Grateful Dead Music Forum

My favorite Jerry tones are in the early years, when he had that almost clean sort of fuzzy bright overdriven tone and I have been searching for a pedal that can emulate those sounds. I'm considering the Vertex Steel String Clean, The Voodoo labs sparkle drive, Bearfoot Silver Bee, and Wampler Black 65. I am not looking for a Jerry Rig rundown. I know all about the three cranked silverface twins, the t-top pickups in the SG, and the JBL Speakers. I'm looking for something that can get me close enough to feel satisfied when I play something like Easy Wind, Smoke Stack Lightning, Dark Star or St. Stephen. I'm using a strat with three single coils, I eventually plan on replacing the neck and bridge with Humbuckers. My amp is a Music Man HD 150 4x10. Its a great clean amp with a allot of headroom. If you have an information on the pedals I mentioned, or if you know another pedal that fits my description than please let me know.

Earth Drive

I think that is a cool pedal, and I'm sure someone would get allot of great use from it but for me it just doesn't sound like two hundred dollars. I don't understand the hype, I even tried a friend of mines many years ago and I just didn't dig it. It reminds me allot of a Klon which I also don't really care for.

Feathers96 wrote:I think that is a cool pedal, and I'm sure someone would get allot of great use from it but for me it just doesn't sound like two hundred dollars. I don't understand the hype, I even tried a friend of mines many years ago and I just didn't dig it. It reminds me allot of a Klon which I also don't really care for.

Many years ago? It's only been available for about six years. Ya sure you are not thinking of something else?

forum/viewtopic.php?f=309&t=9452&hilit=earth+drive

I guess it was probably four or five years ago lol. sorry for the miscommunication.

I don't have the experience many folks here have but I haven't been able to find a "Jerry in a pedal" anywhere. I haven't even found anything close frankly. I think the cranked McIntosh power amp has a lot to do with the Jerry tone as I hear it (he had them on Europe '72 as well), and it shouldn't be suprising that that cannot be recreated in a $100. pedal I guess. I imagine the Axe FX system does the best job, sounds pretty indistiguishable in the hands of some of the members here. No its not exactly a pedal but apparently they do have a floor model that could replace your pedalboard now. I wish you could throw a $100. pedal in front of a stock Fender and get 95% of Jerry's distinct tone, but I am yet to hear that accomplished. The Live Dead era tone is easier to come by though, aside from St. Stephen and a few other songs its not the tone most people immediately recognize as Garcia though imo. Good luck!

What pedals have you heard that get close to the live/dead sound? That is basically what I'm looking for.

Ii use the Durham Electronics Sex Drive and Zia Drive in combination and each seperately, and I get a great range of natural sounding, transparent distortion with very little compression. Very sparkly sounding. The sex drive is very subtle, the Zia has more potential for higher gain but can be diailed way back. No change in your basic tone or EQ when using them.

The Sex Drive was really interesting but the Zia Drive seemed like an odd choice. I've heard the Zia before, and it always sort of reminded me of ZZ top or something like that. What setting do you use?

For Live/Dead I think you've got the wrong guitar to do that sound, IMHO. I get really close using a p-90 Gibson though an el cheapo MXR Classic OD into a silverface twin. Strat pups just don't have the output or the snarl to pull it off.

I use the Zia at about 10:00 on the gain and then bring the volume knob up to match my clean volume. I set the tone knob around 2:00 because that seems to best match my clean tone. Of course if you're going for the live dead tone, you'd want it to be a bit darker than I like mine. I go for a 73-74 tone mostly. I get my best 71-72 tone when I drive my twin hard and use an attenuator. Maybe I'll record some clips

PurpleTrails wrote:For Live/Dead I think you've got the wrong guitar to do that sound, IMHO. I get really close using a p-90 Gibson though an el cheapo MXR Classic OD into a silverface twin. Strat pups just don't have the output or the snarl to pull it off.

That's one thing the Sex Drive is great for. Just making your pup's drive the amp harder without changing your tone at all.

gratefulredhead wrote:

PurpleTrails wrote:For Live/Dead I think you've got the wrong guitar to do that sound, IMHO. I get really close using a p-90 Gibson though an el cheapo MXR Classic OD into a silverface twin. Strat pups just don't have the output or the snarl to pull it off.

That's one thing the Sex Drive is great for. Just making your pup's drive the amp harder without changing your tone at all.

Maybe it's just me, but I hear the Live/Dead tone as sounding fundamentally different than what you're hearing by '71 or '72. I think it's got more mid-range, isn't quite as refined. I think that's due to both different pickups and a shorter scale length being used when that show was recorded. The p-90/OD/twin rig doesn't work for '71-72 tone, probably not '70 either, but it does work for that '68-69 sound.

Also, I have a FET preamp on my board that provides up to 26 db of clean gain going into the amp. It doesn't change the tone, unless you want to play with the EQ, and it doesn't make a strat sound like what you hear on Live/Dead.

I wanted to thank everyone for the comments, in my search I discovered the boosttron 3 and its seems to have the sound I'm going for. Thanks