Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hi all! I just received an earth drive this week. It's pretty sweet. Nice transparent boost to compressed overdrive. I have been playing around with it in my obel and out. It is pretty touch sensitive and will clean up well with the volume nob, that is when it is outside the obel. I purchased the earth drive with the intent of running it on all the time and to get that early 80's overdriven tone at the twist of my volume nob. I run my guitar between 50-75%. My intent is to set the earth drive so its fairly clean at 50% and have the drive to come in at higher volume settings for solo's.

So enough about me. I am starting this thread for everyone to post about there earth drive. What setting do you use? Do you use it in your obel or out? Opinions....... I think you get the point. I look forward to hearing from you all. Greg...

I got mine this week too. I posted how happy I was under "SMS" thread. I'm keeping mine in the FX loop as of now (I got a blaster so when I flip the switch i get the extra bite). But I totally get that would be the one pedal to keep out of the loop . I keep the volume to match, the drive at about 9/10 o'clock and the tone around 4 o'clock. But like I said it's new to me and I'm still working it out but have never been happier with a pedal (especially one I bought without trying first (I never do stuff like that but the members here had such good things to say.....)) So thank you Brad and to everyone here who put in their 2 cents.

WildEye wrote:I got mine this week too. I posted how happy I was under "SMS" thread. I'm keeping mine in the FX loop as of now (I got a blaster so when I flip the switch i get the extra bite). But I totally get that would be the one pedal to keep out of the loop . I keep the volume to match, the drive at about 9/10 o'clock and the tone around 4 o'clock. But like I said it's new to me and I'm still working it out but have never been happier with a pedal (especially one I bought without trying first (I never do stuff like that but the members here had such good things to say.....)) So thank you Brad and to everyone here who put in their 2 cents.

Hey Michael,

Do you think you could come down sometime so I could try out the Earth Drive? I'd love to try it out with my guitar and rig before I purchase one.

Thanks,
Jim

Dying to try one out, but low on funds, and will be thru the xmas season.

But I'd probably use it for overdriven leads- I feel I already get a really nice "defined dirt" type of clean. Impeccably filthy!

Awesome pedal. I've found that you're able to adjust the Drive to pretty much anywhere on the dial without necessarily having to adjust the Tone control. A lot of dirt pedals seem to require adjusting the Tone as soon as you change the Drive or Gain. It would be great if you could increase/decrease Drive on the fly...I've asked Brad about the possibility of controlling the Drive via an expression pedal, but I guess it can't be done.

Somebody do a Vid w/ a Jerry Rig ....

jackevorkian wrote:Awesome pedal. I've found that you're able to adjust the Drive to pretty much anywhere on the dial without necessarily having to adjust the Tone control. A lot of dirt pedals seem to require adjusting the Tone as soon as you change the Drive or Gain. It would be great if you could increase/decrease Drive on the fly...I've asked Brad about the possibility of controlling the Drive via an expression pedal, but I guess it can't be done.

Now if someone could make a drive pedal that was controlled by an expression pedal while keeping the traits that we know and love in pedals like a modded TS808 or an Analogman Prince of Tone or maybe this Earth Drive, I would probably give my left nut for it.

Mosfed wrote:

jackevorkian wrote:Awesome pedal. I've found that you're able to adjust the Drive to pretty much anywhere on the dial without necessarily having to adjust the Tone control. A lot of dirt pedals seem to require adjusting the Tone as soon as you change the Drive or Gain. It would be great if you could increase/decrease Drive on the fly...I've asked Brad about the possibility of controlling the Drive via an expression pedal, but I guess it can't be done.

Now if someone could make a drive pedal that was controlled by an expression pedal while keeping the traits that we know and love in pedals like a modded TS808 or an Analogman Prince of Tone or maybe this Earth Drive, I would probably give my left nut for it.

It definitely can be done with some pedals. The Tone Czar Dove has the capability for using an expression pedal to adjust the drive, but I don't know of any others. Tone Czars are tough pedals to come by, but offering your left nut might grease the wheels.

T.I.P. 3rd Hand will give you what you want.

http://www.heartwoodguitar.com/blog/200 ... -no-hands/

Quarterpounder wrote:T.I.P. 3rd Hand will give you what you want.

http://www.heartwoodguitar.com/blog/200 ... -no-hands/

That's similar to what Brad suggested when I asked him about modding the Earth Drive for an exp pedal. I assumed he was sort of joking...but maybe not. I'd be surprised if the mod isn't actually do-able. I hadn't really given it much more thought, up until now.

Here is a link to make one yourself. Just scroll to the bottom.

http://westone.netboarder.com/t2664-my- ... sion-pedal

In the Earth Drive, the drive pot is simply a 500k audio taper pot. So I don't see why one couldn't or shouldn't try wiring it that way to a TRS plug on a cord going into a passive Ernie Ball 470k volume pedal wired for tip-ring-sleeve.

My personal solution:


http://kickdisk.com




B

Ah Ha!- I was trying to remember the name of the "plastic disk thingy". TRS is a cool idea too. I think with these 3 solutions we have covered super easy up to fully modded. I think the ED is too nice to mod this early in the game.

So after almost a month of playing around with this thing, I've settled on tone 12 o'clock, volume 1-2 o'clock, and the drive 9-10 o'clock. In my rig those setting give you that nice edge of break up sound with a decent amount of hair on it depending on your pick attack. I think I'll spend the next month playing around with the higher drive settings. Once i get a couple of favorite setting I'll post some samples. Does or could anyone post some clips of their favorite settings. Greg...

my wife just ordered one last night for my birthday. very excited... the website says just four weeks away!