dba interstellar overdriver

I've got my death by audio Interstellar Overdriver like a week ago and in very short time, it grew to my favourite distortion pedal.
As you can see, i have the version with mastervolume, got it from ebay.

So, as i got it, i quickly set up all my gear, adjusted the volume on it (this pedal can be terribly loud!) and began to play. In short time, i got all my favourite BigMuff tones out of it (the ones i never got out of my black Sovtek BigMuff) and a lot of very, very usable overdrive sounds.

Just imagine, this pedal's got no EQ, just a mastervolume and a gain control. But it let's you get sounds from At the drive-in to My Bloody Valentine or Lou Reed or The Weakerthans. I love it. Finally something that's not compromising.

dba founder Oliver Ackerman is vocalist/guitarist of A place to bury strangers. Also, some of them (or was it just Oliver again?) were members of Skywave. This may be the reason why you can get such a great Shoegaze sound out of it.

Here's my advice to you: at least try one! It's great.

tom waits - shore leave

gold fuzz, day 13

Today is the 13th day of my fight against storms and walls.

Yesterday was the first time that i've played my current effect setup in all it's beauty.
Guitar -> Gold Fuzz, Boss PH-3, DBA Interstellar Overdriver -> Amp (fx loop) -> Line6 DL4. It's crazy, and the most unusable part of it surely is the GF. It's raw, loud, wild and crazy. I've found a setting that's quite good for chords and outbreaks, but all the leads sound like Santana. Nay, that's not really what i want, but it's a compromise. And: i wrote it down!

Why so late?
I've got a lot to do for school now, but one more weeks and there'll be a little pause between the first and the second run of tests.

Does anybody read this?

bonnie 'prince' billy - lay and love

gold fuzz, day 5

The thing with the video may take a while. It's just that we've got a new camera with a quite good microphone and quite a high number of megapixels. The videos are only 320x240, but 4 minutes take over 70megabytes. Wow.
I don't think i'm able to uplaod any video until a found a solution for that problem.

Until today, i didn't write down any setting that i've found. After a little tweaking and playing and tweaking just a few minutes ago, i'll start writting down. I've lost the setting i've used for a song before and - i can't find it anymore. (Rhyme the rhyme well :)
That's the problem with pedals with so many knobs: you'll find yourself tweaking and tweaking, but afterwards you'll notice that you haven't done anything productive. At least that's what i do. I'm not satisfied yet, but, just to be nice to my parents downstairs, i'll let it be.
For today.

rose kemp - violence

gold fuzz, day 3

I now came to the point that it a) oscilates like crazy all the time or b) doesn't sustain long with the setting i used. But i think i'll keep it. It's just too crazy to be useless for me. I can see myself wearing ohropax.

Sebastian of offsetguitars.com told me that my Gold Fuzz from 2005 has a slightly different layout than the newer ones. As mine has controls like this (left-right): Volume - Gate - Stability - Gain - Frequency, his controls are like that: Volume - Gate - Frequency - Stability - Gain.
If there's a difference in sound doesn't really matter to me. I just mentioned it to create a big myth...

Meanwhile i've come close to a sound like you can hear it on Smashing Pumpkins 'Today'. In a few days i'll make a video of a song which uses the GF quite a lot. In fact i composed the song with it.

sonic youth - disconnection notice

gold fuzz, day 1

So, two weeks ago i couldn't control myself and bought a slightly used Orion Gold Fuzz from ebay. For half of the price it costs new (:

And, as i came home from school today, i found a parcel on the desk. "It's here!"
I opened the parcel, put it out and let it lay beside me while i ate. Not because i think it's better than my dog, just because i was hungry as hell and left it where i was.
Then - up into Batcave! Let's try it out!

Robin (my guitar) & me were quite nervous. A fuzz factory. Whoa!
Have you seen that video of Matt Bellamy using it? That's what i want it to do. And i want it to sound better than my black Sovtek BigMuff Pi.
So i plugged everything in, expecting it would sound good in the setting the former user left for me.

It sounded like...nothing i've ever heard before. Not bad, but completely unusable. It oscillated like crazy, leaving me thinking about my poor parents and the dogs downstairs. It was not funny.
But maybe half an hour later, it began to work. I've learned how to use the gate knob, the sustain was very short and every note ended like i suddenly turned off my amp.
At least, "Can't stop" was playable with it. Funky!

In the evening, i played around with it a bit more and found out that i don't need another effect pedal for crazy noises. It's all in there. I sounded huge, like heavy metal A place to bury strangers. There was white noise all over. It wasn't as transparent sounding as my former attempts on My Bloody Valentine-ish song writing, but somehow close.
I laughed quite a lot that evening. It was great. It was huge, brutal, atmospheric and crazy.
But i'm still not sure how i should use it in 'softer' songs. I wanted one fuzz for all.

I know a place where i can get some example-settings. I'll try a few tomorrow.

lou reed - legendary hearts

factorial

Ladies & Gentleman,
Hello. This is it. My place for imagination. In imagination? I don't know.
It will be all about music and instruments as i'm a guitarist.
The first thing i'd like to start with is a kind-of-diary of a fuzz factory user, as i've got mine today.

So, let's start...

currently listening to:
lou reed - street hassle