Pedal guide to the ultimate sludge/doom/grind sound

[Decapitated666]

Hey guys,

So I've found that I've lately have been incredibly involved in trying to create an immensely massive sound for playing sludge/doom/grind. Right now, I have a POD HD Pro, which was much more suiting for the stuff I did more in the past. Yet, I still find a lot of use for my POD since I use a fair amount of effects and I'm very happy with some of the patches I have saved on my POD. But the point is, it's not giving me the brutally sludgy tone I've been looking to get. I'm going after a more Sunn, Orange, Hovercraft type tone. So I'm looking for a way to buy some analog pedals to run through my rig that will help recreate the sludgy sound I'm looking for. Does anyone know of any kind of analog pedals that could replicate say, and Orange amp? I've heard of this new CustomTone Sunn Model T pedal, yet, I haven't heard any reviews about it. Can anyone point me in the direction of something that will suit me well for this? I currently have one pedal that's been helping a fair amount, and it's an original (Yes, from the first production run of them) RAT distortion pedal. The thing sounds massive, but still isn't completely nailing the sound I'm going for.

Hopefully someone on here can give me a clue on what I could get without selling my POD.

 

[celticelk]

From what I've read elsewhere, there is simply no pedal that will adequately replicate the Orange sound. If you're inclined to try anyway, the pedals that overtly attempt to do so include the EQD Monarch and the Tech21 Oxford. I think you'd be better off looking for a good tube amp, frankly.

 

[abandonist]

Doom is all about cheap old tube amps with fuzz pedals.

 

[Sephael]

Look at se of the offerings from black arts tone works and blackout effectors for awesome fuzz pedals.

 

[braaandooon]

That rat is a good start, a russian muff, or one of its many clones stacked with one gets me those types of sounds, I've been using a blackarts lstr into a fulltone ocd for sometime now for my sludgy tones...

I throw in some plate reverb, and analog delay into the mix to do some droning, if its those sunn o))) tones your after, not really my thing but somthing different i guess...

P90's and passive humbuckers seem standard , but i run emg's in my guitars...

A big loud clean amp with lots of headroom is probably the biggest ingredient, but is subjective dependent on your playing space, or your intentions, as just about any tube amp is gonna be loud if most of your playing is at home, which seems to be the case with me as i mainly play and record at home, getting ready to off a 6505+ because its just to much for what i do.... traynor dark horse here i come

... keep your line 6 its a great utility, couldnt imagine life without my line 6 ux2, and i understand where your coming from with the pod farm effects, the fuzz and distortion just isn't quite there, although the time based and modulation effects are useable.

And i actually bought a sunn model t preamp from correct sound that will hopefully be here in a few weeks, getting rid of my big rig, considering i no longer gig, and a 120w head and a 2x12 cab in a 12ft x 18ft room is just way to much for the space, I'll be reviewing the model t preamp through a traynor darkhorse and a mesa 1x12 after i've had some time with it to provide some insight

 

[abandonist]

+1 on Blackout Effectors. I have their Musket fuzz and I sold off my Green Muff, and a slew of other fuzzes because that thing handles them all.

 

[Lifestalker]

If you want a good place to start with sludge, grime, etc... check out Verellen Amplifiers. Sick as fukk for that style.

Verellen Amplifiers — Home

 

[braaandooon]

wish i could afford verellen stuff, they just plain out look cool, even more so when paired with an emporer cab... i see they make pedal preamps for a touch under a grand, would be nice to add one of those to the collection... I really like the tube preamp pedals that run at proper voltages and are true to the schematic the preamp is based on, that soldano gto supercharger was one i've always liked, especially when paired with a proper power section, too bad there hard to find and when you do they cost a lot... not a big fan of the digitally modeled "act" like an amp pedals though.

 

[minorseventh]

alright. Since I have a beard and smoke allot of weed, you can trust me on this. you dont need an Orange or a Sunn or a Matamp, or Verellen, Wizard, Electric, Sound City, Laney Klipp etc etc to play Doom.
But it helps.

naaaw seriously. anything with clean headroom that can take pedals will work, and the bigger the better.
as you know theres many different kinds of doom and sludge, so if you want to cover all your bases, your going to need:

*some light to medium OD- I personally love the Black Arts Black Forest. it goes from a clean boost to warm drive, to borderline fuzz. with all knobs cranked it sounds like like a large tube amp about to meltdown. farty, weird, and thick. (like my women)

* straight up distortion- a rat is perfect. a couple cool pedals I had that excelled at doom tones were the Skreddy Screwdriver and the Dr. Scientist Elements. the key here you want something warm and fuzzy, but not quite fuzz.

* mandatory fuzz- the Black Arts Pharoah and the LSTR were made for this. I preferred the Pharoah because its a little smoother. any muff variant with tons of gain/fuzz will do the trick.

now the bad news: I would be surprised if you could get legit doom out of a Pod. I dont have one, but I do have an RP1000, and Ive tried many times with that. You really need respectable volume and sustain. I suppose you could try a cleanish patch, with just a hint of breakup, and just start adding your pedals from there. you will not find it in a modern high gain patch though.

also, I dont know what guitars you are playing, but 6 strings and 24.75 scale is the secret recipe.

 

[sage]

Ah, the ever popular "How do I get my Djent gear to Doooom?" thread.

Short answer is, as stated above, you don't.

Long answer involves me wondering what else you have going on beyond the Pod. Are you a bedroom only guy playing into headphones, a guy with a FRFR rig, or a dude with a power amp and a cab? Also has me wondering how serious you are about growing an epic beard like mine (see avatar) and joining an actual band. Because doom belongs in a band setting, in a sweaty room, and with far more amplification than the room requires. In which case it's time to start gearing up. You can do this on the cheap. Marshall 4x12 is about $300 and will do the trick just fine. You can grab an old Bassman head for about $400. It gets really sludgy when cranked. Like super ugly. Add a Muff or clone thereof, your vintage Rat, and you're off to the races.

If you're just looking to make doomy sounds with the Pod, use a loud, clean model and get a fuzz to add to your Rat. The fuzz is definitely the missing piece of your pedal sitch, but don't go falling for any snake-oil bullshitter selling you an Orange in a pedal. Ain't gonna happen.

 

[Decapitated666]

Man, thanks for all the advice guys! I'm definitely gonna look into all of this. I can't wait to hear that review on the Model T pedal because that's kinda had me interested when I first heard about it.

But to answer sage's question, the POD is accompanied by a BBE Sonic Maximizer, Korg DTR-1000, Furman Power Conditioner, and Carvin DCM1000. Also, I was never trying to "djent" using this kind of setup. I know the POD is definitely popular amongst the "djent" kids, but I used to play tech death, believe it or not. But now, I have a new band that is really a good mix of grind/doom/sludge. That's the main reason I got this thread going.

I'm trying to sell off my cab pretty soon (Peavy Valveking) because 1.) I'll be off to college next year and need to size down to a 2x12 to have it fit, so is there a preferable 2x12 that's more along the lines of the sludge sound? Marshall? Orange? I was planning on one of the Orange 2x12s.

 

[Decapitated666]

Also, isn't Verellen the type of amp that Mike from Russian Circles uses?

 

[Decapitated666]

Also, what do you guys know about Hovercraft amps? I hear their name thrown in with these high gain/sludge monster amps a lot.

 

[Abaddon9112]

If you like the RAT pedal you currently have, you might want to check out the You Dirty RAT as well. It has a more saturated tone that is somewhere between a RAT and a fuzz at extreme settings.

 

[fitterhappier]

Also, isn't Verellen the type of amp that Mike from Russian Circles uses?

Yessir. He uses a Loucks and a Meatsmoke - however, he runs them clean and then stacks OD/distortion pedals in front of the amp instead of using the drive channels.

 

[fitterhappier]

Also, what do you guys know about Hovercraft amps? I hear their name thrown in with these high gain/sludge monster amps a lot.

I think the Hovercraft amps are pretty cool - they're essentially recycled amps that are reworked and modded to sound like some of the older classic doom amps (Sunn Model T, old Hiwatts/Oranges/Matamps) - I dig how they sound. They'll definitely get you in the doom territory.

For what it's worth - one of the best sludge/doom tones I ever achieved was by running a Big Muff Pi into the front of a clean ENGL Thunder combo. Just fuzzy huge bliss.

 

[braaandooon]

...when i think doom or sludge, old man gloom is the first band that comes to mind, really like those guys, kinda like an all star line up from some of my favorite bands like isis/converge and cave in...

... as far as russian circles, love those guys too, check out there memorial album by the way, its awesome, thats more post rock/metal, if those are the sounds your after all prior rules apply, in addition to a looper for texturing wich would be a necessity, you would also need a few different flavors of overdive and boost, for gain staging, which you already have some of those covered, and that would be a nice start...

...mike from russian circles mainly uses a verellen louks now, but all prior stuff was done on a sunn model t reissue, which is nothing like the original, but if you like that sound the fender evil twin is a reboxed version of the sunn model t reissue per schematic, and can be had for $500-700 used normally

... as far as preamp pedals being "snakeoil" i tend to disagree, i agree that the amt modeler preamps,along with the tech 21 stuff, and blackstar wannabe tube preamps that are basically 12ax7's being utilized as glorified led bulbs are not really up my alley, you can tell these apart by getting ahold a schematic and seeing some these types of pedals only usually draw 500 ma or under, and run at smaller voltages...

... at this time im running a bad cat 2 tone tube preamp pedal as the rythym channel in my 6505+, my so called "metal" amp is now very versitle to me and hasn a clean channel that sounds like a bad cat 2tone amplifier, these pedals are now extremely hard to come by and cost a pretty penny, but I consider it a true tube preamp, because it is the same preamp circuit per schematic, and runs at over 300 volts, and takes atleast 1000ma to power the ....er,like the preamp section of the amp it comes from, basically same shit shoved into a smaller package...

...i would think my bad cat 2 tone, and sunn model t "true" tube preamps would absolutely slay if paired with an old matamp/or electric slave unit running 6550's or kt88's, if i could spring for it one of those verellen meat smoke tube pedals would take this type of set up over the top, if anyone disagrees with that then just go right on ahead and keep loading rocks up in your crack pipe...

...to bad the matamp slave unit isn't in my plans" but i could dream, right?". Instead i'll be useing a traynor darkhorse 15w tube head that has a tonestack bypass switch so i can utilize this as a slave unit, for my preamps, really looking forward to having an amp where i can push the volume and get the power section to break up and still be articulate, my 6505+ turns to mud when cranked past 3 in my playing space...

... getting a little off topic as billy corgan isn't known for doom, but look at his recent rig based on custom made "true" tube preamps, ran into the perfered flavored power amps, this is the direction im heading in, except for the fact ill be utilizing pedals, instead of midi controlled rack gear take a look...

 

[kevdes93]

i have a hovercraft dwarvenaut on its way to me now, ill give a review when it arrives! theres a picture in the hovercraft thread i posted, should still be on the front page

 

[Decapitated666]

Awesome man! Please let me know how it is because I think they look like spectacular amps and I always see them go for great prices. Drop a note in this thread about it when it arrives to you! Happy almost NGD!

 

[marshallH]

Pedal guide: buy a verellen

Seriously, My local shop has a skyhammer for $1300 and im crying thinking about it because its probably gone now.

On a more serious note, a marshall guvnor and a gibson scale guitar and your amps treble turned really low shoud be pretty good, depends on your style of doom.