Guitar Gear

For the last couple of years, I’ve been religiously using my EHX Soul Food overdrive as my go-to dirt pedal. Sometimes, I’d stack it with another overdrive such as a TubeScreamer, or Tone Freak Abunai 2, or my Timmy.  And no matter what amp I put behind that pedal or pedal combination, it sounded awesome; that is, until I got my BOSS Katana 50. And then it sucked… Badly…

For my set at church this past weekend, I knew I was going to be playing some up-tempo songs and knew I was going to need some dirt in a couple of songs. So I configured my board to include my Soul Food. I just needed something subtle so I didn’t bother doing a stack. I set up my rig and did a sound check, and when I switched on the Soul Food, the sound was horrible! I couldn’t understand it, and no amount of tweaking got the sound dialed in. So I opted to set one of my channels to dirty and played that. Very disappointed.

That pedal has worked with all my tube amps; absolutely faithfully. But for some reason, even though the Katana has a similar dynamic response to my tube amps, it did not take to that pedal well at all. 

So later in the evening when I got home, I took out a few of my overdrive pedals to see which one(s) worked. The TubeScreamer worked great, though I did have to dial down the mid-range a bit. My Tone Freak Abunai 2 work incredibly well in Asymmetric mode. And my Timmy worked as expected. It’s a wonderful pedal. I took out a couple of others like my TC Electronic Mojo Mojo. That was just alright.

Surprisingly enough, my old Kasha Overdrive worked incredibly well with the amp. I kind of lost hope with that pedal a few years ago because I just didn’t like the sound it produced with my set of amps. But it sounded great with the Katana.

And that just goes to show that it’s a good idea to have a few dirt pedals; especially if you have a few amps. It has been the rare pedal – at least in my experience – that works with every single one of my amps. I got lucky with the Soul Food for my tube amps. But since my main amp now is the Katana 50, I have to use a different set of dirt pedals.

Plus, having at least a few overdrive pedals gives you different overdrive options. Some, like the Tim or Timmy are meant to react with your amp. Others, like the Soul Food (and other Klon derivatives) can be used reactively, or sound great all by themselves. On top of that, different overdrives clip or boost differently. Like I said, you give yourself options.

Truth be told, there was a time where I didn’t use any overdrive pedals and just relied on my amps’ natural gain. But as of late, I’ve been using overdrive pedals again, and I’m damn glad that I have several handy.

And mind you, you don’t have to spend a lot on drive pedals. As with any kind of pedal, you need to try out as many as you can. The great thing about overdrive pedals is that there are TONS out there. So grab a couple or a few. Give yourself some options.