Layered Overdrive

Ok, I know I’d been promising that article on leading worship in small church settings… next week I’ll get started on it. 

When I play, I get asked about my overdrive settings quite a bit.  I handle OD a little differently than some guitarists do, and lately I’ve been seeing alot of touring guys doing the same thing.  I borrowed this concept after seeing Stu G’s rig (from Delirious) from the early 2000’s, and it involves layering overdrives to create a more smooth and saturated, (or crazy and gain filled tone.)  I know Daniel Carson does the same thing on Tomlin’s tours.

So what is layering overdrive? 

It’s actually real simple, although it involves spending a little bit of money for multiple OD pedals.  The ones I’ve had the most success with are Tubescreamer clones, like the Fulltone FD2, Visual Sound Rte. 66 (or Jekyll and Hyde), Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive, Maxon, or Ibanez vintage (and vintage reissue pedals)  The basic concept of layering overdrive is having two (or more!) pedals with differing layers of gain, which are on at the same time.

To explain my approach, on my board I have the following pedals in this order

> Fulltone Fatboost
> Fulltone FD2 (with the Comp Cut, Flat Mids, and Vintage setting… I run on Flat Mids.)
>  Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive

The Fatboost is almost always on when I’m playing, unless I’m approaching electric playing more like an acoustic guitarist.  It fills out my sound and brings greater sustain and warmth to my tone so I cut through better with single notes or simple chords. 

Although it’s third in my chain, the Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive is a super pedal, because it allows you to blend between a clean boost style OD and a grittier sounding setting.  I usually run mine about 3/4 clean, and you’ll find it on about half the time I’m playing.  Again it adds another layer of thickness and sustain (and a solid presence) to my signal.

Second in my chain is my FD2.  The Fulldrive is the best OD pedal I’ve ever played because it has a smooth and pleasant vintage sound.  My FD2 is usually used in a more gritty setting to give me a vintage rock OD.  The cool thing about it is the FD2 also has the boost channel, which really isn’t a volume lead boost as much as it adds a thick and slightly punchy sound to the standard OD sound. 

So how does this all work?
Well, if my playing is more of a strumming style with several notes, and I want a clean sound, I’ll usually have my Fatboost on.  (My strumming is usually never quite acoustic style, because it would become muddy real quick.)  Now on a slower song, where I don’t want an OD sound, but I want a little more punch, (say on a chorus) I may kick in the SD to carry things a bit. 

Now if I’m looking for more of a vintage OD sound (70’s rock, southern rock)  I can just kick on the Fatboost and FD2, (with no SD).  Here the Overdrive will ring pretty clean, but will have some bite to it. 

The real fun comes when you want an overdrive sound that is flat out messy and wild.  To do this, I’ll kick both OD’s on at the same time, and if I’m feeling particularly out of control, I can kick the boost on the FD2 makinig my tone really out there.  A word of warning though, you may not want to be strumming too much when doing this because stuff can start sounding real bad real quick.

 Another Little Trick
Have you ever heard a guitarist playing an overdriven sound on a chorus then have it go into a smooth sustain’y style feedback (Not Eddie Van Halen squealing, more like the chord very slowly drops out.)  Well how do they do it?  through delay.  What you do is look for an analog style delay sound with some character, and when you hit the end of the chord, engage it, then bend down and turn your repeats up.  It’s a very delicate balance so be careful with it, but you can create some sweet ambient overdrive effects with it. 

One of my favorite guitarists, Alex Nifong uses a variation of this trick quite a bit.