confused re: overdrive and distortion

Maybe a Digitech Bad Monkey, or an ElectroHarmonix U.S. Big Muff.

hey guys,

ok, give this set up:

guitar -> eq - comp - delay - wah -> Microcube

and the following musical tastes: classic rock, alt/indie rock, funk rock and metal

what overdrive/distortion/fuzz/combination would you recommend ?

sorry for the bluntness, but i spend quite a while trying to phrase it in a more eloquent way and just ended up frustrated :D

cheers
mord One problem you'll face will be your range of musical tastes. An overdrive/distortion that's ideal for metal won't be ideal for classic rock, and vice-versa. For clean boost through classic rock, I'd recommend an Austin Gold by Rocktron. For metal, I can't really say as I have little experience with metal-sound distortion pedals.

As for your FX chain order, personally I'd go with a lineup along the lines of:

Guitar -> Wah -> Comp -> OD/Dist. -> EQ -> Delay -> Microcube

My logic is that first, a wah input generally speaking wasn't designed to sound good (as in distort/clip in a pleasant manner) when overdriven, and pick attack etc etc are important details to using a wah that tend to get muddied by putting pedals in front of a wah.

Second, Having the compressor follow the wah will tend to even out the highly variable signal levels coming out of a wah because of the wide variations in how much of any particular frequency may appear at the wahs' input because of the tonal characteristics of any particular instrument.

Third, having the compressor in front of the OD/distortion will allow setting the compressors' output hotter than normal to drive an OD/distortion harder than what a straight signal will, sort of a pre-boost. (Or for setting the drive lower, if that's what you want/need)

Fourth, placing the EQ after the OD/distortion allows for shaping the tone of the distortion going to the amp much more effectively than having the EQ ahead (guitar side) of the OD/distortion.

Of course, delay and other time-based FX should be last in the chain.

But that's just me. Your mileage may vary, yadda yadda yadda.

Cheers!

Strat

thanks for detailed answer stratman - you even managed to answer my next question about the effects order :-)

I've found a nice looking pedal that covers both overdrive and distortion so I think I'll go with that, and let the cube's rectifier setting handle metal tones - I keep forgetting what a versatile little amp it is :-)

cheers
mord