The Black Keys Fan Lounge Forum

What's up guys, I've been looking for a good new pedal for a while and figured I would come to you brilliant souls for advice. I'm looking for a solid pedal that can get the 10 am Automatic sound, real dirty, full, chords. My muff can nail the riff during the chorus but it sounds way to fuzzy for the verse. I'm also looking for something that can get the sound on My Mind is Ramblin, as that song probably embodies my favorite guitar tone ever recorded. I've been looking at the Hoof fuzz since I know Dan uses it but I haven't been able to demo or anything, so I'm not sure how versatile it is. I know the amp can really affect tone but I'm pretty set on my AC15 for now and probably won't get another amp for a while. Any thoughts about pedals that would be good for those two tones would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys.

The verse isn't a pedal; it's a modestly overdriven amp. I'm not exactly sure which amp was used for the studio version (I'm sure others on here could answer that one), but with his current live set up he's using a JTM 45. You can get a similar sound with a good overdrive pedal though, I like the tube screamer but others have their own preferences.

Most of the time that's all Dan does; overdrive his amp. He usually kicks on the fuzz for the super distorted single note riffs (like the part you're able to nail in 10am, or the main riff in thickfreakness, for example) but other than that, that's the gist of it.

@ElCalebo - What guitar(s) are you using thru the AC15? I'm wondering if some hotter pickups + overdriving the shit out of your amp might get you closer to where you want to be.

My Mind Is Rambling sounds like his amp is really overdriven with some reverb, guitar on rhythm pickup, and maybe some Tremolo pedal at very beginning (Dan has been using BOSS TR-2 for a long time).

It's definitely a combination of pickups and amp. I use an AC15 aswell, I have a tele with some dimarzio choppers installed, higher output pickups of some sort seem the way to go rather than a pedal. Although your never going to replicate any tone exactly.

@ElCalebo - You can also jack up your pickups so they're closer to the strings to increase output from the pickups.

Another thing to consider is that Dan's live sound on Crystal Ballroom was him using 2 Big Muffs, one at a lower gain setting and the second one set high for leads and solos. He also uses a volume pedal to clean up the fuzz for cleaner passages. His Harmony has single coils that are low output.