How To REALLY Use Overdrive (Like The Pros)

overdrive it's one of those effects that if you're an electric guitar player you probably use on a daily basis at least i do it's one of my favorite things about being a guitar player whether you're getting your overdrive from an amp or from a pedal or a series of pedals sacked together it's one of the key parts of your sound or at least it is for me but like a lot of other aspects of guitar this can be a concept that's a little confusing especially for people that are starting out or if you've been playing with overdrive for years there's aspects of it that might be a little challenging to try and wrap your head around or you might be a little unhappy with the overdrive sound that you're getting so in today's video i want to talk about that but rather than just cover this topic myself i figured i would reach out to a really good friend of mine and a man that knows a thing or two about great guitar tone and great playing and that is the one and only tim pierce now if you're not familiar with tim he has been one of the premier session guitar players in la for 30 plus years pushing 40 years now he's played on thousands and thousands and thousands of records hundreds of number ones hundreds of hit records he knows a thing or two about being a guitar player and he knows a thing or two about great overdrive sounds so let's jump in and hear what tim has to say on how the pros use overdrive but before we do that a quick plug i'm running a july 4th sale you can get 30 percent off of my video courses and all of my digital products via the link down below that's my kemper profiles my helix presets impulse responses and both my video courses are 30 off for the next few days only check out the description for more information i'll also have a link to tim's master class down there he's been running his master class for years and there's over a thousand hours of content and guitar lessons and things like that available so if you're interested in learning more from tim pierce which i would highly recommend you can check out his master class down below without further ado let's jump on a zoom call and see what tim has to say about overdrive sounds [Music] oh [Music] man i've said it i've said it a thousand times before and i'll say it again you truly are one of my favorite guitar players of all time thank you so much i love your playing too you did a crazy good solo when you came over here that one day and you did it in one take so so what are you playing through right now give me your signal chain yeah so this is kind of designed for you this is my 62 335 with tyson tone pickups the reason i got this guitar affordably was because it didn't have the original pickups among other things also had a great refret which tom buchevac would be happy about i love refretted guitars okay so this is plugged into all of my overdrive pedals which are all off right now then i'm going into the basement which i know you like too uh this old basement that's a that's a pretty tasty signal chain man so the overdrive we were just hearing that's coming from the amp then that's 100 amp so now the thing about this is you could get a little more out of it but it'll begin to fizz out and collapse a little bit [Music] you can kind of hear it on the low notes so i like to find the spot right before it does that right where it's still holding it's still holding in the bottom end it's not getting loose and fizzy but there's gain [Applause] and then i'm set up for pedals that's the tone you know that's basically the platform for me that makes for you know makes adding the pedals really a great thing this brings up one of the the first big lessons that i learned about using overdrive effectively which is oftentimes you need less overdrive than you think you do if you listen to records where there's a massive guitar sound if you were to actually isolate the guitars themselves more often than not the the guitars are not that dirty because you just talked about it with the basement there like if you if you start to really push it there's more overdrive and more gain on tap but it starts to fall apart and not do the thing you want it to do or fall apart exactly some of the best sounds that you think are huge and distorted are actually quite clean your memory tends to make them sound different over time now the perfect example of that is early lead zeppelin it's really the drums and then the bass on top of the drums and then jimmy page sitting on top of that with his incredibly skinny clean sound so that's that's really the epitome of it but it's it's really true distorted tones are very attractive in the moment but when you actually get away for a day and come back and listen i've often gone oh i need to re-record that with a cleaner tone what do you typically go for what do you like to hear whether you're using a pedal or using an amp like that that basement for example what is it about the way that amp is breaking up that you like so much all the amps i have up and running today and i have six of them for you are very different and the basement is very different i would say about the basement it doesn't sound too polished it really sounds it really shows its age it sounds gritty you can tell in a track though it sounds legit it sounds like old music the distortion is actually not even that pleasing in some ways so you have to really try and make sure you don't you know turn the top end up too much of the presence because you don't want to accentuate any of the harshness you want to dilate just back from being harsh it sounds old it sounds ancient should we add some overdrives let's add some overdrives yeah okay so the odr-1 a lot of people know is what i've depended on for a long time there are some clones coming out which you can talk about too i have one of them hooked up here so this pedal if i turn it on the goal is to get this sound but an imaginary gained up version so it doesn't lose the character so the pedal actually pushes the front end more than anything it's pushing the front end with a more natural tone so what i just heard there seemed a little troubling a little toppy so i'm dialing back the top dialing back the drive turning it down a little bit this should be better yep it is if i go to the base pickup [Music] now i i think well now i'm in the black crows basically this is the sound i'm looking for it's the basement but the basement you know lifted by this great natural pedal so that's the odr one now i have four other pedals hooked up right now i have a pallet of five overdrives in front of me i wish i had ten because they're voices they're just basically voices and you can combine them so that's what we would call like a transparent overdrive it's become kind of a buzzword in the guitar community of the last decade or so but but i think it can it can be a little confusing for people but transparent means that you're you're retaining the character of your signal chain which in this case is that killer 335 in that basement but you're just sort of augmenting what's there uh with the with the odr one absolutely and i can give you an even better example of that so if i turn off the odr one and i turn on my boost line driver which is basically an mxr micro amp updated it's even more what you're talking about because all this pedal does it has a switch and a knob all it does literally like i said is push the front end here and this is even more a more prime example of what you're talking about so if i turn it off here we go basement now turn on the micro amp it's literally the same tone but gained up however the amp wouldn't the amp is at it at its maximum you can you i couldn't get more out of it so the the the actual micro amp is really pushing it in a transparent way so why why would you choose a pedal in front of an amp over an amps overdrive what made you make the shift well mostly as a professional who's recording you have to move so fast that it's best to leave some elements the same as you work that's the absolute truth that's why engineers set up two mics in front of a cabinet and you sit there for three days and you never change them you know you've been through that and a lot of times when you're moving fast it's easier just to step on a pedal than it is to switch an amp because then you have different levels then the engineer has to go to the mic pres and change things now there are other advantages you can have a volume pedal after everything you can have effects set up so that your overdrives are prior to delays and reverbs so they don't kind of distort those in the way that we all kind of don't like if you have a distorted m you can't put delay in front of it without it gacking out or you know re-ribs get really you know pixelated or whatever so the pedals actually allow you to hit the effects really nicely this is what was really important say in the 90s about using a real marshall for distortion you can really hear in the bottom end the difference you can hear the power of a transformer the bottom end on a marshall going gang gang gang you don't quite get that out of the petals so if if i plug in let me just dial up this marshall right here this is an old 100 watt plexi marshall it's a lot louder you're going to hear some hiss i'm going to turn down the micros [Music] wow that's good once again this amp doesn't distort a lot just like the basement the difference between this amp and that one the bottom end will not collapse on this it will not splay out the bottom end will hold tight almost even if i turn it up all the way i love that sound so this is an old plexi marshall so it's got more punch on the bottom end just like you were talking about thud i call it punch let's right now it'll still have that thud and bottom end when i apply the same two petals to this as i did on the basement so let's give it a try odr one [Music] i mean it's a subtle difference but that's what you want so how does how does the difference in an overdrive sound like that you know the difference between that plexi and that basement for example how is it changing uh your approach in terms of playing because even now like watching you i can tell you're playing different the marshall you're playing differently than the basement so is that based off of what you're receiving from the amp the type of overdrive yes it is and we can all become accustomed to what we're using within minutes okay so if i go back to the basement i won't necessarily remember the virtues of the marshall as i started playing the basement conjures up a more retro i can almost visualize muscle shoals or you know keith richards or it would send me into into a style of playing that really you know i can imagine myself sitting in front of a 410 basement in an old studio that smelled funky but when i go to the marshall and we all have our favorites that's the thing the marshall is when i discovered the marshall sound i got my first 50 watt at age 19. but probably what you noticed is in the marshall i was home so what are some some things that you've learned in your career when it comes to utilizing overdrive in a musical way that you would tell someone who's maybe gotten their first amp that can break up or maybe they've gotten their first few overdrive pedals they're not happy with the tones that they're getting maybe it's too muddy or it's too bright or too distorted what are some things that you do to try and dial in a sound that you're happy with okay so if i'm using the bridge pickup and that's a tricky one because it can it can quickly sound nasal to me so what i'll do if i'm playing a part in a song i'll choose the bridge and then i'll dial back the tone to about eight and that's good i like that so if i want to thicken it up i'm going to go over to let's say the most tortion now there are two clones to the most torsion you don't have to buy the expensive most dorsion here are two clones that are great both of them the karma and the den electro and the breakdown and the mtn10 so those are clones for the most torsion the most torsion now almost compresses it a little bit it makes it more distorted which i think is too much so i'm gonna back this down i just want a little more hair so once again we're back to talking about keeping the character of the sound here's the sound without the pedal [Applause] here's the sound with the pedal [Music] that's me turning the knob see i'm barely touching it [Music] now i'm going to fire up the track let me turn it on [Music] [Applause] [Music] then i just turned it off for that last little phrase so i would say what you need to do is always pay attention to never overdoing it get the amp where it sounds the best and go you know i paid a lot for this amp but it doesn't do everything it just does one thing that's the thing you've got to make peace with any app you're using generally has one particular place where it sounds the best make peace with it and then take your petals and don't push them too hard just a little bit and it's best to find the sweet spot on a pedal too you might find the place on the pedal where it sounds the best it adds gain and it adds size but not too harsh leave it there and when you want more gain in size click on another pedal what do you look for when finding two pedals that pair well together well generally the the pedals like if you if you set one pedal for gain the next pedal you set you're going to want to just barely touch it that's so if i turn on the odr one and i add the most torsion [Applause] pretty saturated [Music] now if i add one more let's say the xts imperial overdrive that i have here [Music] [Applause] i would say it just adds a little bit of butter to it so you need to watch your gain and i'm talking about don't be afraid to even set the the second and third petal the gain on one you know just so it it either thickens it like when i just added the xts some the word i have it made it more buttery somehow and if i turn it off [Applause] i lost mid-range and i lost some some glue some lubricant the words words fail me but now i know players and you may be one of these guys who actually keep it switching around and seeing which one sounds better in front of the other one john shanks is like that he will he'll he'll shout at me and go oh you got to put the thing after the thing after the thing and i go uh yeah okay okay tim it's been great man thanks as always thank you man once again huge thanks to tim pierce for coming on today's video and sharing his wealth of knowledge with us if you don't know or don't follow tim you absolutely should his channel is linked down below as well as his master class where you can sign up for a monthly trial and check out some of the stuff he's got going on over there i would highly recommend it once again you can get 30 off of everything in my store that's my tone course my nashville number system course helix presets camper profiles all that stuff is 30 off for the next few days only via the discount code in the description box down below for july 4th if you haven't done so already be sure to subscribe click that bell icon follow me on instagram and thank you guys so much for watching uh and a quick update i'm out of the sling i'm moving around and thankfully i should be back to playing guitar within the next few days so once again thank you for all the kind words and the support that you guys have showed me over these past three weeks i think we're going to be getting back to normal here before too long i'm rachel thanks for watching and remember there is no plan b

Channel: Rhett Shull

Views: 387,115

Rating: 4.9197893 out of 5

Keywords: How To Use Overdrive, overdrive pedal shootout, overdrive pedals for guitar, overdrive pedal vs distortion pedal, overdrive pedal sound, overdrive pedal comparison, overdrive pedal demo, overdrive pedal review, overdrive pedal, Rhett Shull, Tim Pierce, Guitar, Lesson

Id: -a5qAG1qtLs

Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 03 2021