Hey, I want to make a list of good OD booster pedals. So,

1.put here pedals that don't color amp sound, they are just boosters

2.put here pedals that color a bit amp sound but not much

By listing this forum I've found TS, DS-1, OD1, Bad monkey to be some of them, bit I want all on one place, as internet is, most of the time, pretty confusing

if you searched, you would find MY thread which pretty much covered all of this.

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I did, but I don't get it which are transparent, and which color your amp's sound

The Maxon OD, Ibanez TS9, and Bad Monkey and pretty much all "overdrive" pedals are fairly transparent, some more than others(these 3 I mentioned are 3 of the most, I'd grab the Bad Monkey.).

The Boss DS-1 is a distortion pedal, not an overdrive. So it's gonna change your amp's sound quite a bit in a very different way.

Another super-transparent alternative:
Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster. All it does is boost your pickup's sensetivity, very clean and noiseless. I might get this or the BM myself.

Not sure where the Marshall Guv'nor falls into, but I hear it's pretty good. Bill Steer used it with his 5150 apparently.

Btw what amp would you be using it with?

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tube screamer type pedals and clean boosters are going to be what you want...

i have a maxon od808... with the tone down most of the way it is very transparent, but some people like the tone up for a midrange boost for leads and stuff. with the gain down and the balance all the way up it makes a good clean boost to kick the preamp a little harder, but if you want to actually add a significant amount of gain, of course turn the gain up. i use it as if to make a 3rd channel, so i dime the gain and balance, keeping the tone down to about 10 o clock, makes a good crunch channel over my vht's clean channel.

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Yeah OD's are extremely useful for getting more versatility out of any amp. I think I'm gettin myself a Monkey.

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I love my Keeley SD-2, great for doing exactly what was mentioned. Im also thinkin about picking up a Jeckyll & Hyde. The overdrive side sounds like a good old tubescreamer (uses the same guts) and the distortion side is pretty brutal. Wouldnt hurt to add a 5th and 6th channel to my Powerball.

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if you want a completely dry boost, you could get an MXR Microamp, or the MXR boost/linedriver. Theyre both just clean boosts. The MXR is variable gain from 0 to +30 dB, one knob, one button, makes a clean amp loud, and drives a preamp section hard. And the boost/linedriver has 6 preset dB boosts, which is ment to either increase current through pedals as a tone buffer, or just to punch your preamp in the face to get it goin.

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Thank you very much for the replies Soeru, xdislexicx, Valtiel and the_bleeding, no confusion here now
I would using it with JCM 800 and JCM 900( I don't have them, but we're renting it for gigs from one guy, they are in very, very good condition, so I figure 'why not to play on tube head when I can?', also planning to buy some tube head myself, so that booster won't go unused just after gigs, ). I could use it with my Valvestate, but not sure how much boost it would add.

I can vouch for the Bad Monkey as being completely transparent. I just run it through the Dirty channel on my JCM900 with the Level all the way up ( Gain knob has no effect on the dirty channel) and it adds another gain stage behind the current sound, makes it thicker and crunchier. Plus it has God-like amounts of Sustain. The Maxon OD808/ Ibanez TS9 etc all work similarly but will have a tendancy to thin out the sound a bit as they cut Bass and spike the Mids. Bad Monkey doesn't and it actually has a very effective set of EQ controls. I've heard people use the DS-1 in a similar way (level up, gain down) but AFAIK it isn't that transparent. I'd be very interested to see whether the MXR is any better at doing this, considering its a fair bit more expensive than the Digitech.

Dude, a J&H on a PB? You must be nuts! You wouldn't/shouldn't need to use the 2nd half of what that pedal has with a PB.

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Of course you are right, but its not about adding more gain, its about layering different colors of distortion. I wouldnt use it on any of the lead channels.

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Wouldn't that just make the channel really muddy though?

I don't know man, you bought a Powerball for it's killer lead channels, why would you want a pedal in a clean channel to get another lead channel? Just defeats the whole purpose of spending 1800 bucks on a kickass amps. The J&H is something I'd only use on a tube amp that didn't have quite the distortion I liked.

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Ignore what I said, didn't read it properly

Its more for using in front of the crunch channel. The crunch on this amp is great, but one of my favorite tones is putting the SD-2 in front of the crunch channel. It gives a great defined medium-hi gain sound that has a lot of chunk without any mush. Plus, I get most of my gear at cost.

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