Cornish SS-3 Alternative?

[archtop]

I have played an SS-3 and liked it a lot, but am never going to realistically spend that much on an overdrive. I liked the responsiveness to playing dynamics. In that respect I felt it was like a honey bee, although the honey bee tends to make your amp sound smaller, while the SS3 made the amp sound like a bigger amp. The SS3 seemed to have a round sort of attack to it that I liked. It was also able to sound thick without sounding muddy. It definitely suited my playing style... Kind of noodly and melodic drifting between rhythm and soloing. Any ideas?

 

[shigihara]

I have played an SS-3 and liked it a lot,
but am never going to realistically spend that much on an overdrive.

from my point of view it's worth spending that much on this pedal
considering how much I 'wasted' spending on pedals that weren't
quite there. imho if you really like it save up or sell pedals you don't need...

 

[NeilYoungFan]

from my point of view it's worth spending that much on this pedal
considering how much I 'wasted' spending on pedals that weren't
quite there. imho if you really like it save up or sell pedals you don't need...

This exactly echoes my feeling, too. If you find something that will surely deliver, then raise some coin, maybe sell a few others and get it. In the long run you'll end up saving both time and money. Good luck.

 

[NeilYoungFan]

However, to answer your question there are a few alternatives :

Top tone is a company that has supposedly cloned Cornish stuff so I guess their "light drive" might be in the SS-3 ballpark
http://www.toptone.com.br/?lan=en

Same goes for the Italian company Costalab and their "natural drive"
http://www.costalab.com/en/products/overdrivedistortion

Finally, I believe I've read somewhere that the SS-3 might be a distant cousin of the vintage MXR distortion+ pedal.

Hope that helps a bit.