What do you lot recommend for a bluesy guitar pedal? It has to be fairly easy to get hold of though as I live in England :roll:. Something that I can use as my main overdrive until I get a tube amp, and then use it as a boost. Any ideas?
I would get the Ibanez TS9 Tubescreamer. This is a famous pedal with outstanding tone used by many professionals. This pedal was made famous by Stevie Ray Vaughn, so I would say it's good for Blues. I found numerous sites in the UK that sell this pedal. Here's one.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
As boosters both the Boss SD1 and Ibanez TS9 would work well with tube amps. SRV using the TS9 sure hasn't made these units cheap, and IMHO they are somewhat overpriced, espescially compared with the twice as cheap SD1. It sounds good though.
However, both sound rather thin over solidstate amps, when used as main overdrive unit. I myself would use the Boss BD2 for it. A bit more expensive but really nice bluesy overdriven sounds. Ofcourse, if you have more money to burn you could take a look at overdrive pedals with tubes in them or even foot-switchable tube preamps.
And while I will no doubt start to become repetetive:
http://www.voxamps.co.uk/downloads/Stevie%20Blues%20Tone%20Lab.mp3
If you're after tones like this, all you'll need is the Vox Tonelab (desktop or SE) or if you're after an amp as well, the AD Valvetronix series.
