starts to get crunchy.
@@PastelComGini this is more "tube like" sound characteristics. Watch the last video from Vertex where what you described happens with different pedals th-cam.com/video/-NrjtqRZ1V8/w-d-xo.html
I liked the euphoria the most, aside from that awesome shirt anyways.
Is that a Ceriatone Overtone Lunchbox behind you? Would love to know what you think of it! Do you use it in any of your videos?
Honestly, can you just show us your approach to dialing your tone in. You never miss, and I am very picky 😆.
I don’t mean with just one guitar, every guitar you feature in a video lately is dialed in so well to its specific response to the amp.
Also, what are you doing in post?!
P.S. The Euphoria is very underrated. I may need to try one after watching this!
Thank you so much!
Thanks for abusing... err... disabusing us of this. Timmy is the best in any case
I have a BD2 and a Euphoria. Both sound great, but unfortunately the Euphoria is doing some weird sound damping. Anywhere I put it in the chain, I get these random drops in sound. Like the volume has been turned all the way down. Remove the pedal, and no issues.
That’s unfortunate because I do love the tone of the Euphoria.
Sorry to hear that! Sounds like the switch is going out, shoot us an email at help@wamplerpedals.com
@@wampler_pedals When I get a chance I’ll make a video to send you.
Thanks 😊
In layman's terms its a marketing ploy and church and worship players on forums like to use that word alot. Even a pedal like a jhs morning glory is talked about it being transparent but it still creates a different sonic sound and adds grit to my tone. So it's a weird word used in the pedal business.
The BD-2 is such a sleeper.
When a stock pedal is modded what really changes? Got 3 drives on my board and all are modded. The BD-2 is done by Alchemy and is a bit more dirt sound than a Keeley Waza or stock. I know cause those other 3 are sitting on the shelf. I got a homedone Meat and 3 modded Soul food that I mostly use on the middle switch which is supposedly "open". And got an bias knob modded older 3 knob Butler Tube driver. Also as reference for you Brian I'm the 1 who wrote you in the last yrs about a Indyguitarist modded CH-1 on my board. When modding any stock pedal does it much change the tone and/ or controls? Would what we hear in a stock pedal be pretty much the same as a modded pedal as far as tone controls?
It entirely depends on what the mods consist of. Mods can be very simple, like say a diode change, or something really extravagant like adding entirely different circuitry to it.
@@wampler_pedals Fair enough. On drives seems that a tone change wouldn't happen I guess. But would changing 1 thing also switch others things. Like I said you did my CH-1 yrs ago. Would the changes you made open up the tone wider? Just curious as my last 2 pedals are a dB-1 boost and a silent modded 10 band E Q. So I still control my tone with that EQ. And it's my only always on pedal.
@@sparkyguitar0058 It's just too difficult to say to be accurate, when I was doing mods I wasn't really doing "cookie cutter" mods - I'd modify them according to what the user/customer had asked me for. So it's possible that I did modify the eq of the pedal, but it's also possible that I didn't. :/
@@wampler_pedals Again fair enough. Chorus isn't a very different kinda sound so having a custom modded pedal that a well know builder like yourself on my board is better to me than having a newer more optioned out pedal would be. Much respect for answering and your videos are great teaching tools. So thanks again.
The ODR-1 has a bass cut switch under the door with the logo on it.
unless they have come out with a new version this is not true. Here's an image: i.postimg.cc/Ls7nPmtk/IMG-0894.jpg
Yes. I just got one a couple of weeks ago and mine has a bass cut (small white switch in bottom of battery compartment). I haven't used the bass cut yet as I like the way it sounds with my single coil guitars.
@@toddj9548 That's good to know! I didn't know that Nobels was now putting that control on the newest version
Nice wasn't the Euphoria formerly known as the Ecstacy ???
1. Barber Gain Changer 2. Greer Lightspeed 3. Everything Else
Nobels has a bass cut switch under the battery compartment
this was commented about earlier. Only the new ones have this feature, the older vintage ones that are sought after do not.
Should the DOD250 be part of this analysis?
Nice video! I have a question: I know that the frequency response of a Rat is highly dependent on the gain and also the volume setting. Is this the norm or is the Rat an outlier due to its circuitry?
It's the norm depending on the design of the circuit.
Very subtle, Wampler.
I never would have thought the rat had a flat frequency response. It cuts a lot of bass, way too much for me and it adds a lot of treble because of the distorsion.
frequency plots are sometimes misleading. To the ear the pedal sounds mid heavy to you but clearly the data from the graph shows it's not. That's kind of what I'm conveying here - a person can't just rely on frequency graphs to try to understand what a pedal sounds like
I think this whole idea of "transparent" is why I've never been a fan of blues breakers and klons. To me, they don't really "sound" like anything. I am a big proponent of DSP and modeling, so I don't need to worry about volume. I feel like klons and blues breakers just sound like the amp but a little more driven. Which for me, I could just turn the drive up on the amp. Personally, I don't care for the way a blues breaker saturates, so that's a huge turn off for me. I've got a duke of tone, and no matter how I set it, it really just doesn't sound nearly as pleasing to me as my odr1 or my mostortion. Ironically I'm not the biggest fan of clean blend, which is a little funky since I'm actually a bass player at heart and tons of us swear by having clean blend. I feel like I never notice the blend when it's there, and if anything, when I want to cut through more, I'll actually decrease the gain and that gets all the definition I need.
Idk, I know lots of people LOVE those two circuits. But I've tried them, and to me, I just don't like how they change my saturation. And the fact that they don't really sound like anything to me already makes me question why they're even on the board when I could do the same job with a boost and keep the saturation that I like.
Don't own the belle yet! But it's top of list. Great content Brian ! You and the wampler team make excellent pedals. I own many. Cheers
Wow the Euphoria sounds great!
How about the Greer Lightspeed?
Does it really make an amplifier work harder to reproduce bass frequencies & it doesn't work as hard to reproduce the mids & highs? I only ask this b/c I've heard it mentioned by some others but they did not offer any science to back up what they were saying. My opinion is that the amplifier may make the speaker work harder to reproduce the bass freqs but not work the speaker as hard & that it has really no impact on how hard the amp works. But I really don't have a clue & I know that you have the setup & ability to maybe make this happen, science wise, & give everyone a great video log of you checking this out. Would you be game to figure this out? Mythbusters style?
Amps do have to work harder to produce the bass frequencies, there is a lot more energy in those low waves than high.
I was trying to think of real world examples to help explain it:
Ever been in a car with ridiculous subwoofers fitted in the boot for listening to bass heavy dance music insanely loud? Have you seen the headlights dim because of the power required to create the insane loud bass frequencies? This isn't the case when powering tweeters that produce the treble frequencies.
Which amp are you playing into here?
The Euphoria had the nicest fuzz sound that I have ever heard.
Have you ever analyzed a Timmy? It always seemed the most transparent to me. Especially with the cuts wide open.
I know I have, unfortunately I don't recall which video though :(
What a great shirt
I wanted the Ratsbane due to wampler being my favorite brand. I've never had a wanpler I didn't LOVE. But GC had both but the rat was Cheaper . I remember I got 6 pedals 2 EQD,2 JHS and 2 others i forgot and I've never had an OD before and had the tumnus and it blew me away. And I had a angry Charlie and I later got a Plexi drive deluxe and I rarely use the Angry Charlie heheh
Cool t-shirt
I don’t hear transparency in any overdrive… some are just more articulate.
you're deaf, dw
I agree, unless its tubes.
@@tokenofdevotion One of you might be
Is the rat considered a transparent od though ?
good catch! But that's why I included the frequency plot - for those that like to analyze their pedals it can be very misleading, and this is an example.
There's no such thing as a 'transparent' overdrive to start with. It's just marketing/idiots on forums who don't what they are talking about.
The Rat does actually become transparent with the gain set to minimum with the filter & volume maxed out. There are very few overdrives that actually do that.
But why?
Why pedals that look identical on the frequency response analysis can sound that different?
Looking just to the frequency spectrum for complex sounds with tons of harmonics doesn't tell much, there's lots there that is not visible or hidden by the tons of frequency content generated by a distortion pedal. For example you can't tell how much and how soon the pedal compress, or if there's a bleed of clean sound that goes through and other 'time dependent' tone characteristics like sustain.
@@seisette nailed it. There's so many more variables that go into the sound of a circuit, it's not just output frequencies
At a first sight they did not look so similar to me....🤔
Hey Wampler you forgot the Daily Driver by Shnobel
Euphoria sounds awesome!
Great demonstration!
For me, "transparent" has always meant that chords won't necessarily "go to mush," which is a highly technical term in my world for when the whole thing sounds like noise and none of the notes are discernible. For example, if I play a Cmaj7sus4 through some fuzzes and distortions, it just sounds like a train wreck during a plane crash while a volcano is going off. Most ODs, some distortions, and several fuzzes will preserve the quality of that and other chords--hence, to me, they're "transparent" and "don't mush out or go to mush." I don't really understand any other attempted meaning, especially when used for marketing purposes. I just have to play some crazy chords to see what a pedal does to them--which I think is the real point of this video.
YES!!!! Do u know what pedals do this? I play complex chords and I'm looking for some nice dirt pedals from low to high gain to play with :O
@@boimesa8190 Right now, my eyes are set on Tone Bender designs. I can get my old DOD Classic Fuzz to clean up a little. Lastly would be my Effectrode Helios, a VERY nice pedal that seems to be discontinued. The rest is mostly stuff like ODs. I'm still looking, myself. Everyone who plays through any sort of dirt pedals tends to either play leads or power chords, and I've had to use careful observation to try to figure out which ones might work for what I want to do. My next idea is parallel distortion signals, which I have some nutty ideas for.
@@robcerasuolo9207 wow then we're definitely on the same path dude! I literally just bought an SA Ultrawave to try stuff out but I'm not really enjoying the workflow on that... Maybe we can team up or sm?
@@boimesa8190 Sure! Why not? 😆
@@robcerasuolo9207 sick Reddit?
Love my Euphoria!!!!!