Distortion

Jeff Valentine · From: Colorado Springs, USA

Hi all,

I had a question regarding distortion. I'm a Pod X3 user and have been using the different patches to get distortion. This is great as long as I turn the volume way down on the pod and crank the volume pedal. If I reduce the volume the level of distortion drops since I'm not overdriving it anymore. We use in ears most of the time and disregard the amp all together. People have told me to get a distortion stomp and it should fix the issue. I'm not going to play the same volume through the tune regardless of what sound I'm using. I'm just trying to get some distortion that will stay distorted no matter how loud I play. Some of the newer country tunes are stacked with various distorted guitar layers that I'm trying to mimic. I'm not looking for the thrasher sound. Any tips?

Thanks, Jeff

Jon Light (deceased) · From: Saugerties, NY

my opinion----you either need to discipline yourself to just pedal down and get the tone you need and play (possibly with some compression in the patch to help smooth out the distortion and give you some confidence in the pedal down thing) or, more simply you need a distortion device before the volume pedal. Because the last thing I want or need is to use my xt and then add more gear to my setup & break down I have worked at creating patches with the amount of grind I need (plus some tweakable parameters) with touch-up volume control at the Pod master out at my fingertips.
But the bottom line is that you either have touch sensitive grind (post volume pedal POD) or not (pre vp stomp box).

David Doggett · Posted 13 Jul 2008 7:53 pm

Jeff, I'm with you. I want to be able to set a constant level of distortion, and to play that at any volume level. The way I get that is with a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube distortion unit between my pedal steel and my volume pedal. The amount of distortion is set with the gain knob of the SDTT box. Then with my volume pedal I control the volume the same as I control the volume of my clean tone. In addition to getting constant fuzz-like distortion at any volume level, I can set the SDTT gain so that it has touch sensitive distortion - if I pick hard it distorts, if I pick lighter it is clean. And I can use either of those at any volume with the volume pedal. So I am confused by Jon's last line. To me "touch sensitive" means finger sensitive with a device before the volume pedal, not volume pedal sensitive with a device after the volume pedal.

The POD is very versatile. So there may be some way to configure it for using one of it's simulated distortion boxes between the guitar and the volume pedal. You would have to be able to run the volume pedal out of the POD. I don't have my POD instruction manual in front of me and I forget if it has an effects loop to use for the volume pedal. I have never tried that, because I use the POD for amp and speaker models, reverb and delay, which I want after the volume pedal (actually, I only use the POD for some amps I have with no reverb).

There may be other stomp boxes that work for pick sensitivity like the SDTT, but of the dozens I have tried it is the only one I found. Many guitar stomp boxes do not sound very good in front of the volume pedal. You just have to try a bunch of them in front of the volume pedal and see what happens.

Jeff Valentine · From: Colorado Springs, USA

Thanks for taking the time to try and help with my issue. I'll give that a try, David. It seems that's the direction I need to go. Thanks for your input as well, Jon. I think you're right about having the distortion device before the volume pedal. I'll certainly check that out. My issue really doesn't have much to do with discipline or confidence. It doesn't sound good to play the same volume throughout the whole song. It's really that simple.

Thanks, Jeff

Richard Marko · From: Dallas, Texas

I have a POD XT so I don't know if you have a drive knob on your X3.

I had the same issue of losing some distortion when decreasing volume pedal .
I had to turn channel volume down and more drive but more importantly adjust the EQ if you have it on.
The Eq will reduce the distortion at low volume via pedal.

I've never tried the volume pedal in the effects loop, hmm I'll give it a try.

Good Luck

Jon Light (deceased) · From: Saugerties, NY

My reference to 'confidence & discipline' related to myself as much as anything. I've had to work hard at breaking my own standard PSG volume pedal habits when working with overdriven sounds. I'm trying to think more like a guitarist and get my dynamics from the fingers and not the foot in order to get consistency of tone. like I said, if I'm going to use the Pod I really don't want to have to use any other outboard gear. Otherwise I'll ditch the Pod and go back to the pedalboard. I've got a bassman patch that just has some edgy breakup to it but it's so touchy that anything other than 90-100% VP loses the sweet spot. And I've got some Duane Allman-ish Marshall patches that just don't want VP to mess with them.
And as I also mentioned, I find that compression helps to broaden the sweet spot.

Jeff Valentine · From: Colorado Springs, USA

I didn't think about the EQ.... I've got my drive maxed out for the distortion patches, but hadn't thought about the EQ. That might help. I'll give it a try tomorrow. I see what you mean, Jon. I've already had to break my habit of playing intervals of a 3rd or less at the same time. With distorted patches you usually get these nasty sub tones that kill the interval anyway. Open 5ths are cool, but any solo stuff seems to be better if you just stick to one note lines. Thanks to all for the continued advice.

-Jeff

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