ARE YOU READY FOR THE
BIGGEST, THICKEST,
MEANEST, YET STILLARTICULATE DISTORTION
TONE YOU’VE EVER CREATED?
THEN KEEP READING.
The secret to reaching this tonal nirvana lies in
the world of “clean-blend” overdrives. Your first
question might be, “What is a “clean-blend”
overdrive?” Simply stated, it’s an overdrive
pedal that offers the ability to blend your clean
signal from your guitar with the distorted tone
of the pedal. If you’re new to this concept, your
next question is probably “Why, after distorting
my tone, would I want to add a clean tone back
in?” The reasons for this are at least two-fold.
First, by blending the clean sound of your
guitar back into the mix, you can bring back the
detail of your pick attack and some lower
frequencies that can be diminished when your
guitar signal is clipped.
10
TONE TALK //
The second (and my personal favorite)
reason for blending a clean signal in with
your dirty signal is that you can
approximate the fullness and harmonic
complexity of using a multi-amp rig. If
you’ve had the pleasure of doubling your
guitar parts in the studio (preferably with
different guitars or amps) you’ve heard
“the magically huge guitar tone that
results from such a process.
For many years, my main dirty rhythm tone
came from a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive. It
might not have been the first overdrive
pedal to offer the clean blend functionality,
but it was the first I ever found. And
because the Sparkle Drive is based on the
Ibanez Tube Screamer circuit, it makes a
great jumping-off point for understanding
the benefits of the clean-blend overdrive.
Most guitarists have used a Tube Screamer;
you well know that it cuts out low
Clean Blend Overdrives: The Unlikely Path to Tonal Nirvana