OD Settings

[thekingmaker]

Hey guys,
I received a Digitech Bad Monkey in the mail today, which I'm pretty excited about. I love the sounds of boosted amps.

I have a 6505+ through a Krank rev. I'm just wondering what settings you recommend on the Overdrive. I play hardcore kinda stuff, very similar to Architects and stray from the path

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Start simple. Put the "Level" all the way up, the "Low" and "High" at 12 o'clock, and the "Gain" at about zero. That's the typical "boost" setting. From there, mess with the EQ knobs a bit and see how you like it. Then slowly bring up the gain if you need it. For the level, feel free to lower it a tad.

Even mess with the pedal with all controls at 12 o'clock.

 

[Variant]

I'm not too familiar with the Bad Monkey, but for more of the chug chug kinda stuff, you're looking to get a bit of that mid-hump and square wave cut into it without adding in a lot of saturation/sustain. So a good bit less on the gain, more on the tone end (less lows / more highs) but nothing too extreme, then fiddle with the level until the amp responds right.

 

[Forced Chaos]

I always run any OD pedal about the same for boosting. I keep my level at about 1:00, tone at 11:00, and gain at about 8:00. When I had the BM I think my level and gain were in those parameters and then I had the highs at noon and bass at about 1 or so to dial back in a bit of the lows that the OD pulls out. Very under rated pedal for the money. My bandmate has the hardwire series OD and I actually like the BM better.

 

[Leuchty]

Volume 75%
Gain 25%

Tone depends on a lot of things.

 

[warlock7strEMG]

with a high gain amp like the 6505+, the Bad Monkey will sound best like this: gain 0, level 7-8, bass 5-6, treble 4-5.

with that you wanna keep your amp gain low. lead channel, gain no higher than 4, 5 at the very most

 

[cow 7 sig]

Start simple. Put the "Level" all the way up, the "Low" and "High" at 12 o'clock, and the "Gain" at about zero. That's the typical "boost" setting.

this is exactly how i set my bad monkey when i use it with any of my amps

 

[drenzium]

Full level. No gain. Tweak EQ to taste. And just fine tune. It's simple.

 

[sevenstringj]

Seems y'all use ODs without the gain. So for all intents and purposes, are ODs interchangeable with clean boosts? Or do ODs have some sort of color or mojo even without turning up the gain that clean boosts lack?

 

[drenzium]

Seems y'all use ODs without the gain. So for all intents and purposes, are ODs interchangeable with clean boosts? Or do ODs have some sort of color or mojo even without turning up the gain that clean boosts lack?

Majority of boost pedals are clones of existing tubescreamers.

But they all do have different flavours yeah.

They all do roughly the same thing when used as clean boosts though.

 

[warlock7strEMG]

Seems y'all use ODs without the gain. So for all intents and purposes, are ODs interchangeable with clean boosts? Or do ODs have some sort of color or mojo even without turning up the gain that clean boosts lack?

with a clean boost ive heard that the bass and treble can get a little out of control, esp when used in high gain applications, because they boost EVERYTHING. OD's boost only the frequencies crucial for guitar and they govern everything else.

most OD's tend to boost the mids up a bit, as well as chop off a little of the lower frequencies for the sake of tightness, also chop a little of the treble for smoothness. and they do this, as well as add some slight natural sounding compression, even with the gain all the way down

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Seems y'all use ODs without the gain. So for all intents and purposes, are ODs interchangeable with clean boosts? Or do ODs have some sort of color or mojo even without turning up the gain that clean boosts lack?

The circuit and op-amp of most overdrive pedals acts as a filter which cuts certain frequencies, this cutting of bass frequencies tightens up the sound, and the increased level interacts with the front end of the amp. Needless to say, different "boosts" (I say "boost" when I mean overdrive pedal, but certain Distortion and Fuzz effects will work) will cut and accentuate different frequencies.

The idea is to filter your signal, not increase the level of overdrive/distortion/clipping.

So, in theory, these "boosts" we all refer to are more like "preamp filters". We just call them boosts because it's a much cooler sounding term.