“Best distorsion for synthesizers” also depends… on the synthesizer. The output level will determine how the pedal will sound.
I remember trying a MiniFooger Drive on a Little Phatty: huge. I remember trying it on another synth (can’t remember which one): not huge.
On the said Little Phatty, I’ve also tried some Tech21 Character series SansAmps: the VTBass and Blonde are my favorite ones. They are on the guitarish side.
The ProCo Rat is too much on the fuzz side for me… unless I set the gain quite low in order to walk on the light overdrive territory. I will remove some lows though. I used it on a Nord G2 in a rock-electro duo, was always on. The Deucetone Rat can be a stereo Rat and more than that.
Big Muff? Too fuzzy for me: it will just squeeze my sound and remove the character of it.
Klon clones… I know I’ve tried but I don’t use this. I must not have been interesting to me somehow.
I remember using an EHX Germanium Pi. It is somewhere between OD/Dist and fuzz. I have good memories of wide filter frequency manipulations. With its bias setting, it was also interesting with low volume changes, sounding like velcro at times.
The EHX Operation Overlord is very handy too: stereo, can blend dry signal, 3 band active Eq. Very synth friendly.
Oh, the Vermona Filter Lancet or Retroverb Lancet can achieve some pretty overload too, in the vein of the Little Phatty Overload…
I dont think it matters, synth sounds tend to be so harmonically rich that any distortion starts to blow out the sound pretty quickly to my ears.
I can say that I’ve run some string pads from my P5 through a Fairfield Roger That and it sounded pretty cool.
I had some great results with parallel distortion. That way i can dial in a nasty heavy sound but keep something of the original signal intact. Works very well with synths.
I’m using a Tonebone big shot mix pedal which lets me blend in the signal of my distortion pedals etc. It can also be done with a mixer using 2 channels or else.
Many guitar pedals cut out the lowest lows and the highest highs resulting in a very mid focused sound if you’re used to full spectrum synth sounds. Sometimes bass guitar pedals work a lot better than guitar pedals for synth.
Any recommendations for bass guitar distortion pedal? I was quiete abusing the melda ring mod lately, and having one in physical format would be surly intresting. I think the main problem is still the stereo thing, Maybe the empress zoia is also worth to consider, as it allows a lot of customization and maybe an LFO to turn the distortion level up and down over time.
The dry blend capability is indeed more than welcome on synths and bass.
The two I tried are EHX Operation Overlord Tech21 VT Bass DI. Other than that, you can use any pedal and a mixer or utility device as the Spaceman FX Mission Control or DreadBox Psyclop.
I recently bought a Pit Viper and I really like it. Dry/wet blend and low mid high filters (with a sweepable frequency between them) give a lot of shaping.
Godeater I want to have at some point too - especially for low end / full frequency stuff like running full drum machines through it.
I love the Big Muff sound on guitars, but on synths this is kind of what I find too. I’ve got the EQD Hizumitas which is based on a modified Muff circuit, and it sounds good but it doesn’t matter what I run through it. Everything sounds almost identical when it comes out of this thing.
maaaybe if you kept the filter knobs fully open, but you’d just have to experiment, i’d probably bet it’d create some kind of phase difference but it depends on whether or not it sounds bad
Most of these are already mentioned in the thread, I put all of them on synths/drums/vocals and they do indeed fuck shit up to a satisfying degree. I feel very indulgent using expensive pedals though, I’m sure I could get extremely heavy with a couple of Metal Zones and RATs chained together too, or just chains of VST distortions/bit crushers. The Radial Reamper does make a big difference and I’d say that is a place to spend a little more money if anywhere, even when I use pedals designed for direct line level/synth use like Meris they react noticeably better through the reamper (and I’m not very elitist when it comes to tone). Also the Bestie was a huge surprise, the feedback distortion mixing is very cool and extremely heavy, I love putting drums and a synth bassline through it and letting them fight it out. It is a distortion pedal in its own right and not just a mixer.
I can upload some sound samples if you want to hear what specific pedals do to some synths.
Have a search on YouTube for the Way Huge Pork & Pickle to see if that’s something you might like. It’s basically two drives in one box, a big muff circuit and an overdrive circuit based on a Neve preamp. It’s made with bass in mind, so you can blend your clean signal back in.
