Well I guess the trick is haul my gear down to the shop and test 'em out. If I do that I'm afraid I'll come home with much more than I bargained for! I am looking for that bluesy kind of tone. Currently I have a few pedals but no OD. I barley used pedals before. When I used to gig in a classic rock trio, I used my Ultimate Chorus amps drive channel and kicked in a DOD fuzz pedal on leads. It sounded good on stage, but I have no idea what the crowd heard! The Traynor amp I purchased has a lot of headroom on the clean channel so I don't know if thats the channel to push to OD when I have a separate channel for that. I personally like to have the switchable channels. Do you find any pros or cons to have separate channels as opposed to volume and master volume?

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You're doing the right thing by taking your rig down to the guitar shop and trying out everything you can. Just like guitars, pedal quality/tone/etc. can be highly subjective..."in the ear of the beholder," so to speak.

But if you're going for blues, a good starting point is the Ibanez Tube Screamer; there's multiple variations (TS9 [original & reissue], TS808 [also original & reissue], TS9 Turbo, TS10, TS7, TS5), but the most commonly used (and commonly available) are the TS9 and TS808 reissues. All of them have their own personality/quirks that make them what they are.

I'm very happy with my TS9 reissue; I couldn't see paying the difference in price for a vintage one, especially when you factor in age-related issues that might come into play.

A lot of guys like the Boss Blues Driver, too. I've played through them, and overall I liked it; I'm just not personally in the market for another overdrive pedal.

When you start getting onto boutique stuff, you'll get some interesting and cool features, but you'll also go up in price dramatically.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

+1

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The quintessential sound of 60/70's R&R:
Fender Tube Amps
Gibson Guitars