Yes, I prefer a straight-through plug in; guitar + amp sounds immaculate, your tone sounds more unpretentious this way. If you rely on your guitar's volume knob to tame your overdrive at times, you'd appreciate this honest set up. However, my playing techniques thrive on drive/ distortion overdose- more drive/distortion means lesser picking/ fretting effort, I play faster this way & there's reduced lethargy in the mix. In order to achieve this overkill, I employ my fav pedals as depicted above:- Ibanez TS7: The most uncelebrated Tubescreamer of them all, the least preferred among the purists but certainly my preferred pedal. The TS7 gives that slight but necessary overdrive addition to my fiery Marshall JVM410H; that's what it's coupled with all the time.
- MXR Distortion+ : I love the Distortion + for its very gritty voicing, unlike the very tame BOSS DS-1 (which I also own), the Distortion + ensures a coarse-sounding output for an all-out distortion assault. This pedal is also coupled with my Marshall JVM410 all the time. The Distortion + provides an alternative output voicing compared to my TS7.
- Danelectro Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive: The Cool Cat series are some of the best sounding units out there on a budget. I always employ this pedal with my LINE6 PODs as it sounds more appealing rather than pushing an already driven amp. I feel this is the case because The Transparent OD lacks a midrange control, the inherent scooped tone somehow sounds more attractive with digital units such as the POD.
- T-REX Tonebug Overdrive: The latest in my pedal acquisition, the Tonebug OD sounds 'different' as its voicing sits between an OD & a distortion but it doesn't get as throaty as a blues/crunch type distortion unit (eg: BOSS Blues Driver). It's best played with an amp's crunch channel, nothing too intense. The resultant voicing sounds almost fuzz-like but with more definition for all us dweebs who think the average fuzz unit does little wonder for individual note definition- especially so when we solo.
