Hello dear friends… I was researching about low gain overdrive pedals recently… Three brands caught my attention and it is difficult to make a desicion because none of these are available where i live which means i can not try it at the music shop.
The brands are Greer light speed overdrive, jhs morning glory and carl martin lo gain overdrive. I can’t decide between greer lightspeed and morning glory these days leaving carl martin last on the list. Do you have any experince with these pedals and what are your thoughts. It is kind of a big desicion for me so i want to make the most out of it.
I play a fender fat strat deluxe through a mesa boogie ta-30 combo. (mostly rock)
Your thougts and recommendations are appreciated… Thanks in advancestrong text
You can’t really go wrong with either one. Both are pretty much legendary pedals.
As another idea - Josh Scott of JHS recommended the Source Audio LA Lady a while back. One pedal - TONS of quality sounds. That way you can audition a bunch of tones, maybe end up totally happy - or at minimum get a better idea of what you want.
The concern with your situation is the LIghtspeed and the Morning Glory is that it’s one sound. You either like it or you don’t. Something like the LA Lady gives you options to explore.
Just a thought.
I have both the Lightspeed and the Morning Glory on my board. Both are great drives. I have a red remote hooked up to my MG so it can go into “medium gain” territory. The Greer Lightspeed is very responsive to your guitar’s volume and your pick attack; probably more so than any other pedal I’ve played. I also use some hybrid/pick + fingerstyle technique in some of the songs I play and the Lightspeed is great for that.
IMHO you can’t go wrong with the Morning Glory for always-on low-gain sparkle.
Hello . yes from the videos i saw on the web (which is not a good source of reference of course) morning glory seems be a bit brighter than the lightspeed… ta-30 has a top boost mode which i really like so when playing through my amp it is not that big of a deal but when playing in a different setting that would be sweet of course. Welcome to the community by the way…
Thank you …It is good to know this …Lightspeed sounded a bit more scooped to my ears than morning glory. My only concern about lightspeed is about its build quality. Are you happy with that?
Source audio sounds great too …i hadn’t heard of it before. Just it has too many options. I already have a friedman be od for higher gain territory so maybe something that can do the lo- gain stuff very well is what i am actually looking for.
Build quality at Greer is awesome. I also have their Southland Drive which is a slightly higher gain Lightspeed. Both are solid. I wouldn’t say the Lightspeed is scooped per se, but it’s quite “transparent” (I know, I know) and the controls on the pedal are really interactive and pretty useful through the whole range, which isn’t always the case with pedals.
I sold the first MG I had because I wasn’t using it as much and I have too many pedals…but I quickly missed having the Morning Glory option and I repurchased one.
Sounds good. Was an idea that assumed you hadn’t used one.
Either way you go……you can’t screw this up. They’re both excellent and having one doesn’t mean you won’t want the other when you’re ready.
Y’know, I went through a real pedal deep dive for, like the last 4-5 years and I bought and played a lot of different drive pedals. I kept coming back to… Boss.
Since I like variety, the boss OD-200 is my favourite. Covers a lot of ground, built like a tank and sounds awesome.
For a “separate” low gain OD pedal, the Boss Super Overdrive sounds great, unique tonal characteristics and doesn’t cost too much. Boss DS1 turned down (yes, a novel concept I know!) sounds great also! Or a Blues Driver! Heck, one of my pals who is a blues nut uses a metal one turned way down gainwise and it’s pretty awesome…Yes, I am a Boss fanboy… lol good luck on your quest!
I really like JHS stuff as well, Morning Glory is cool but my favourite is the Preamp OD 250 pedal… sounds lethal when combined with SD YJM Fury pickups!
I don’t have experience with the pedals you’re asking about, but I’ve gone through quite a few over the years. The three that really stand out to me are:
- BJFE HoneyBee
- Bob Burt Gr8 Distortion
- BB Preamp
But…something happened recently. I needed to replace the head I’ve been using for years (Quilter Aviator Gold) and I ended up ordering a Victory V30. I was pleasantly surprised when the distortion channel and clean channel with ‘crunch’ enabled cover my needs very nicely. I can’t believe it. In the past I’ve had to use 2 - 3 dirt pedals to get a sound I like, now I just use the amp. So stoked. I didn’t even consider the gain channel of the amp when researching it, I figured it just wouldn’t work for me, amp distortion generally doesn’t.
Anyway, if you want to hear the Gr8, here’s Allen Hinds on it. I have no idea what the circuit is modeled after, but it seems to be its own thing:
I don’t remember where I read he was using it in this clip.
HoneyBee:
I can confirm that the BB Preamp is an insanely good pedal. It’s really quite versatile. It’s not as “nasally” as a Tubescreamer and has more volume on tap. It sounds great at low gain and with the gain maxed out. The one on my board is mostly used for dirty chord work (think Black Keys or The Raconteurs). I also have an Xotic AC+ Plus pedal that does a damned fine version of the EJ violin tone with both sides engaged and running it AFTER my Catalinbread Belle Epoch. Sadly my playing is nowhere near as good as EJ’s, but I’m closer than I was a year ago.
How handy are you with a soldering iron?