I’ve had some good fun running the mix output of some Digitakt drums through a Moog MF Drive. Crunches up nicely, the filter is obviously very playable with trebly hi hats and snares and such and you get a one knob EQ to balance things out a little. CVing the filter cutoff is also obviously some nice rabbithole to get lost in if you’re into that.
Bitcrushers can also give you some real dirty crunch, sometimes even some vocal (?) type of sound if you push it far. I’ve only ever done that in software though to treat samples and loops, but I’m sure there are some cool pedals out there as well.
For me, there is nothing better than waveshaping to add meat and movement to drums. I use the Virus TI2’s various waveshaping algorithms on as much percussive material as possible, but you could get a pedal that does this. Not sure which would be good for this sort of sound mind you.
Not very expansive and awesome I suggest the Special Cranker. It’s good in the not too much department but can easily go well crunchy and keep your bass present.
I’ve done a demo of it here if you want to check:
Didn’t know about this - sounds great - the downwards pitch shifting makes it pretty special.
I have an Empress Multidrive and really like it. fuzz, distortion and overdrive, hi pass and low pass per effect, then a global eq of sorts. Plus a couple of alternative circuits for moar! Setting very low overdrive or distortion, then turning up the global volume it works as a nice characterful preamp for guitar and synths going into soundcard. And of course great as a send fx on a mixer for saturating drums without losing low end. Not the cheapest but way cheaper than a Heat - even if you buy 2 if you really need stereo overdrive / distortion / fuzz saturation.
Totally. A little old character mixer with a pedal on a send. Cheap and flexible. I do this with various combinations of Boss BX/KM mixers and dirt pedals. Gives you the most control over the sound and allows you to keep the low end.
If you look around for a couple of hundred dollars you can still find a Boss SE-70. Mid 90’s era, it is half rack size, can be midi controlled. Analog overdrive/distortion and a full suite of BOSS (roland) fx including a vocoder.
The mid 90’s Prodigy sound from songs like SMBU (among others) is a combination of SE-70 reverb and overdrive…
But not to be overlooked it is a small box with all of the BOSS pedals inside with a combination of digital algo’s and analog fx. Not the best fx in the world but lots of really good fx (still usable today & with that 90’s era sound), good especially for the money and if you like that 90’s sound.
Being older they also don’t depreciate when you buy them. They are over the hump & the price is stable or slowly rising.
Buy it for a good price in good nic, you might not even lose money if you sell it in a few months time or maybe only be down postage.
Just look for one with the terminals in good shape if you do get one and a psu or have checked out your local psu options beforehand. The plug is not common. One of mine came from Japan the other the US.
