Choosing an Acoustic

I get this question often… What kind of an acoustic should I get? What brand? How do I know which is a good buy? The best thing to do is always to take a friend who knows what they are doing, but for our purposes here, I’ll give you the basics of choosing as a beginner and choosing as a pro.

Choosing as a beginner:

It seems like the main reason people quit at the beginning of playing guitar it because their fingers hurt and the guitar doesn’t sound good. The bottom line is that bad guitars hurt your fingers, making it twice as hard to build up the necessary calluses to make playing enjoyable. The other thing is that the necks have poor construction on cheaper guitars which makes the guitar sound bad for one primary reason… you get the guitar in tune (or so you think) and play your first “E” chord, and everything is fine. Then you play a “G” or “D” chord and suddenly it sounds out of tune again. Even if you don’t have a great ear and can’t hear what the problem is, you can instinctively feel it. This is endlessly frustrating because even if you can push past the pain of playing one of these guitars you never want to hear yourself play. If you don’t want to hear yourself and hear yourself improve because your guitar sounds bad, you never will play the thing.

So if you are a beginner who doesn’t have much cash to spend on the instrument, maybe only $200-$300, take heart, you actually can find a guitar that is enjoyable to play and sounds decent. The thing is, in that range, you will have to do some digging to find something decent. Take the Yamaha F1HC at Guitar Center for example. At $229 for a solid top acoustic these are hard to beat in the range. About one in fifty will be a pretty good guitar, so take your time. Sit down with the instrument in the store and (even if you make a fool of yourself) play it for a while. See if you can play with a minimum amount of discomfort. (Compare the comfort to playing a high-end guitar first) See if you can play different chords and it remains in tune (after the sales associate tunes it for you). If you take your time and play a lot of these you should be able to find something that is comfortable and quality enough to learn on without getting frustrated.

Here are a few that I’ve had a good luck with in helping people over the years.

Yamaha FG700S $199

Yamaha F1HC $229

Yamaha FG730S $299

Takamine GS300S $299

Mitchell MD200S $299

Taylor Baby ¾ size $299

Choosing as a Pro:

After playing a number of years on a decent or crummy guitar, you get to a point where its time to buy your “grown-up” guitar. It’s graduation day and you want to buy “the one.” You come to the day where this isn’t just a hobby but something you will be doing, probably even publicly, for the rest of your life. It’s time to buy the guitar that will last the next sixty-plus years, that can handle a lot of playing time, that you can pass on to your kids, and that will have the sound and feel you’ve always dreamed of. The problem is that when most people reach that point they go to the local store and what they see are brands like Gibson, Martin, Taylor, Breedlove, Larrivee, Etc. They figure it will cost them about $2,000 to get into the kind of guitar they want. But sadly, these brands aren’t making the kind of guitars they used to even though the costs are pretty high. The factories are a place where numbers matter most and a guy who got trained last week has a stack of backs and a stack of tops, glues it all up, puts it in the case, and sends it to the store. These companies have found a way to make a pretty good guitar all the time but nothing really special. Out of ten to twenty Martin guitars that come off the line, one or two might be something really good.

I want to challenge you to think about your acoustic the way classical musicians think of their instruments. They think of their viola, violin, cello, or whatever, as a serious investment. They need something they can trust to go anywhere in the world with them and perform beautifully. It should be hand crafted in a way that every joint and carving on the instrument is cared for and given the proper amount of attention. These guys expect their instrument to cost between $3,000 and $5,500 to start with and go up from there. I think $3,000 is a good baseline to set when thinking about buying your lifelong guitar. At that price you can start to explore the hand-crafted, quality instruments that exist out there. They guys who make these listen to every piece of wood to make sure the whole instrument resonates with the tone it is capable of. There are several brands out there like Fortenbery, Collings, McPherson, Bourgeois, Goodall, Kevin Ryan, Oslon, Froggy-Bottom, Lowden, just to name a few! If you live anywhere near Cincinnati you should talk to Jeff Fortenbery before you consider another guitar. He is local and his work is comparable with any top-end guitar on the market although his he doesn’t charge nearly what most of those guys do for a custom build.

If you buy a guitar in this category you will pay twice the amount for 10x the guitar. So do your homework, take your time, and save your cash, cause it will be worth it.

Tone Comes From Touch

Ok, it’s been months- but I’ve been thinking about this topic. The first blog about this was simply a realization, this one is more about specifics.

If you’ve ever been to www.guitargeek.com you’ll notice how many people with totally different sounds use very similar gear. Even acoustic guitars sound totally different depending on who is playing. A luthier friend of mine was talking about how some guys talk about gear and even own great gear and cant get a decent sound out of it. He’s said, “It’s cause they don’t have these” wiggling his fingers. There are guys who buy thousands of dollars worth of gear and are surprised they don’t sound like good guitar players. There is a reason.

The main way you develop great sound is with time on the instrument. Don't buy into all the marketing hype that you have to buy certain stuff to sound great. Tone comes from primarily from touch. Think about these signature aspects of tone… for better or worse.

-The vibrato of B.B. King holding a note.

-Stevie Ray Vaughn sawing all the strings at once and muting every note except the one he is focused on.

-The way Jimi Page’s guitar sound lives in this weird world between precise and sloppy to get that distinct feel.

-The brute force of the chords attacking by Angus Young on “Back in Black”.

-The attack of a really hard pick on really light strings going really fast of Yngwie Malmsteen

-That distinct way Jimi Hendrix rolls from one note to the next and then slides up like on “Wind Crys Mary”. How many guitarists have copied that feel?

- The way The Edge can make the amp chirp in a way no one else playing an AC30 can.

-How much John Mayer varies the intensity of the attack to add subtle funky rhythms.

This could go on forever with Jef Beck, Van Halen, Clapton, Chuck Berry, Brian May, David Gilmour, ect.

The point is you develop tone as you develop touch. Touch is the greatest asset to any player of any instrument. I don’t care if its Joshua Bell or Yo-Yo Ma in classical, Herbie Hancock or Jamie Cullum on piano, or Weird Al on the freaking accordion, (ok maybe not) it’s all about people who have developed the touch.

How much clarity and character can they get out of playing hard VS playing soft?

How can they pull you in with shifting dynamics?

How good are they at making you feel like you are inside the instrument?

How natural does the riff come to them?

Why is one player so smooth and clean while others are so rhythmic?

You even notice that some guitarists sound great no matter what they are playing?

That isn’t something you get by buying the right gear but by spending enough time.

"Four Amps" by Rick Brantley- All These Sounds Studio

Got a special treat for you guys. I asked Rick Brantley of "All These Sounds" studio to write a tone blog for me on the four amps most used at his studio. He was telling me how these four can do most of what he ever needs.... so here is him talking about it in his own words... this is brilliant... in my humble opinion.
Jim Z

Now... Here is Rick

One “disclaimer”… as has been said before, using words to describe “sound” is somewhat akin to describing what you see to a person born blind. It falls VERY short of the actual experience. I’m definitely NOT the most knowledgeable or “ linguistically articulate” (can I even SAY that???!!!) authority on amps, guitars, and tone, but I’m the one given the job this time around, so I’ll do the best I can! I’ve tried to include info. as accurately as possible, but I’ll certainly defer to those more knowledgeable on the subject than I, where they offer corrections to my misinformation!

So, my buddy Jimmy Z. has asked me to write about the 4 amps that get the most “mileage” here at the studio (AllTheseSounds Music, www.atsounds.com). Well, then, let’s get to it!

My “fav four” are the following: A Marshall DSL 201 with a 25 watt- 12 inch “Greenback” speaker, a Vox AC15 from the 80’s with a 12” bulldog speaker, a 1968 Fender Princeton Reverb with a 10” Jensen blue-label speaker, and lastly, an Orange ad10 also with a 10” Jensen blue-label.
Why are THESE particular amps my favorites, you ask? Well, we’ll get to that, but first maybe I should shed some background on amps in general…

All four of these amps are low-wattage combo amps. As a studio engineer (and mediocre guitar player), I’m a big believer in the whole “Small amp = Big Sound” school of thought. What that means is the following:
1) most amps have a “sweet spot” where they sound best.
2) in the VAST majority of cases, that sweet spot is found when you run the amp fairly LOUD.
3) that being the case, if you crank a 50 watt or 100 watt amp up to achieve it’s “sweet spot”, you are likely to
a. lose your hearing,
b. piss off your neighbors/wife/parents/etc, and
c. have a REALLY hard time locating where to put a microphone in order to capture that sound because the amp is so freaking loud!
4) Unless you have a REALLY BIG room to track in, a high wattage amp is also going to overdrive the room. What that means is that your microphone, unless placed RIGHT ON THE GRILL, is going to pick up too much of the reflected sound from the walls, floor, and ceiling, TOO SOON, as opposed to the direct sound from the amp’s speakers. A concept called “early reflections” in recording. If these early reflections are too many/too soon, it will yield a muddy, or incoherent “tone”. Don’t get me wrong, you WANT some of the room tone, but a lot of smaller rooms found in “consumer studios” sound BAD. A bad sounding room doesn’t really beneficially effect a great sounding guitar and amp combo.

So… one of the “secrets” to recording great gtr. tones is to use quieter amps that don’t overdrive the room. The 4 amps mentioned have the following wattages:
1) Marshall DSL 201- 20 watt
2) Vox AC15- 15 watts
3) Princeton Reverb- 12 watts
4) Orange ad10- 15 watts

Don’t get me wrong, a 12-20 watt amp can get pretty stinking loud. If the amp’s circuitry is even reasonably efficient, the amp will get loud. That’s why The Edge uses a 30 Watt amp (Vox AC 30) (actually a few of them!) to play hundred-thousand seat stadiums!



OK, on to specifics about the individual amps…
1) Marshall DSL 201:
a. I love this amp! Marshall is known for it’s Rock N’ Roll tone. The amp you always hear about is the plexi. It was a late 1960’s 100 watt (and there was a 50 watt version as well) BEAST that is instantly recognizable on various Hendrix, Van Halen, AC/DC, Foreigner, etc… records from the 60’s-80’s. My main problem with the plexi is that it was (and is) TOO FREAKING LOUD !! It sounds wonderful, but they’ll make you deaf in a heartbeat. I know because I used to own one. 1970 with only a single volume control.
The DSL 201’s clean channel has a good bit of the plexi’s grit and bite when driven hard, WITHOUT THE HARSH TOP END that so many Marshall amps are plagued with.
It’s clean tones are (when compared to the other 3 amps I’ll mention here ) a little thin and generic, but are also uncharacteristically (for Marshall) “chimey”. They also preserve the guitar’s detail fairly well. Again, NOT harsh like so many Marshalls that I’ve played over the years.
The DSL also (again, unlike the other 3 amps listed here) has a 2nd, more modern, “gain” channel. It’s way over the top from the start for any type of “vintage” tones, but if you’re doing heavy rock/punk/or metal, it’s WAAAYYY useful right from the get-go. It’s my go-to amp for distorted tones for pop-punk tunes.

2) Vox AC15 (circa 1980’s)
a. OK, I love this amp also!!! My buddy Dave Eberhardt musta’ been hittin’ the rock too hard when he sold me this amp!! (just kidding! Dave is completely drug-free!)
These things sound beefier and punchier than Marshall amps. They have a more prominent low mid range to them that REALLY sounds great when you start to open them up. They GROWL….That’s the best way I can describe their overdriven tone!
Their clean tones are also very “bell-like and warm”. The classic examples of the Vox AC series amps are U2 and the Beatles. Listen to the CD “ The Joshua Tree” by U2. Probably one of the greatest examples of Vox AC amp sounds ever recorded. Many of the early Beatles clean tones (“Saw Her Standing There”) are a Vox AC 50 head… (the 50 watt version of the AC series). These amps, for whatever reason, sound particularly great when using electric 12 string guitars, BTW.
One other thing that deserves mentioning is that the AC series amps have (arguably) the best tremolo circuit of any amplifier ever made. It’s fantastic, and though different in character than a Fender tremolo, is equally useful and musical.

3) Fender Princeton Reverb –1968
a. Maybe I should stop saying “I love this amp!”, huh? ‘Cause guess what?? Yep, you got it! This thing sounds great.
What vintage Fender amps are renowned for is their clean tone. (Think Jimi Hendrix/Stevie Ray Vaughn/ Eric Johnson/Lynyrd Skynyrd/John Mayer/etc….). “Glassy”, “Chimey”, “bell-like” are a few adjectives that I’d use to describe it. Very clean, yet VERY warm and natural sounding. Very articulate.
When overdriven, it’s my experience that Fender amps produce a very “loose” sounding distortion. Almost “sloppy” sounding, but in a good way! These are NOT the amps you’d choose for tight, palm-muted, “Chugga’, Chugga’” rhythm parts! But if you like silky smooth “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!!” distorted solos and rhythms, this is definitely an amp lineage that you’ll want to try.
One of the things I’ve gotten to do over the years is play a LOT of different Fender amps. I definitely love the Tweeds (50’s) and Black-Faces (Late 50s-early 60s), but they’re VERY expensive. In ’68, the first production year after CBS bought Fender, word has it that they were still using the excess parts that FMI/FEI had been using, and the circuit topology of the Princeton Reverb didn’t change, therefore the PR’s that were made that year were essentially “black-face” models, with a silver grill-cloth and aluminum trim piping (only found on the 1968 models). I’ve had the opportunity to A/B this amp against earlier “black-face” Princeton Reverbs, and they sound remarkably similar. (as similar as 2 different amps of the same model are going to sound!) Fortunately, they are a good deal less expensive than their tweed and black-face counterparts!
Lastly, the PR’s have a very useful tremolo (think the “James Bond” theme, or any of the classic 60’s “surf-music”), as well as the best spring reverb, IMO, of any of the “standard” amp lines.

4) Orange ad10
a. OK, yep, love it too!
This is a pretty unique little amp. The ad series were usually built as 15 or 30 watt combo, with one or two 12 “ speakers. This amp was previously owned by Robbie Reider, and is one of a few “ad” amps built with a 10” speaker instead of a 12”. The cabinet dimensions are a touch smaller than the ad15, and, overall, it is a slightly brighter sounding amp.
What these amps do extremely well is give you articulation in your tone. Be it clean or overdriven. That means that it is very sensitive to your playing dynamics, and allows for a lot of the “pick” sound to come through in your tone.
The clean tone of this amp is difficult for me to put into words. It has the natural quality of a Fender amp, yet has a much more pronounced mid-range. Not a “honk-ey” tone, and certainly not a nasal tone. Just very “in-your-face” without being harsh or strident. I LOVE it, personally. It stands out in a dense mix effortlessly, and responds to adding delay/modulation/etc… excellently. The best example of this amp’s tone (both clean and overdriven) is on the Fray’s 1st CD release. The song “Over My Head (cable car)” comes to mind.
The character of the distorted tones of this amp are at the heart of a lot of Indy Pop Cds that have been released in the last 5 years or so. This amp has a very “edgy” sounding overdrive to it. Somewhat reminiscent of a Marshall with a little more “fizzy” top end. I find it REALLY unpleasant when the amp begins to distort heavily, but when you JUST get the amp to start “grinding”, it sounds fantastic! It definitely takes some gentle “tickling/tweaking” of the controls to find the sweet spot of these amps. Again, the best recent recording of this amp’s distorted character is on the Fray’s 1st CD.
Last thing I’ll mention about this amp is that it is a great amp to use for layering guitar sounds. Because of it’s unique voicing, I find that it “stacks” well with either a Marshall or Fender amp when you’re going for the “wall-of-sound” guitar thang! It can also work well with a Vox, but sometimes shares some of the same midrange frequencies, so you have to proceed with a little bit of caution. I realize that most of this applies to recording, but, as a guitar player who (fortunately) has regular access to these amps, I frequently will play in stereo when I play live. I will choose a pair of amps that compliment each other tonally, while still sounding different. This tends to give you a much more interesting tone, and really reacts well when used with stereo effects devices. Of course, it’s a lot more to carry, a lot more to trouble-shoot if something goes wrong, AND, if you’re not playing through a stereo PA system, it negates the “cool factor” of stereo delay/choruses/verb/etc…. for the audience. But once you’ve played that way, it’s really hard to go back to mono. It’s somewhat akin to giving up the ability to see in color, and accepting only seeing in black & white, I’d imagine!

Well, OK, that’s all I got! I hope that something here helps someone at some point to express what God’s placed uniquely in their heart. After all, THAT’S what music is all about. Bringing a “Unique Beauty” to this world. Cheers!

Solo Time- Making the Jump

I got an email yesterday asking me what I thought about doubling up on overdrive pedals and if that was ok to do. I think I’ll answer it in a more broad sense. When its time to play a solo or a line that needs to jump out what do you do? Lets think about some other things with that. Do you want it to jump in volume only? Drive level increase? How about a mid bump or high frequency increase?
Lets talk about a few of the options starting with the question I got.

Double overdrive/Distortion:
There are a lot of guys that do something like this because when their solo jumps out they want the overdrive level to increase. They want the drive level as well as the volume to increase. For instance I have a friend that uses a Fulltone Full-Drive as his main sound and then uses a Keeley TS-9 for solos. This is a good option but the rookie mistake here is to use both pedals with the drive up which makes the tone muddy and forces the sound guy to reach for your guitar level and pull it down. If you want to take this option you usually want to pull the drive most of the way down on the second pedal and push it with the volume. This is really nice with a tube amp because you can get a bit more grit out of the tubes that way as well.

Clean Boost/ Power Boost/ Boost
This is also a great option for guys who want to keep a consistent tone but want to push the overall volume and maybe even push the tubes in the amp a little bit. Some guys like to be all over the map with different types of distortions and levels and such--- other guys like to have one staple drive tone they use and boost it.

Channel switch with pedal
The primary drive sound that most people like to hear is actually the tubes breaking up and not a pedal. Tubes have the most natural sounding overdrive and so it sounds great to have a overdrive channel on a tube amp and boost it with a pedal. In this case either of the first two options will work depending on what you want.

Volume knob
Here is the old school way roll. You’ve got your amp cranked to a place that it’s distorting nicely with your volume knob on the guitar rolled back a few notches. Its time for a solo and you roll the knob forward which increases volume and a bit of drive at the same time. This is a great way if you can get used to having a stable place to move back and forth.
---- Side note on this! Most modern pickups have been over wound to produce more out put volume and have sacrificed tone in doing so. Some of the best sounds I’ve gotten have been by turning the amp up and the guitar down. This warms up the tone and gives you somewhere to roll up to for solos where it can be a bit more aggressive.

Treble boost/ Mid boost/ ect
Back in the 70’s this guitarist (you may have heard of) named Brian May started using a treble boost for solos. Few guys I’ve heard have done it well but sometimes its nice to not just jump out with drive and volume but also with frequencies that can cut through the mix and help you be heard. There is another called a germanium boost which gives a nice bump to the mids, which a good place for a guitar solo to jump out since those are the primary frequency covered by a guitar.

Higher output pickup
The last is worth mentioning. Some guys will have their amps and pedals set but use different levels on their pickups. (More of a Gibson thing) Then they will switch pickups to create the illusion of turning on an overdrive pedal. I saw Jimmy Page do that in the movie “It Might Get Loud.” He had the front pickup turned down and played a riff on it before switching to the other pickup, which was cranked for some killer lead riffs. Other guys will actually have a lower and higher output pickup they switch between for lead tones.

And lastly… some guys play light…. And then just dig in when its time to scream.

Why Modify?

I wish I could give you a detailed history of how this whole “modifying guitar pedal” started but even my partnership with Google has yielded limited info. Somewhere along the line though someone realized… “Boutique pedals are expensive and store bought pedals don’t sound very good--- I wonder if there is a way to get the best of both worlds.” What really contributes to the sound of a pedal? Why do some pedals have the beauty of sounding like an extension of the amp and others sound like a vomiting cat?
One thing that really impacts the tone is the design of the tone stack. This is the sequence of components put together to achieve a certain tone. This is the hardest thing to overcome because you can’t do a lot to change this when modding pedals. If the tone stack is just really bad… it’s pretty hard to overcome.
The other main contributor is quality of components used. For example: Even a wonderfully designed pedal like the TS808 (or TS-9) isn’t the most beautiful right off the shelf. Because, if you are a company trying to make the most profit possible you are probably going to find out the cheapest way to make as good a product is necessary. Most pedals are pretty much made up of resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, and op amps. If you are Ibanez making a run of 100,000 TS-9s you probably are going to spend 12 cents on a ceramic capacitor instead of 50 cents on a metal film or silver mica one. That cost isn’t huge for you or I working on the few pedals we own but it’s a difference of $38,000 on a run of 100,000 pedals. That is why boutique pedal companies charge $180 to $400 for a circuit that is alarmingly similar to the $89 TS-9. I know that is a bit of an over simplification but it at least paints the picture for you.
I have personally had an absolute blast hearing a once sucky pedal come to life. I recently finished a Boss SD-1 which sounded gritty and harsh. Now with the change of just ten components I’ve got a warm and rich pedal I would be proud to play anywhere.
So how do you enter this brave new world? The easiest way is to sit down with someone who has a bit of experience and learn a trick or too… that is always the best way to learn something. But, if that isn’t a luxury afforded to you I would recommend this great book which has also taught me a lot in learning to walk this hobby out. http://www.indy-guitarist.com/inc/sdetail/102
This book has several examples to practice with and learn how to start working on this kind of thing.

Closing thought:
I’m always annoyed that the only people who can afford the best gear are usually guys who are to busy making money to actually play the stuff they buy. So, a lot of my motivation in this stuff is getting the best sounds for the lowest price. I hope this kind of thinking and some of what I’ve been through in the last couple years is helpful to someone.

Here is a list of a few pedals I’ve gotten great results from when I’ve modified them.
Ibanez TS-9, Boss SD-1, Boss BD-2, Boss OD-1, Boss DS-1, Boss OS-2, ProCo Rat with Serial # under 300,000.

Here are a few I’ve done and they didn’t even sound that good with a Mod.
MXR Distortion+, Marshall Drive Master, Danelectro Daddy-O, ProCo Rat over serial # 300,000, and I’m not having much luck with the Electra 500d I’m working on right now… so we’ll see.

OK- That’s all for now.

Overdrive

The overdrive choice.

As most of you know there are three kinds of pedals that will give you the “grit”… Overdrive, distortion, and Fuzz. Often the sound is coming from the amp but if its not its coming from one of these pedals. The most common “distortion” sound you here in modern music is overdrive. If you are going to have one pedal that dirties up your sound I would recommend having an overdrive before you buy any other distortion pedals.
Pedals may include: Fulltone Full-drive, Ibanez TS808, Ibanez Tube screamer, Boss Blues driver, Lovepedal eternity, the Timmy, Klon Centaur, Visual sound Route 808, Xotic BB preamp, Damage Control Womanizer, Voodoo lab Sparkle drive, and even the decent little Danelectro cool cat transparent overdrive. There is a fun comparison video here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMy_Jt7A1wA
Of course even of the pedals I mentioned there is a variety in price from $39 up to about $400. The cost varies due to quality of design and even more so by the quality of components in the pedal. The technology of an overdrive is pretty old and there is only so much you can change in the style of circuit so that isn’t going to be the biggest impact toward the quality of the pedal. There are so many out there I would recommend putting some in a lineup and see which one jumps out at you for both rhythm and lead lines. Overdrive is often described as the “warmest” of distortions but they vary quite a bit. Without a pretty extensive mod the Boss blues driver is never going to be as warm as the Fulltone full-drive. One of the Big reasons is the Fulltone uses much better components.
I’ll talk more about this in a blog on modding pedals but… most store bought pedals will use a 12 cent capacitor in the tone circuit and a boutique pedal may use a 60 cent cap. Doesn’t matter a bunch if you only make a few for yourself but when you are making 100,000 pedals like Ibanez it makes a big difference. If your pedal cost $25 to make, by the time it gets on the shelf at guitar center they can sell it for $90 and make out fine on each pedal. If they spent twice that (about what I spent building an 808) that would affect the bottom line a lot. Keep your eye out on craig’s list, ebay, and from friends though because you can get a great overdrive and not have to turn to Keeley or Klon to do it.

Tone Is First In The Fingers

That is very interesting Philip- I'm surprised the Crate V30 amp worked best for you since I've never gotten one to sound good...

-----But, I've learned an important lesson... What sounds good with my fingers might not with someone else's. There are amazing pieces of gear that I sound like crap playing because its just isn't a match for the way I play. It's also the main reason I'll never recommend a particular piece of gear on here--- just cause it sounds great (or horrible) when I play it doesn't mean it will for someone else!

We did an experiment last week:
I set up a Fender Princeton amp with several overdrive/distortion pedals and had me and three other guitarists play as we switched between pedals. All the pedals were either boutique or had been modded to sound as good as possible. We had a custom 808, Fulltone Full-drive, C4 (aka Direct Drive), Boss DS-1, Danelectro Daddy-O, Boss OS-2-- later I also tried a ProCo Rat.

The strange thing was that there wasn't a clear winner. Each of us had a pedal that sounded best when we played it. My friend Charlie said, "What have we learned here? We have learned that we can never recommend a pedal because it depends on who is playing it!" Mind you they all sounded good, were played through a good guitar and a great amp... but there were different stand outs for each of us depending on our attack, approach and a bunch of other factors I can't fathom. It was a great lesson though. Tone is first in the fingers!!!