u/try_altf4

A friend asked if I could come up with a smaller, cheaper solution for his fx loop setup.

On the right, we're running fx send to a volume pedal into an ehx switchblade pro. The vol controls the input volume and switchblade controls the output volume and 2 channel selection + off, then to the hum debugger and finally noise gate to fx return.

Now, I like that setup. Very flexible and makes life pretty easy because there is more control.

On the left, you've got an under 100$ saturnworks 2 buffer 1 vol knob pedal. The vol knob controls both buffers volumes. (It does require power). This replaces the ehx switchblade pro and a volume pedal.

Fx loop send to saturn 2buff1vol , to your pedals, back to saturn 2buff1vol, hum debugger, noise gate and fx return.

The vol knob cuts input and output with no treble bleed, so any high end sizzle gets bonked in 30 minutes of knob reduction. (Volume knob is just a cut, no boost). At bedroom volumes 1-1.5 hours of reduction is the most you can go before your treble and mids get flushed. At live volumes you get about 3 hours of dial down.

It works best if you dial in your clean output, dirty channel output and finally the pedal output. It's feasible to be able to run clean+hm2, dirty + hm2, clean and dirty at close enough volume without adjusting the buffer volume. So that's neat. You're double dipping a 30-45 minute volume cut so it's doing some normalization work.

Personally, I wish it had a treble bleed switch, so I could get more knob turn use without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It does work though, so it saves my friend 250+$ on his rig.

If you missed the last post, this setup is designed to utilize an OD/distortion as a preamp and you typically get better results doing this, you just have to control the input/output of the fx loop to not bonk your amp or the pedal.

The Marshall jvm pedal and bogner pedal were a/b'd also. I dunno why bogner stopped making those blue and red channels, it absolutely curb stomped the jvm. The jvm tone knob is all sizzle at max, then loses all mids/treble about 1.5 hours of knob reduction. Felt like no good sounds out of it.

Edit: added paragraph breaks, what the fugg reddit mobile.

Above is the test setup. Orange rocker 15 clean channel, fx loop to noise gate loop, to volume pedal, to switchblade pro, to hum eliminator, back to noise gate, to fx receive and finally a 2x12 greenback cab.

6 string is the reverend drop Z, basically a crazy bright drop D. The 8 string is a kiesel for chugga chugga. My brightest guitar and my darkest. No need to test between!

If I say a pedal is good, that is for ooga booga riffs in drop D and drop E, same pedal settings. I'll specify if lead was easier to play with the pedal.

The reason I test the setup like this is as follows;

1. Testing the pedals, not the EQ of my preamp. Pedals normally work a bit better in fx loop anyways.

2. Reduce incoming volume to the pedal, for pedals that struggle with high input. If you get ice pick, bright saturation or we're audio on/off issues you're hitting it too hard. Using a volume pedal, more often than not, is better than rolling off on the guitar.

3. Raise volume for pedals that are too quiet to get to 100-110dB for "the good noise" vibe.

4. Lower the volume for pedals that require high output to function. This protects the cathode after the fx loop and keeps the amp happy and chugging along.

:) :) = unique or very good.

:) = good

... It's ok or industry staple.

:( not good,selling soon.

:( :( not good why didn't I sell sooner.

:) Marshall 1959 (plexi pedal). This has high volume requirements. The pedal is good. If you cannot dime most knobs on this pedal it's not going to be a good time, because it doesn't distort until it gets "loud". It's a great way to add classic rock vibe and cleanup the 8 string flub.

:) :) EQD Acapulcogold. This also has high volume. It's dummy proof and great. Worked really well slurring/compressing lead parts. It has a unique distortion factor, sounded good on 8 string for sludge riffs.

Hm2w. This is a reference pedal. Had a lot of low end , which the 8 string does not appreciate, but it sounds like chainsaw.

:) bardic audio hm2 demon. This is great, dial up blend a little bit for the 8 string to keep it from being flubby. Full on chainsaw goodness.

:( Revv Northern Mauler. This one sucks. Was noisy and it sounded bad with both guitars, no matter the fussing.

:) Boss metal zone MT2. Works better in fx loop. Light chainsaw, that (is it pantera?) sound. Welcome to the toan Zoan bb. Great for lead and works with "that sound" for drop E and D.

:) Empress heavy. If you want to dial in a sound this is great for metal. Tons of options, go crazy and it has 2 options to setup. Noise gates always welcome and it's work awesome.

:) Solar Chug. "What if we only applied gain to low end frequencies?". This pedal slaps. Not as many options as the empress, but also a bit more dummy friendly. Love the build in noise gate.

Wampler dracarys. This pedals sucks until you figure out the treble knob only works past 3oclock. Then it's good. The tight switch makes it sound a little more metal zoney, but overall the pedal is good. Like an easier to put in the mix metal zone. It's chainsaw vibe is there but not hm2 levels.

:) EHX hot wax. The crayon side has a lot of spaced out bass and the hot tubes side is ripping with distortion. You can only really push one sides gain, but if you push hot tubes side, then it gets near metal levels of distortion. Combining the sides can provide good lead sustain. Do not combine the pedals individually, they don't work like that.

:) :) EQD Special Cranker. This pedal worked fantastic and created a unique trembling distortion. Worked very well with the 8 string. This is unique.

Blues breaker. It's fine.

Prince of tone. Does this sound like a blues breaker? Yes, confirmed with OG unit. Ez to dial in, but not enough gain for the 8 string for metal. This is the easiest entry level blues breaker, other than the marshall one currently sells. Except it has more options and a precense knob hidden inside. Make sure to set it to 0 for original blues breaker sound.

:) Pantheon deluxe dual. Does this sound like blues breaker? Yes, but turn the presence knob all the way down.its a little noisy, but has enough gain for some metal riffage on 8 string.

:( morning glory. This pedal comes off more as a tube screamer. The tone knob, maybe it houses the presence frequencies as well, causing the brightness. It doesn't sound like the blues breaker unless you dial tone down. It doesn't have as much overlap as the other 2 with the OG either.

:( OCD v1.7 too much bass for the 8 string.

:) Malaise forever 1.2a OCD. This one is brighter and works great on 8 string.

:( royal flush versalusFX. This sounds like 2 identical pedals put together that sound bad alone and terrible together.

:) :) BE-OD Deluxe. Buy once, cry once. This pedal takes the fun out of having a lot of pedals. It just sounds better than everything, is easy to dial in to and you can set a rhythm and lead channel. Setting higher gain on lead will make it easier to play.

ProCo Rat. The woofy saturation made lead parts sound great. On 8 string it's extra woofy. If you like that it's got a lot there.

Tumnus and soul pog. They both cap at hard rock, but the soul food/pog is easier to dial in. The tumnus has a lot of switches and do dads that get in the way. In the same way the POG part of soul pog is hard to dial in, the tumnus is. I like both.

Fender Santa Anna. This is actually an interesting one, just doing is own thing. A is bright B is muddy as fuck. The boost helps a ton with soloing. It goes up to hard rock, but not really great for metal.

:( :( dual fusion. It's a Euphoria and Paisley drive together. It's noisy, unbalanced and doesn't produce enough gain. For this test purpose it isn't very good. Maybe Tom Quayle is just that good, but I need more compression for lead. Spoiler, he is!

:) :) Dr scientist The Elements. Like the BE-OD Deluxe, this also makes me question owning a lot of ODs. This pedal has so many good sounds. It's a perfect all arounder.

:) :) Absolute destruction. I know a lot of people hate this pedal. You have to reduce volume going in and reduce the volume out of the pedal. Turn overload up to max, volume to max and gain to preference. It's a crazy weighted clobbering stick with power chord or single note singing fuzz on lead. It's great. It does hiss though and, if you don't have a setup like me, it's fucking I'm possible to get to work.

:( maestro Ranger. This OD has some build/design issues. Gain coming out of tone knob (weird) and it doesn't have enough compression.

Beetronics fat bee. This was good on drop D, but not great on drop E. It needs more compression on lead. I originally hated this pedal, but I've warmed up to at least drop d.

Jackson Asabi. This is an interesting one. It has midi! Well it's kind of like a tube screamer into someone's telephone game of what the "Brown sound is". It's another one of those "It looks good on paper" but it's not really that bad. Avoid noise issues by not dialing up gain on the OD side and the 2 together give enough for lead/solo. Others have done more, with less and done more, with more. It's just a very average entry. Does up to hard rock

:( :( Wampler Pinnacle deluxe. I normally have high praise for wampler or at least, "yes it sounds right". This one is a mess. Noisy and the strokes are not as defined as other pedals here. It feels like a good first attempt, but I'd even put it under the Asabi.

:) :) Jhs overdrive. This is the dod250 si and #75 pedal. Yes it sounds like a dod250(current), but with a bright switch on. The #75 has a volume cut. Set SI to 5.5 with high gain, then switch to #75 and dime volume. That will balance them for assessment. The SI is more open for chords and the #75 has slightly more compression for lead. I'm not Tom Quayle over here, so I could use more. This pedal gets a smile, because even an idiot can make hard rock work on drop d and drop E.

:) dod250. It's just like the previous, but less bright. Dummy tested and dummy approved.

Bd2w. This can work for both drop E and D, but. It's a little finnicky and dark like how the OCD was. Custom mode, with max gain can sound muffled. Back off and you'll get a little brightness back. Both C and S can do hard rock, but there's better options.

Dunlop Timmy. Honestly this should be put in a booster test. It was awful for drop D, not enough gain, but surprisingly drop E it had an interesting light OD and brightening up effect.

:) Pigtronix Aria. This pedal is great. (9v used) Lots of customization, but it gets the job done quickly. Worked great with both guitars and felt pretty punchy.

:) DOD Gunslinger. This pedal is also great. (9v used) Has serious grunt and worked well on lead. The aria and gunslinger and 2 (affordable?) ones I recommend regularly. Not sure their recent pricing, I paid under 40 for each.

:) Supro Drive. With rich on, the 8 so trying turns into a fuzz factory. That's really neat. It's more wooly than octave synth, but still neat and helps solos. Turn volume up 30 minutes when going from bold to rich. Bold is like a bd2, but better. This one is a bit more expensive, but recommended.

Ibanez jd9. It can push or cut mids. Has good compression for soloing and I got mine for 40$. It's a little hard to dial in, but there are worse pedals on this list.

Mystic edge. Set it on preamp, then dial it in like an AC30. If none of that was English, this thing is a massive bright cap on your signal, probably skip this one.

:) :)Pigtronix PolySaturator. 15V. It has to be ran on 15V. Seriously, emotionally commit to running it on 15v or don't bother. This thing is fucking amazing. Great for leads, good for chugga chugga. It just requires 15v.

So that was my weekend.