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Best drive pedal for The Real Me sound?


Painy
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Having recently bought one of the last Gibson EB 2013 basses from GAK and finding that it sounds very much like a T-Bird I'm feeling inspired to try and get a sound along the lines of John Entwistle's overdriven tone on The Real Me.

Any suggestions for a (preferably fairly affordable) drive pedal that would help get me somewhere in the ballpark?

Edited by Painy
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His tone is most likely just an overdriven tube amp, so I'd try one of the Tech21 character series or one of the many cheap clones about these days. I can get close with my VT Bass or my dirt cheap Joyo American Sound (I've seen other branded versions of this going for £25 new).

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29 minutes ago, T-Bay said:

Been searching for this sort of sound myself and haven’t got there yet, the closest so far is the Soul food, had one, sold it, regretted it, got another.

I've had the Soul Food, sold (or more accurately traded) it and regretted it too.

Maybe I should do the getting another thing too :D.

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On later performances The Ox used a Digitech 2120, you can clearly hear the chorus effect in there too. The 2120 and it’s predecessor the 2112 had a pair of valves in the preamp to create ‘real valve drive’. At the time it was very good.. but by today’s standards, Helix makes a mockery of the tones available. Anyway, I digress. John used a parallel signal path where the drive sound came from the Digitech and the clean sound direct to amps. (More or less).  

I’d suggest the EBS Sheehan Signature Drive Deluxe in boost mode with the drive all the way down with the clean blended in equal measures, compressor set to mid.

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29 minutes ago, dannybuoy said:

His tone is most likely just an overdriven tube amp, so I'd try one of the Tech21 character series or one of the many cheap clones about these days. I can get close with my VT Bass or my dirt cheap Joyo American Sound (I've seen other branded versions of this going for £25 new).

Been looking at the American Sound actually just for a bit of fun to play with. Would be interesting to see if it might do the job and they don't come much more affordable!

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5 minutes ago, dannybuoy said:

It's not as bright/clangy as the VT or Leeds but still has plenty of low end and tube like grunt. Can't go wrong for £25 anyway!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B01A89FPMU

 Cool, thanks for the link - quite a bit cheaper than the Joyo branded ones seem to go for.

 

The tech21 Leeds does sound pretty amazing! Having just paid out to put the car through its MOT this month though, the American Sound is probably going to be a quicker fix at the moment :)

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Incidentally @dood after chatting to you on facebook about trying to recreate Glenn Hughes' tone I pretty much got there in the end.

Bit of a convoluted signal chain in the end but it went: jazz played with a pick into an MXR M80 on the clean channel with the colour button in but the mids cranked to counter the scoop of the pre-shape then into a BDI 21 with both the drive and the presence controls pushed up a fair bit and then into a Lomenzo Hyperdrive mainly adding some high mids with only a subtle amount of drive then into an Ashdown ABM 500.

Sounds amazing but I'm really hoping this will be a simpler process :biggrin:.

Edited by Painy
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19 hours ago, Painy said:

Having recently bought one of the last Gibson EB 2013 basses from GAK and finding that it sounds very much like a T-Bird I'm feeling inspired to try and get a sound along the lines of John Entwistle's overdriven tone on The Real Me.

Any suggestions for a (preferably fairly affordable) drive pedal that would help get me somewhere in the ballpark?

If you are specifically after JE's Quadrophenia tone, I would avoid too much drive - he was using a very clean, warm tone at this time as a reaction to his years of treble. I would suggest a valve amp or simulator but to be honest I don't even think that is strictly necessary - JE might have been using solid-state Sunns at the time. I use my Leeds as it's always on, but I turn down the drive and treble quite a bit.

19 hours ago, dannybuoy said:

His tone is most likely just an overdriven tube amp, so I'd try one of the Tech21 character series or one of the many cheap clones about these days. I can get close with my VT Bass or my dirt cheap Joyo American Sound (I've seen other branded versions of this going for £25 new).

I would avoid the VT Bass for JE-type tones, it has a very different character.

 

2 hours ago, dudewheresmybass said:

@Cosmo Valdemar

he used a Leeds for a long time as part of his core tone. 

Hes the chap to talk to about it 😉

I use the Leeds as a preamp, have done for years. I don't think the demo video above does it justice at all - at least not for JE-type tones (using a Jazz bass for the demo didn't help either!). I'm guessing they're using the sample 'Leeds' setting from the manual which is a bit OTT. It really doesn't need loads of drive to achieve the Leeds sound - when dialled in correctly it does it remarkably well. I'm very pleased with it!

I wish I had some idea of how to upload a video!

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Had a go earlier playing the My Generation solo with a Thunderbird, the VT Bass sounded pretty good. The Joyo American Sound was a bit more buzzy and darker, not quite as close but still very good for the price. I’d like to give the Leeds a bash though!

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19 hours ago, dood said:

On later performances The Ox used a Digitech 2120, you can clearly hear the chorus effect in there too. The 2120 and it’s predecessor the 2112 had a pair of valves in the preamp to create ‘real valve drive’. At the time it was very good.. but by today’s standards, Helix makes a mockery of the tones available. 

Ever tried a Digitech 2120? I've got one and it's brilliant. I'm only using it for effects rather than an all in one solution like the helix, but I still think it's better than everything up until modelling got loads better in the last few years. If it died I'd get a helix, but until then it's enough. The delays and chorus are worth it alone.

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@Cosmo Valdemar

I do love JE's Live at Leeds sound and the Leeds pedal is clearly going to be great at getting that sound but I'd probably use my precision if that was what I was after in this instance.

I am thinking more of the Studio version from Quadrophenia hence the idea of using the Gibson as a starting point.

Listening to it here it does sound to me like it's overdriven but the lack of harsh treble means it's a very smooth, warm drive that just gives a punch in the mids rather than being at all aggressive.

 

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1 hour ago, Painy said:

@Cosmo Valdemar

I do love JE's Live at Leeds sound and the Leeds pedal is clearly going to be great at getting that sound but I'd probably use my precision if that was what I was after in this instance.

I am thinking more of the Studio version from Quadrophenia hence the idea of using the Gibson as a starting point.

Listening to it here it does sound to me like it's overdriven but the lack of harsh treble means it's a very smooth, warm drive that just gives a punch in the mids rather than being at all aggressive.

 

The Leeds will do that. Really not much drive going on there though, that's the Thunderbird 😁

What we're hearing here though is a very degraded isolated track. A lot of the distortion is a result of that rather than the original bass track itself.

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You could do far worse than a One Control HGBM! 

It does warm valve to mild dirt very well whilst providing a clean drive signal that plays nicely alongside other pedals in your chain. And, as @krispn will also vouch, it doesn't suffer from a loss of low end.

I think you'll enjoy :) 

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8 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

You could do far worse than a One Control HGBM! 

It does warm valve to mild dirt very well whilst providing a clean drive signal that plays nicely alongside other pedals in your chain. And, as @krispn will also vouch, it doesn't suffer from a loss of low end.

I think you'll enjoy :) 

That's what I'm hoping for ;)

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19 hours ago, fretmeister said:

I’m going to say it....

 

Johnny Rod’s version with WASP is better.

 

That was the first version of the song that I heard. I usually find that I prefer the original versions of most songs but have to admit WASP really nailed it.

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