At a High Volume are pedals about the same?

[Theorywolf]

Your vote or opinion here, or your experience. At high volume, I find many OD pedals sound about the same! So, my three different TSs, my past Tonebone, and my present (Love it the best) BB Preamp, at high settings at gig levels, all sound just about the same--any and all of them simply scream and will blow your ears out at high volume. Basically, except at low volume, these pedals are not that much different when playing loud, just punch, crunch, and scream!! Whatcha say?

Mike

[Andy J.]

Hmmm? Definitely NOT my experience at all, and my band sure plays loud... I guess it all comes down to personal preference, if you use different pedals to chase "the" sound you hear in your head, then yeah, I guess a lot of different pedals CAN be dialled to sound kinda same.
As for me, I have a few drive pedals on my board, set for different sounds, and none of them really sound alike.

[MattHahn]

in my opinion many ts style pedals sound similar when the amp is running flat out, maybe its just due to the saturated preamp section...
You may have noticed that some amps, when operated wide open dont accept any kind of big volume boost.
Another thing is that when you stand in front of a very loud amp you may not notice that much change at all just because of your ears.

[michael patrick]

Um, no. That's why I've got a bunch of different pedals on my board...

[Dickie Fredericks]

Sure they all sound the same at high volumes if you max the gain. Not really but they might be close.

Varying degrees of gain is the key for me to have diferent sounds out of them....

[StompBoxBlues]

I'm not trying to be "snarky" here, or sarcastic, but wondered...do you also think that most amps sound about the same when they are really cranked?

I think there may be something to that....maybe compression and speaker distortion, etc. all tend to make it sound MORE similar, but I believe I still hear differences enough to make me want one over another for a certain solo. Still...standing near the amp is going to also make it sound more similar I think than what the audience hears.

I had a weird perception thing the other night playin with my Zim pedal. At first I was getting all kinds of good blues distortion, OD...then at some point I think my ears changes (I had been playing pretty loud too) and it sounded way more metal. I tried different settings on voice and boost and cut, but it all started sounding very metal-llike with scooped sound. In the end I got it back to more "From the Cradle" type distortion, but it was kinda weird and I don't think it was the pedal.

[screamingduck]

Which card(s) do you have in your ZIM. That looks like a pretty
cool pedal. Sorry to derail this thread

[Theorywolf]

That takes me to another question. I've noticed that on one day, my pedals and tone are killer and what I want, the next day, they may sound brittle and like crap!! Then better later in the day! I've wondered is it string wear--as they get worn (which for me is a few days) the tone shifts? But I get the same perception with a guitar (strat) with new strings! Anybody else have this issue? The amp is in the same room where I practice alone. It seems always to sound better with the band!

Mike