Overdrive Pedal

[CLeRIK]

I'm a member in a punk band. My main task is the one as a singer, but I also play the an emando, we only have one guitar, so when there's soloing/melodies to be done, I play 'em.
I was thinking of getting myself a pedal with some kind of distortion-effect for christmas, since some of the amps at gigs haven't got a very good distortion-sound on the mando. Most of them tend to be to sharp, and the tones mixes up into a mess.

I've been to a local music shop, and I've been testing some pedals. I've found out that an Overdrive-pedal probably is the way to go. They tend to have slightly more noise than Distortion-pedals, but I have a Noisegate effect, wich to the trick. I've been trying out a Boss Super Overdrive, and it seems like that's the way to go. On the other hand, I haven't tried to many pedals. Any ideas on Overdrive-pedals, or other distortion-effects, not to expensive, that sounds good on a mando?

I'm also thinking of an Octave Pedal, any comments on this issue? Are they useful/do they sound good on a mando?

Btw, I'm using a Fender Solid Body Emando. 8-stringed.

[Christian McKee]

Last I knew, the Boss OC-3 was the only polyphonic octave effect on the market. It also doubles as a pretty satisfying drive pedal. If you don't need to use OD and octave effects in the same song, you could use just the one. They should have one to try at any Guitar Center, etc.

Christian

[Dennis Schubert]

I got out of the electric mando world some time back, but all of the electric mandolins I ever had were pretty high-pitched or shrill or chirpy to begin with. Maybe it's a basic problem of EQ that you're hearing. What kind of adjustments does your amp have? Or, can you try out a small 7-band EQ pedal -- so that you can boost the 500K range and/or cut down the higher frequency ranges for a fatter midrange sound? Or, maybe you need a better amp?

[CLeRIK]

taboot: Thanks for the tip! The last two music shops I went to didn't have this particular Octave-pedal. In fact, they only had Octave-pedals for basses. I live in Sweden, and we don't have "Guitar Center", but I've heard of the pedal, so I'm sure I can test it somewhere.
What's so special with a polyphonic one? I don't quite understand, please explain
Btw, yeah, I'd like to go both octave and overdrive, at the same time, just to get some extra width to the sound.

ironweed: I don't have a personal amp, I use what I can get my hands on for the moment
I don't quite understand the point of your post. Are you reffering to the poor sound of distortion on my mando? Yeah, it tends to be pretty high-pitched, but if you adjust the Tone-control a bit, you can fix some of it.

[Christian McKee]

Polyphonic effects can properly process more than one pitch at a time. Analog octave pedals cannot do this, and if you play two notes together, you get a not-cool-sounding distortion, little more than noise. The OC-3 is a digital pedal that can handle chording, which is why I picked it up. I have discovered through trial and error that if you use the OD function on it, and blend in just a *little* bit of the octave signal, the distortion produced actually does sound pretty cool, and pretty heavy. Kind of like some of the tones that Neil Young uses.

C.

[groveland]

Overdrive on mando? I just keep picturing Hendrix doing backward somersaults with his teeny weeny mandobird, then setting it aflame.

[mrmando]

I like the Danelectro Daddy-O overdrive, meself.

[drZed54]

Hey y'all, I chain my e-mando up like its some wicked little beast and run it through a Digitech Valve fx rack. It offers so many possibilities I still have'nt used every function. Lately I've added some compression to the chain w/distortion/chorus . #The Polyphonic Octave pedal mentioned(Boss) is a great pedal too. # Eventually we all have to turn the volume to 11 ! #:DZ