Best overdrive/booster pedal for Acoustic

Squonk

As the title suggests. I am playing the second guitar doing bits of fiddly things and volume swells etc, but need something that will boost the signal when I solo?

racman

I used to use a TS-9 type for the same purpose but essentially also to provide a fat, thick darker tone with just a hint of break-up. I now use the Green Rhino OD which is also TS-9 type. In my opinion it can sound terrible if used as an OD expecting the same results as an electric -way too shrill and "shrieky" for my liking.

Squonk

Thanks Roy. I have been thinking along the same lines...

beardedmoose

two things first OD on a acoustic guitar... You'll need to run it through an amp.. if running through a DI to a desk it's gonna sound horrible. You might wanna think of investing in a magnetic pup that runs across your sound hole to avoid feedback aswell. The LR Baggs M80 is quite the nice option...

Then that pedal... Try and get a vintage Japanese Boss SD-1 the new ones are not nice... you can however do a mod on the new one's for the vintage tone.

With this setup you are on your way to that acoustic drive tone of John Butler Fame.

Good Luck.

Squonk

Thanks Moose

I love that Jon Butler tone.

beardedmoose

Squonk wrote: Thanks Moose

I love that Jon Butler tone.

No Worries Mate, hope that helps

Stoffeltoo

Acoustic Amp, 'verb max, volume 50% and tone to taste with extra base Mmmm! Oh, and off course a magnetic pick up in the sound hole ?

Squonk

Good Stuff. So that's two of you that suggest a magnetic pickup!

I am quite happy with the Takamine preamp that's in there! It's on older model circa 1994, so a basic preamp but sounds great through a desk! What exactly would the magnetic pickup do to enhance the sound?

Acoustic amp, never thought of that yet, must get to trying all these options!

The thing is that I want to change from playing little fills and volume swells to getting a big fat sound and then back again. I wouldn't want to tweak amp setting etc too much during the songs

beardedmoose

A magnetic pup will avoid feedback when you run the instrument into a od pedal...

Big-G

I would think for this kind of work, you are going to want something fairly transparent, so the likes of a Timmy or Zendrive clone should work wonders.

We used to do things a little differently, in that we ran the acoustic to a DI box to give the clean sound to the desk, then from the 'through' output of the DI into a VOX TB18 amp. Then we set the amp to just past the point of breakup, and used a volume pedal to control dynamics. So when a part needed to be clean and purely acoustic we would cut the amp all together, and for heavier parts, bring in the amp at the desired volume.

Its a bit more of a schlep as you have to bring an amp along too, but it sounds far better than any pedal with a DI would.

Regards
G!

Squonk

Thanks guys