So, I own more pedals than anyone needs, and most sit in the closet, bought because they were a good deal, or hard to find and I was at the right place at the right time, etc.
I decided it was time to prune the pedal board back a bit. I have two dedicated boards; one for the effects that run through the front of the amp, and the second for those that go into the fx loop.
It's the last 3 pedals Im having a difficult time deciding what order to put them. They sound good in every order, I guess I just need someone to help push me into a damn decision. They're all overdrives; a Zendrive, which is one of the Dumble in a box overdrives, and 2 of Paul Cochrane's OD's; a Tim and Timmy. For those who arent familiar with them, they're transparent overdrives, and IMO the best ones you can find (really relatively inexpensive, just a long wait from time of order until delivery). They're pretty much what the OCD wishes it could be. Anyway, the Timmy is a stand-alone overdrive/clean boost. The Tim, has one side that's the Timmy, and another side thats a GAIN boost, not volume boost. It also has a built in effects loop (Im 95% sure that whatever is placed in it goes after the OD in the signal); in that I have a floor strip effects loop I built that has an optical compressor(my regular compressor is at the beginning of the chain) a Boss dd-2 delay, and Boss ce-2 chorus, these are just to add flavor to the OD, I have an other delay and chorus that goes in the fx loop)even if i only had one in the loop, it would only work with the pedal on, so the Boss' buffered bypass doesnt interfere with the signal when off like the would if they were just in the chain, think of it like a true-bypass loop. The Timmy's drive knob has more gain on tap than the Tim, but the Tim has way more total gain when you kick in the boost. So; because the pedal sounds so good, and is so transparent, I've been setting the amp to a pretty clean signal, just a hint of dirt when i turn the guitar to 10 and hit the strings hard. SO im using the OD as sort of a second channel. I presently have it as:
(from left to right) Timmy>Zendrive>Tim (with the strip running in the pedals loop). I have the Timmy set as a clean boost to drive the Zendrive harder, because I like the Zendrives overdrive the best, and that's my solo tone. Ive considered putting the zendrive last, with the Tim before it, and the Timmy for the Tim (confused yet?) That sounds really good too. Im just finding myself changing the order every time I plug in, and i need to make a decision and stick to it, at least until my next pruning session. If you have an OCD, its close enough to get an idea of how the Tim/Timmy sound.
Any suggestions are greatly welcome.

I think you need to put the Tim in front of the Zen drive and send me the Timmy.... If you just want to boost the Zen drive the Tim will do it or pull double duty with some extra gain. Besides I can't afford the Timmy...or the Tim.

Ill keep that in mind. cnt afford it? They're $130 delivered. Used they get expensive.

Well I never saw them on the "gear page" for less than $200.00 or Craig's list locally, but come to think of it that might be due to their scarcity. I never thought of buying new. I'm such a scrooge.

Seriously I was leaning toward the OCD but now I will have to investigate further.
Thanks

I had my OCD for a grand total of a month. I has the latest version, which aren't like the older ones. It was transparent, but added too much treble, and it was the only overdrive that if you had the volume below 1:00, it cut the volume. The Tim/ Timmy, do it superbly. I have 13 od's, 3 I use (once in a while a ts808 o built gets used if I need that 80's mid boost. If you're going to get s Timmy, best bet is to call Paul C. Asap, because there is a long wait. I ordered another pair of them to give my girl friend, I ordered them in June, they'll be ready in October, thats why they get such a high premium used. Same with the Zendrive, but I lucked out and traded a fulldrive 2 for it. They're amazing when you look inside. The Zendrive is one of the simplest circuits I've seen, an op amp, and a few resistors and caps. It seems like most of the best sounding overdrives are like that; the original Marshall Guv'nor, one of the most under rated pedals around(the old black ones), is the same way. Anyways, call him, he's AC really nice guy, tell him what you want, you don't give him a dime until its ready to ship.

I am still waiting for some opinions on pedal order..

Thankyou for the opinion Windwalker I shall give Paul a call... maybe I'll get it in time for Christmas. That must be why the OCD is so popular on Ebay. Everybody is selling theirs after the Timmy gets shipped... Have you tried the Wampler Paisley?, that was sort of in the mix too...

As far as pedal order I wouldn't be much help. I'm sure there are subtle differences between the Tim and Timmy on either side of the Zen Drive but unless you're planning on "nailing" them down to the board I'd just go with whatever your ear is telling you after you test it on that particular day. My pedalboard is less complicated and I'm always fiddling with it. Right now its Guitar-EBwah-CS3-late 70's Digitech Chorus flange combo-DD6- EB VPJr.- Fender Twin. the Twin has a seperate gain channel so I can get some pretty creamy distortion depending on the gain setting and the guitar, but volume boost has always been an issue for solos. I have run the Delay and the chorus/flange thru the effects loop, but the cables become a nightmare You almost need a snake just for them. If I add an OD drive I will seperate the modulation effects.They do sound better thru the loop. I sometimes play out with my smaller Blues Jr which is the main reason for the OD.

You know, I wasn't even aware twins had loops, I have to check out the newer amps, I had one 10/ years ago that my uncle had for years(along with a Dumble overdrive amp thats willed to me, I'm glad barring any unforeseen issues, he'll be around for years, and I feel bad even thinking it, but I can't wait until my guitars are running running through it), and it had no loop, it was also 100/ watts, which I don't see often.
You know, I don't want to get too crap onto it because it will turn into an all out war of opinions; but I replaced the callaham tremolo in one of the Strats I built (just talked to another luthier friend who agreed to help me build a 14-fret 00. I salvaged an unbelievable piece of spruce from a couple hundred year old dresser, its the piece I've seen, but only big enough for a 00. IM getting off track here„ so the same guy raved about these machined brass tremolos, and hes working with the company so I got it cheap, the block weighs an ounce and a half more than the steel callaham. So I plugged into a blues jr at the shop. I was amazed how good it sounded, especially with the harmonics the brass tremolo put out, in going to pick one up.
I'm probably just going to stick with Timmy> Zendrive> Tim. You know when it comes to certain modulation pedal, I find some, especially Flanders sound good in the front, sometimes I use them to drive the front of the amp. And I love the sound of flange being driven by an overdrive or boost. And some chorus pedals, like the old CE2 actually give a little volume boost.
I think one of the biggest reasons you see a lot of ocd's, or any Fulltone, is because Fuller seems to put out a new version of his pedals. And imo, its usually not for the better. They come out with more features and knobs, but they seem to lose tone each time. I had an original Fat Boost, it had a serial number of like 400. It was the best sounding boost ice heard, reminds me of using a Echoplex as a boost.
I haven't tried that pedal you mentioned, but ill definitely check it out.
Yeah, if you want to order a Timmy or Tim, do it sooner rather than later. Like I said, tm you don't have to give him any $ until he's ready to send it. And when I said its $130/ delivered, I mean it, no extra shipping costs, even to Canada I believe. And if when the time comes you're not in the situation to buy it, he has another 100 people that will, so he wont lose out.
Good speaking with you, and good luck on getting the right od.

This is the Pro Tube Twin. Fender quietly quit making them last year. I believe they are replacing it with the Supersonic Twin. Among its other features it has a volume controllable effects send and return, switchable 25/100 watts, 4 6L6 power tubes and 6 12AX7 preamp tubes. The headroom on the clean channel is HUGE. The drive channel is OK. It is hefty and way more than I need. I was using it at Church but got tired of lugging it around and started using the Line6 X3live direct into the PA. I now use the Fender in my music room and the intermittent gig. I can't remember the last time I took it off the 25 watt setting. Except for the occasional microphonic tube hunt its a great amp. If you run across one try it.

Yeah, twins have crazy headroom. I wonder how they get the drive into them, IM assuming it uses a clipping diode. I tried one if the super sonics and wasn't impressed, clean it sounded great, but its overdrive channel I found harsh. I've pretty much done away with higher Watt amps, got a couple collecting dust. I picked up a few class A amps over the last few years. An Egnater rebel, and Tweaker, a mesa trans Atlantic, and I've had a Princeton reverb recording amp. I sold the Mesa a few months after getting it. It sounded good, and had a few nice features, like a master volume that has a push/ pull put, you pull it out and it hard bypasses the master volume. The Princeton has always been my favorite, the recording version has controls for compression, overdrive, its got a loop, and an attentuator. But I replaced the transformer and filter caps on the Tweaker, and now it sounds amazing. I don't know why more people don't do that on cheap tube amps, it has a much greater affect on the amps tone and performance, and relatively speaking its cheaper than putting in NOS tubes.