The Synthesist's Guide to Drive Pedals

Patreon : / jorblovesgear
Effects Pedals on Perfect Circuit : bit.ly/3gzG0SG
BD-2 on Reverb : reverb.grsm.io...
Buddy Chase : prettyfort.com/ and open.spotify.c...
I had some really insightful stuff about distortion being desirable in these pedals, and annoying when you weren't looking for it, and the only big difference is these pedals are designed to manipulate it into "good" drive, but I didnt follow the outline well enough to get to it.
0:00 Intro / Thesis
3:00 He Pleads for Support
3:34 Overdrive & BD-2
13:41 He Gets Carried Away
15:55 Distortion & DOD Gunslinger
20:49 Distortion & Ibanez Metal Charger
26:11 Fuzz & Fuzz Face
29:40 Fuzz & Big Muff Pi
33:46 Versatility & the SS/BS Mini
36:14 Conclusions
#synth #pedals ‪@BOSSinfoglobal‬

[@Layka-be3bz]

I’ve been using guitar pedals for decades and this is the first time I really understood what was going on. Using a sine wave with the oscilloscope was perfect. I came here expecting no a few tips for using guitar pedals with synths, but you provided that, plus the best explanation of these pedals I have ever seen.

[@JorbLovesGear]

High praise, cheers 🙏🙏

[@NunyaB1s]

@15:00 I don't really care that you got lost here. It's soooooo awesome to hear someone else just play around.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Cheers, normally I cut them because they don't sound that good. Lol, but when I find a good riff it gets to live on.

[@CasfraTTM]

@@JorbLovesGear A bit late on the vid but the full jam sounded straight out from some paul birken track :p just loved it !

[@wilsonjaksetic6009]

I was literally just on a pedal/synth video binge, thank you so much for extending it with what I’m sure is awesome content. Keep up the great work man!!!

[@JorbLovesGear]

Cheers thanks! I really love this series, pedals are so exciting for me

[@syntheffects]

Synths and distortions work wonderfully together. I try to try out as many pairings as I can on my channel but some like the OCD and D+ are just unbeatable classics.

[@davidhrivnak]

This is such a great demonstration and explanation! Bright blue LEDs like the one on that DOD are so outrageous, and I'm glad you slapped some tape on it. A trick I use to get bright LEDs under control is putting a drop of Elmer's wood glue on it, letting it dry, and then putting another drop on if it needs it. It works like a charm, and you can easily and cleanly peel the glue off with tweezers if you decide you don't like it. :-)

[@scramblesthedeathdealer]

I want my gear lit up like an airport.

[@coolguy2783]

14:46 sounded so damn awesome, that kick drum was sick

[@JorbLovesGear]

Cheers, normally I cut out the clips where I go on for too long. lol

[@pablowentscobar]

I love when companies market to "metal heads" "This pedal is called The unicorn stomper. It's settings are Stabbed in the neck with a rust screwdriver, it goes from 1 tetanus to 10 death from infection. Then we have bludgeoned with a cat, this goes from 1 fractured skull to 10 total decapitation." Awesome video, That fuzz pedal you made sounds fantastic.

[@DrClocktopus1]

A Moog grandmother (or presumably other monosynth) into an ultra fuzz is one of the sweetest sounds

[@briannolan]

Kudos on the teaching chops Jorb! I've watched a lot of guitar gear videos, but I think this is the first time that I have properly *understood* the soft clipping / hard clipping differentiation.

[@JorbLovesGear]

🙏🙏 That's really high praise, thanks. I'm proud of it!

[@loissio481]

As a guitar/bass player that got interested on synths and producing recently I really loved this video and the ideas that you gave me to try out new things on gear I already have. Saudos e unha aperta dende Vigo, Galicia!

[@JorbLovesGear]

Cheers, nice to hear that. A tale as old as time, the guitar to synth pipeline is real. Lol. Hello from Iowa, the sunny midwest US.

[@LeonTodd]

Big Muff on synth - what a legend!

[@JorbLovesGear]

😅Get loud or go home, what can I say.

[@Ve55el]

Thank you for the Slingshot Dakota suggestion! That band is amazeballs! ...and your channel content is amazing too!

[@JorbLovesGear]

Ahh hell yeah, cheers

[@jakeage3024]

Slingshot Dakota rules! I first saw them in a backyard in Gainesville, Florida on a Sunday morning.

[@zublits]

I love your playful and explorative vibe. Music is fun! I think we've all been guilty of taking it a little bit too seriously. Good stuff.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Cheers, thank you!

[@stopmikeandjim3196]

This is so useful. I'm a guitarist with an electrical engineering background who is just getting into synths. I can't thank you enough for putting up the oscilloscope while you explained everything. Subscribing

[@JorbLovesGear]

Ahhh perfect, happy to help!

[@mike_mnb]

That was an absolutely amazing video. Basically, it summed up and concluded all of my thoughts on different kinds of drive pedals and their usage, sound, and character in a quite universal demo with a pure sine wave

[@huntergalloway3944]

Big MUFFFFFFFFFF! It’s always a challenge to use with stereo synths. Great work!

[@JorbLovesGear]

I have written down an advanced signal routing episode, but I need to come up with more good topics for it...but stuff like that is 100% in the cards

[@dijjidog]

Great video, love to see the lead 2 out again

[@JorbLovesGear]

Oh yeah, it was a perfect fit, clean and stable

[@theinnermostsanctum]

This is my jam. I was just wondering if i needed s Fuzz and Overdrive to go with my Heavy Distortion for my synth. This answered that...beautifully. Thanks.

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

I have a Flanger pedal to use on sythersizors but I dont have the wire.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Cheers, glad it was useful!

[@JoeMcGuire]

Great video! So happy to see you have a Patreon going now! From my own experience, the green russian has better performance on the lower registers though I don't have one of the big box muff versions to test against, and the Boss DS-1 is the best thing ever on the OG DrumBrute.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Cheers, appreciate hearing that. It is a weird step! You're right, the bass big muff is just the green russian, I should've mentioned. SO many little differences!

[@STMRecords1]

Great series of videos, love how you break this all down.

[@JorbLovesGear]

cheers, thanks for that

[@positivepig]

the fact that you brought up slingshot dakota = instant subscribe!

[@JorbLovesGear]

ayyy cheers, hell yeah

[@chikoavena3407]

Your blues driver pedal is so clean haha, I've seen beated up ones quite alot lately

[@JorbLovesGear]

I need to toss it around with some rocks a bit

[@snrrlax]

I'm appreciating these videos. I use a ton of vst synths and am jumping into my first hardware synth (Modal Cobalt 5S) and also play bass. Digging this series to see what I can try to make use of from what I might already have.

[@sashajedinac9391]

Super useful video. Thank you so much for making this.

[@JorbLovesGear]

🙏🙏 Cheers, thank you. The series has been some of my favorite videos to work on, I love pedals so much

[@Rollur1234]

I didn't mute the fx knob on the fx pedal return channel. That did the trick. However there is clipping on certain level on the main out. Thanks for the show! Greetings

[@jramosmusic]

I have my coffee ready for this one. Loving this videos.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Buckle up, its dense. Lol

[@emmettthenry]

The overdriven piano sound instantly reminded me of Benevento/Russo Duo’s “Play Pause Stop” album. Totally forgot about it for years. Thanks.

[@billtrieshmann5979]

A great drive pedal for electronic music is the Boss Bass Overdrive ODB-3. It can do low, mid and high gain sounds while including separate eq control for high/low freq while also incorporating a blend control. Sounds exquisite on synths, drums and whatever else you can think of. Typically about $50 used

[@leftovernoise]

Actually that's a really good fuckin call. Getting one asap.

[@chefhumpty6126]

Man I have one and why the hell have I not used it in synths (I’m a bassist)

[@shpongled587]

Reasonable amounts of the right kind of distortion can add proper harmonics to a lot of sounds indeed.

[@theartofcarny]

Very happy I found this channel!

[@JorbLovesGear]

Cheers, I'm glad you found it too! lol

[@Death_By_Media]

A little art patch bay and two used Zoom MS50g’s for less than a $100 was one of the smartest purchases I feel I’ve ever made in music gear and my synths seam just as happy about it . Otherwise my now old PodFarm 2.5 plug-in gets the job done , but I wouldn’t say no to a well priced Geiger Counter .

[@JorbLovesGear]

I'm trying to snatch one of the ms70CDR's for an episode on multi effects, I think

[@Death_By_Media]

@@JorbLovesGear You should it’s a great “ poor man’s “ H9 . Btw coincidence I was literally just watching your monologue video and commenting when you commented on this one lol

[@mrblablablabla]

Great video, I love the visual translation with the oscillator! However, I’d add the caveat to be careful with running line level into drives, especially fuzzes with sensitive transistors. You could actually damage a pedal by running too strong a signal into it.

[@isaac.anthony]

I bought the Elektron Drive pedal on sale for $99. i wish i bought 2 for that price. Multiple good algo with eq and gain stage, so good!

[@martimdesouzajunior7585]

Nice jam starting at 1345. Crazy cool sounds!

[@JorbLovesGear]

🙏🙏🙏

[@daneguitarist1]

Jorb you gotta join this collab project, basically an ambient collab album with a bunch of synthers

[@JorbLovesGear]

Email me about it!

[@SacSynths_Jack_Z]

Really enjoying this series! I think the technical explanations with the oscilloscope visual is super helpful. Did you film the pedal build?

[@JorbLovesGear]

Thanks Jack! Not really, I move around so much when I do repairs or builds, between tasks & around the house that its such a pain to keep track of when I'm recording or not, if things are in focus etc. Plus, me digging through a bin of resistors for something close enough to work isn't really worth sharing...lol!

[@gamepad3173]

This would be a great way to test pedals while building a pedal board.

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

14:10 Wow instant hard Techno.

[@JorbLovesGear]

It really did work. lol

[@lfoflow]

Love the ss/bs mini! Use it on bass and synth all the time

[@JorbLovesGear]

Really rips with bass, what a great pedal

[@orka268]

Drive My Pedal - 2022 Oscar Nominee

[@michaelhoman7748]

Ames Iowa represent!

[@strykermoonfall2220]

You kick ass.

[@iancain6647]

Bro there has to be a synth dictionary. I love learning these words you use!

[@JorbLovesGear]

🙏🙏 I'm breaking the useless adjective mold, only accurate descriptors around here.

[@sideburnsmcawesome]

Shout out to @Slingshot Dakota! Doing the Valley proud!

[@JorbLovesGear]

Rad band

[@mhmrules]

Man, I should just get an Arp 2600 and a Blues Driver and just set that up at a rave and watch what happens.

[@JorbLovesGear]

people would love it

[@josephwright5921]

I am still waiting for anyone to post a video showing the VOX VALVE ENERGY pedal series on a synth.

[@PorchBass]

A nice reminder that volume modulation can sound great and affect timbre . All too easy to forget in an overcompressed world.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Indeed, just a little movement goes so far

[@SomeOne-pd6vm]

volume modulation into distortion can sound great as well, since it'll affect how much your signal is clipping.

[@REFabbro]

thanks for the great content

[@JorbLovesGear]

Happy to do it, I really am enjoying this series

[@hnryjmes]

if you run an FM E. Piano sound through a drive pedal can it do a "bark" sound with high velocity like a Rhodes does? unfortunately I don't have any pedals anymore to check!

[@JorbLovesGear]

Certainly, with a dynamic patch, you can get some of the same feel of running an electric piano into an amp, breaking up on the hard hits. But, just because I'm geeky about it, and depending on what you're describing, that sort of really hard tine hit might be covered by a deep FM patch, or not covered in just a drive pedal.

[@decker5801]

slingshot dakota rocks and they're the nicest people ever :')

[@jackodonnell3463]

Love this, thank you

[@SixteenVoice]

A couple of times I caught myself singing "bravissimo, hip hip hooray". Not sure if that was a coincidence 😏

[@JorbLovesGear]

Must have been! Lol

[@Maxi3242]

did you use a noise gate here? my blues driver is bascally unusable for high gain or high level settings... it has such a high noise floor :(

[@portcorner_noise]

I really love your content mate, well done! One question for you... I am getting some pedals from a friend who's selling a load and want to insert them in my signal flow. I have a minilogue xd, an audio interface and Ableton... I produce ambient music, no guitars, no vocals... if I want to use the pedals as inserts and be able to effect my master bus do I need a reamp box like the Radial extc? many thanks!

[@JorbLovesGear]

You don't *need* a reamp box, but it will make for a cleaner / less jank set up. I hardly know anything about working with a daw though, depending on your hardware you've got options

[@portcorner_noise]

@@JorbLovesGear what do you mean the ramp will make for a cleaner/less jank setup?

[@JorbLovesGear]

@@portcorner_noise just aux send out, into a pedal then pedal out into the interface, level matching could be a pain, getting noise or hum where you don't want it is possible... A lot of it depends on your specific gear

[@portcorner_noise]

@@JorbLovesGear sure, understood! thanks a lot.

[@ciatangallaghe2485]

That oscillocope is dead handy.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Changed my shit honestly

[@luserdroog]

I've heard it said that overdrive is just a form of compression. So you could consider a compressor to be an even-lighter overdrive.

[@TaranGray]

what's that oscilloscope meter you have? it's awesome

[@shermanchow4264]

Good stuff. I don't think there are many videos that show the combination of the bd-2 and synths. I may have to pick one or two up. Speaking of which, when using drive pedals do you find it unnecessary to go stereo? Or do you have one channel going into one drive pedal and another channel going into a different drive pedal? Just asking because stereo drives are few on the market.

[@JorbLovesGear]

No joke, I've considered modding two blues drivers into one box to use as a stereo pedal. I actually had written in the outline to bring up the EHX operation overlord, as a stereo drive pedal but didnt really rely on the outline much for this one. Because you're right, there aren't many. Eventually I plan on doing an advanced signal routing episode, with dry blends, effects sends, and other things to get around combining signals like that

[@shermanchow4264]

@@JorbLovesGear I haven't experimented enough, but at some high level of drive my ears can't hear much distinction with stereo modulation added to the signal. I may have to try a wet/dry rig, but maybe that's thinking too much like a guitarist?

[@christiananderson7710]

Hey there, would you suggest an Empress Reverb or a Strymon Big Sky for use with Nord Lead 2x and Moog Grandmother? I don't plan on using the pedal for guitar. And I really don't like Spring reverb either. I also thought about a Mercury 7. But I really need guidance.

[@christiananderson7710]

Or even an Eventide Space, lol

[@JorbLovesGear]

either would be excellent, but empress is a lot simpler to use, if you ask me. I have a full video on it.

[@AT-eh2eo]

Spitty was a very good word

[@JorbLovesGear]

🙏🙏Only good descriptors around here, what can I say

[@davidgoode7416]

Awesome!

[@semyonboyk0]

What a beautiful synth nerd

[@JorbLovesGear]

Bruh 😅🙏

[@mchamerhead]

super

[@JosephElsherbini]

Did you catch Crumb's KEXP performance? I feel like their gear sensibilities and yours are very similar.

[@JorbLovesGear]

I haven't but its on the list now!

[@lamapotato]

I'd love a video on drum distortion with pedals 🙏🙏🙏

[@JorbLovesGear]

a drum machine special is in the backlog for the pedal guide!

[@lamapotato]

@@JorbLovesGear I've looked all over KZbin and it's hard to find good videos on it. Elektron's analog heat sounds promising to me because it doesn't ruin the low end.

[@Anamnesia]

You mentioned *_Soft Clipping_* & attempted to give a demonstration of what it is, but maybe it's just me, but that's not my understanding. Perhaps I heard "soft clipping" & you were demonstrating something else??? My understanding of Soft Clipping is; As the Input Gain approaches the maximum input value, instead of allowing the waveform to produce a Square Wave (or at least square wave transients), the *_Soft Clipping_* feature _rolls over_ those Square Waves, so they become "Less Sharp" and "More Curved". My understanding is that; 'Soft Clipping' is more akin to a Compressor/Limiter, than it is to do with an Overdrive/Distortion Pedal...

[@JorbLovesGear]

I'm not really following your initial understanding, but let me try and get there. My example around 6 minutes was with a sine wave, as it gets pushed past the headroom of the blues driver, a soft clipping pedal, it changes into something different, less smooth, and more distorted. Were I to do that same thing with a square wave, it would also distort at any levels beyond the headroom, & it wouldn't necessarily be a clean, all right-angles square anymore, it may become asymmetrical, etc but would certainly distort. All that to say, the connection to compressors is a little bit tricky, headroom has some different context. Compressors (generally) aren't designed to distort your signal when you go past the headroom, they just bring your level back down. That may color the sound, depending on the circuit, but the intention isn't to clip. If course, some compressors can be driven to distort, but in talking about broad, how these effects work, it's not quite soft clipping, because the signal isn't quite distorting.

[@Anamnesia]

@@JorbLovesGear Seeing as your video speaks to the process of altering sound, then I shouldn't have attempted to challenge your description on a subject I know very little about. However, in my defence; there appears to be *_two_* definitions for the term, "Soft Clipping" - there's yours as it relates to signal modifiers (to add harmonics) & there's a second which relates to protection circuits in Amplifiers. It's this second example which I'm more familiar with. If you search KZbin for, "NAD 3130 soft clipping on the scope", it gives an example of the Compressor/Limiter type of "Soft Clipping" which was my understanding of the term (as it relates to Amplifiers). Again, apologies for my misunderstanding.

[@Rollur1234]

Thanks for covering the light on the gunslinger. It hit my eyes bad. I am still recovering. I will get through it though. I am wondering to where you route your pedals. To a mixer or some other preamp? When I route a pedal similar to the one you use in the video into a mixer it generates a feedback at a certain level. Is that level a setting you have to remember combining two elements to avoid feedbacking? Or am I getting feedback because I monitor both the source and the fx return in my mixer? Thanks. Great shows!

[@JorbLovesGear]

Synth > Pedals > Mixer, into one channel. using it on an insert or something could lead to feedback.

[@Rollur1234]

@@JorbLovesGear i am getting a multieffect. Some cheap Korg AX300g. I just love to run sounds through these hardware effects. Even wav samples in the daw. So many variables. I come by some feedbacks as you mentioned but if I mute the monitor in the daw mixer I can get by without feedback there. Also my souncard is a Digitakt so when I mute the sample monitor there I can avoid feedback. I really want a new mixer. Just line mixer. Not much need of preamps with the synthesizer setups.

[@Chris-vr8cd]

you could use this for LFOs too

[@aptudo]

Synths through drive cause bigtime beating/pulsing. It often sounds more like a telephone "dial tone" and less like, say, a driven guitar. Sometimes that's cool, but I'm always a bit disappointed that the effect isn't smoother and less digital sounding.

[@sandwich-breath]

Jorb, what are you using for the oscilloscope image? Thanks in advance!

[@JorbLovesGear]

A hardware oscilloscope! B&K 1530.

[@Yosser70]

What about bass pedals? I’d assume they’d work well with drum machine’s and bass tones.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Absolutely. Often bass specific pedals just have a different eq response or dry blend controls, they're great choices

[@RaquelFoster]

The results would be dramatically different on lower frequencies. Think of what the pedal is doing. If you drive the whole spectrum hard it will eventually just be white noise unless you're carving out a more narrow band for the effect. And white noise kills the bass. That's all about human hearing and the difference between white noise and pink noise. The more noisy a bass synth gets the more it needs that low-pass filter. That's why the filter is the most important part of a bass synth. The more you distort a synth the more resonance you need on the filter to keep it from effectively amplifying the high frequencies. Point being, if you look at the spectrum you'll see that a lot of pedals kill the bass. Tube Screamers kill the bass. A Boss SD-1 is like a dirtier tube screamer, and being dirtier makes it kill even more of the bass. The EarthQuaker Plumes sounds better than most tube screamer clones on synths because they kept it from killing as much bass. But it's not as much fun cuz it's cleaner. A lot of fuzz pedals are really good on bass guitar or on a 303 because they have more legit tone control. Most Big Muffs will give you more of a heavy Cliff Burton bass sound. I mean a Morley will give you the actual Cliff Burton sound LOL. But the reason Cliff Burton's bass sounded so heavy was because he was basically treating his bass guitar like you treat a 303 - driving it really hard then using the Morley as a low-pass filter. I'm just saying that most of these circuits are designed for mid/upper guitar frequencies, and there aren't many people talking about what they do in the lower ranges. Most of them kill the sub-bass no matter how much you try to boost it with the tone control. But then there are pedals like the Boss OS-2 which sound amazing on a bass synth and actually make the bass thicker.

[@triplebeam23]

i have a question soo im in the market for guitar effect pedals to run my software synths through .. ive never been a huge fan of hard overdrive and heavy distortion sounds .. but i love saturation.. i know weird right? but ive been specifically looking at chase bliss audio vinyl warped.. im definitely going to be picking up that unit when im not so poor.. but im wondering have you had any experience with these types of units? and or know of a cheaper alternatives that are just as good.. the thing sounds amazing but $350 .. god thats gonna hurt for something so specific.

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

Drastically different sound if you play cords vs single notes. I have got a few Pedals to use with My sythersizors but I dont have the correct adaptors.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Can be helped with a compressor, keeping the levels more stable, less dynamic.

[@lee_at_sea]

FuzzFaces need a "pickup simulator" transformer to behave properly with high-impedence devices. Drop one before it in a setup like this and it comes alive with 10x the dynamic range.

[@kujumz806]

got an example? id take a link. thanks in advance

[@MrMarcLaflamme]

have you heard the Plasma Drive on a synth yet? Sooo much dirt!

[@JorbLovesGear]

Oh yeah, super sick. And the eurorack module even! So dope./

[@seanporter2829]

random question: what kind of glasses are those? i like em

[@JorbLovesGear]

Eyebuydirect! Model is St Michael

[@JohnnyTakeAll]

What oscilloscope do you use?

[@RegebroRepairs]

That is NOT the shape I expected, as they talk about clipping, and that blues driver is not clipping... it's doing something else.

[@JorbLovesGear]

Soft clipping, indeed

[@joydrive_]

What synth is this?

[@JorbLovesGear]

Nord lead 2! I mention it in the beginning I think

[@stoatystoat174]

🥁🎸🎹🤗

[@asdfjkl227]

How long are you going to ramble before you start the video?

[@JorbLovesGear]

There's chapters, skip ahead

[@percussionboy4357]

I know you didn’t make this video to cause me to buy a Blues Driver, but … well…

[@JorbLovesGear]

Lmao, thats the only reason I did it. I want a stereo BD2, just for synths

[@hdjsos]

Jorb have you ever considered doing OnlyFans?

[@coolguy2783]

OnlySynths when

[@JorbLovesGear]

Who said I wasn't there already? Have you looked?

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

@@JorbLovesGear Long hair fetish is big on there lol.

[@jonathanmcgregor6297]

"baseless guitar man adjectives" 😂

[@JorbLovesGear]

😅😅 not a dig, good folks are out there. Only, there are some wack adjectives floating around guitar-pedal discourse. lol

[@jonathanmcgregor6297]

@@JorbLovesGear Oh it was received in that spirit, don't worry!