1. Harmonic Sparkle: just about the worst way to describe something so great. There's no words for it, but it has to do with a certain soft clipping sound that won't destroy the beautiful overtones created by the resonating of your guitar. Many overdrive pedals will kill the personal sound of your guitar and amp. You don't want it to destroy your unique tone, but enhance it.
2. Headroom: A fancy word for range of gain. You want the gain knob to have as large a range as possible, from just barely adding any overdrive to your sound to filling up the room with a wild explosion of overdrive bridging on distortion. Of course, boost pedals may not have as much gain potential as true overdrive pedals, but overdrive pedals won't be able to play as clean as boost pedals will.
3. Sustain: Make sure that your overdrive pedal doesn't provide too much sustain at a low gain level. This indicates a lot of compression going on, which some people like, but I personally find artificial sounding and a primary destroyer of tone if used too much. At higher gain levels, this is alright, as the signal is supposed to be slightly sustained due to an increase in volume and overall modulation of the signal.
Other than those three important points, the world of overdrive pedals is wide open and highly subjective! To start off, let's describe the difference between a "boost" and an "overdrive" effect.
Boost: A true boost does one thing, and it's exactly what it sounds like. It takes your signal, and raises or "boosts" it's volume. When used with solid state amplifiers, this is pointless, but when used in combination with a tube amp, can drive the preamp tubes and create an overdrive sound that is very sharp but thick tone characteristic of Keith Richards and Eric Clapton. Not as much gain as an overdrive, and a simpler idea, but it's essential in combination with a good tube amp. There are two types of boosts, "clean" boosts, and normal boosts. In truth, the circuitry is very different between the two, but the only thing you need to know is that clean boosts will only modify only the volume of your signal (transparency is the term used for the clean-ness of a boost or other effect), whereas normal boosts will also modify the sound and character of your signal.
Overdrive: Overdrive is described with a lot of different words; fat, chunky, thick, smooth, creamy, and many others make up a long list of nonsense that can't come close to accurately describing what overdrive actually is. Overdrive, in the truest definition, is the effect meant to simulate the sound of the power tubes of a tube amp being "driven" to the point of distortion by means of high volume. Overdrive pedals, despite their wild differences in tone and gain stages and controls, are all essentially trying to emulate the sound of a tube amp. This isn't to say that an overdrive isn't necessary if you have a tube amp. With amplifiers like Fender Twin Reverbs and Vox AC30's it's sometimes good to have an overdrive for that extra punch and sustain needed to create some sounds that otherwise couldn't be achieved. It's a challenge to describe, so if you don't already know what this is, go try it out or listen to any Santana solo.
$BANK$: Money is actually pretty important when it comes to buying an overdrive or boost pedal. Most of the great ones are more expensive, sometimes even upwards of $200. However, because these are an integral part of your sound as a guitarist, it's a worthy investment.
Now, I know people are going to hate on me for not mentioning in detail their sexy British Mos-FET gain stage Fulltone or their vintage Coloursound Powerboost, but I am only mentioning options that are my absolute essential favorites (both of those pedals, however, are great, and I encourage you to search them up!). Two pedals that I am NOT including, however, are both very popular and used on several pedal boards around the world. These are the Boss Blues Driver and the Ibanez Tube Screamer. Both of these are good options that aren't too expensive, but let's get this straight, they don't sound that good. Before you buy one, try out a real overdrive or boost pedal and then say that you're still in love with your BD-2 or TS9. With that out of the way then, let's look at my favorite overdrives and boosts!
1. AnalogMan Beano Boost- $175
Based off of the Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster, this boost is the best replication of a legend, with built in improvements that make it the best boost pedal on the market. It's harmonically rich and has one of the sharpest and grittiest sounds of all boost pedals. Just listen to songs like Stray Cat Blues and Midnight Rambler off of the Rolling Stones album "Get Yer Yayas Out". In combination with a Fender Twin, Fender Princeton Reverb, Vox AC30, Marshall JCM800, virtually any amp, this thing sounds amazing! If I could have one boost pedal, it would be this one. The mid/low switch allows for versatility, but when I get the chance to play it I normally keep it in the middle for the vintage Rangemaster treble boost, where it sounds best. For more info visit Analogman's website, and email him and his team with questions, he's not afraid to answer!
2. Way Huge Pork Loin- $170
The Way Huge Pork Loin is one pedal that I really enjoy using on a daily basis. This thing is about the most versatile overdrive out there, with five knobs and three internal trim pots that allow you to tweak your overdrive from a great boost (volume up overdrive down) to a growling overdrive (overdrive up, tone at noon). There's also an included "clean" knob, to balance out the overdrive by blending it with a clean british mic preamp built into the pedal. This allows for the high end clarity of your signal not to be muddied up as normally happens with other overdrive pedals. This one's on my personal board and it's there to stay. The bright blue LED is easy to see and the knobs can be set anywhere and sound good. I use it as a boost most of the time and leave my gnarly tones up to a ProCo Rat (which I review in my fuzz pedals guide). It's great for Rolling Stones tunes, fiery Jimmy Page solos, anything by The Who, and even some Cheap Trick "At Budokan" tones. For those of you who are punk rock distortion heads (one of which I am) this pedal does a great Ramones sound, especially when you dial in the clean preamp to add some sparkle to those powerchords.
3. Keeley Luna Drive- $230
I think this is the best overdrive I've ever used. Other than a Vox AC30 or Fender Twin Reverb or Marshall JCM 800 amp cranked all the way, this is the best overdrive sound out there. While it's expensive, it's got some great potential. For Led Zeppelin tones it kills, and for almost borderline fuzz Jimi Hendrix stuff this overdrive pedal can hang with the Fuzz Face. I played it and I fell in love. I found one used for $139 but unfortunately it was not eligible for the rebate I was planning to purchase it with, so I bought the almost as good Pork Loin instead. If there's one thing about this pedal I don't enjoy, it's that there's five total controls, but the versatility is relatively low. However, this barely matters, because it sounds so good it may just be the only overdrive sound you'll ever need.
A few others that I won't actually talk about but I definitely love are:
-The AnalogMan King of Tone
-The MXR Custom Badass Modified OD
-Fulltone Fulldrive2 and OCD
-Suhr Riot
-Coloursound Powerboost
-Keeley JavaBoost
-others that I'm forgetting now but liked
Like I said, please stay away from Boss overdrive pedals like the Blues Driver, and really the Tube Screamer isn't that wonderful either, so my advice is don't waste your time and buy a good overdrive or better yet an AnalogMan Beano Boost or Vintage Coloursound Powerboost.
Well, that's it for this guide. As always, test out your overdrive or boost with your amp and your guitar, and make sure it's the best for whatever you're doing!
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