I recently bought a LPD Pedals Dutch ’24 Overdrive pedal.
What do I think of it? Read on for my First Impressions.
Table of Contents
- What Did You Buy?
- Why Did You Buy It?
- Doesn’t It Look Great?
- My Rig Today
- Settled On Using It With A Strat
- What Problem Am I Trying To Solve?
- Using A Klon For A Better Clean Tone Recording
- Using The Dutch ’24 For Clean Strat Tones
- Final Thoughts
What Did You Buy?
I bought a Dutch ’24 overdrive pedal. It is designed and made by LPD Pedals out in Arizona, USA.
I bought mine direct from LPD Pedals, and imported it into the UK. (See my blog post on the LPD Pedals Fifty5 for details of how much it cost to import both pedals together.)
The Dutch ’24 is the latest version of the ‘Dutch’ line of pedals by LPD Pedals. It’s a blues rock pedal, perhaps competing with the likes of the Timmy, Pantheon, Bluesbreaker et al … without being a clone of any of those pedals.
The previous version of this pedal – the Dutch – was a dual-overdrive pedal. This iteration condenses that down into a single pedal, and adds a “hi/low” switch to kick in a boost for when we want to switch from rhythm to lead.
Why Did You Buy It?
I saw a demo for it on YouTube late one night, and liked what I heard.
I’m a huge fan of the legendary Wampler Pantheon and Marshall Bluesbreaker pedals. I’m really hoping that this will complement those nicely, giving me another option for recording with. [Spoiler alert – this blog post ends up going in a completely different direction – Ed]
Plus, this actually is a boutique pedal in the original sense of the term. I’m happy that I can directly support a boutique pedal firm. (Most of the boutique pedals I’ve tried over the years have been second-hand.)
Doesn’t It Look Great?
Before I get into how the pedal sounds, I just want to take a moment to appreciate how nice it looks. I think it’s one of the most tasteful-looking pedals I’ve ever owned.
My vision is quite colour-sensitive. Handy for editing photos; terrible for buying most products. (The colour choices that most firms make are downright criminal I tell you. Criminal! 😜)
I really love the shade of blue that LPD Pedals chose for the Dutch ’24. In strong light, the silvery reflection off the knobs and foot switches looks so beautiful against this colour too.
I also appreciate how the pedal doesn’t look like someone covered it in a thick dollop of paint. The thinner coat gives it this pearlescent metallic aesthetic, almost a brushed-metal look. It’s got a great, modern look to it.
Yeah, it’s a very pretty pedal. Of course, none of this matters if I don’t like how the pedal sounds in my rig …
My Rig Today
Today, I’m playing:
- my PRS Silver Sky
- into my Axe-FX 3 (mostly for the tuner)
- out to my pedalboard
- back into the Axe-FX 3 (for amp, cab, delay and reverb)
- out to my audio interface
- and into my DAW.
On the pedalboard, I have the LPD Pedals Dutch ’24 and Ceriatone Centura (Klon klone that sounds identical to my real Klon KTR) in separate loops of my trusty Gigrig G2. Any pedal that I’m not using is completely out of the signal path, so that it cannot colour the tone in any way.
On the Axe-FX 3, I’m running my 65 Clean pedal platform preset. I’m on Scene 5 (65 4 Most Guitars), with the amp’s Depth control turned all the way off. All the delay and reverb that you’ll hear is from the Axe-FX 3.
Today, I’m doing a lot of post-processing in my DAW. I’m using an API Vision console plugin, an API 2500 compressor, a Studer A800 tape plugin, and a C-Suite C-Vox plugin. I’ll clearly explain which demos I’m using these plugins on, and why.
I have level-matched the demos before publishing.
Settled On Using It With A Strat
Why With A Strat?
Before sitting down to write, I did try the Dutch ’24 as an overdrive pedal with a few different guitars. It was … fine, I guess. I didn’t run into any problems, but to be honest, I didn’t feel blown away either.
I just wasn’t getting an airy tone when I used it that way. It wasn’t dull or muffled, and it didn’t sound like a blanket was over the speakers. It just felt like I’d added a high-cut to the signal somewhere.
(I think the Dutch ’24 is simply showing how mid-focused my guitars really are. As you’ll hear in the audio demos, there’s plenty of top-end when I use the right guitar.)
I ended up grabbing my PRS Silver Sky (it ‘s the brightest guitar I have right now), and that’s when this pedal clicked for me. It’s a very interesting tool for solving my biggest problem with recording Strats …
What Problem Am I Trying To Solve?
I Love Position 4 On A Strat, But It’s Very Challenging To Record
I spent most of the 90s playing position 4 (neck & middle pickups together) on my old Charvel super-Strat.
As pickup positions go, it’s not as powerful as just the neck pickup. It doesn’t soar like the middle position. It doesn’t funk like the middle and bridge positions do. And it certainly doesn’t cut like only a Strat’s bridge pickup can.
There’s a sweetness about it … a delicateness … that I’m drawn to. It suits my character, and it suits the kind of music that I enjoy writing on Strat-like guitars.
Here’s how position 4 sounds on my PRS Silver Sky:
The thing with the Silver Sky – like many modern Strat-type guitars today – is that the neck and middle pickups are wired out of phase. That’s done to cancel out 60-cycle hum.
Unfortunately, it also means that we lose some of the top-end frequencies too. That makes it challenging to record position 4 on a Strat, especially if (like me) you want to make it the featured instrument in a very sparse mix.
Why is it challenging? When I try to get those top-end frequencies back, my efforts bring new problems.
Let me demonstrate …
Boosting The Top End In Post Adds Audible Noise
I’ve taken the audio from the last demo, and added a plugin my DAW (the API Vision console plugin) to apply a 4 dB boost at 5 kHz. Here’s how that sounds.
To my ears, that’s brought out a lovely crispness to each note. I wish it sounded like that without needing this boost.
Unfortunately, this boost has also made the background noise more audible. If you jump to about 30 seconds on that demo, you should be able to hear some unwelcome hiss as the final note decays away.
I’d like to get rid of it.
Using More Plugins To Fix The Noise … Caused By The First Plugin
One solution is to go and buy more plugins, and use those to fix the noise added by the first plugin. (Leave a comment below if you’ve done this in the past!)
For example, I can throw on a low-pass filter plus an expander plus a tape plugin to try and cut, silence and saturate all the upper frequencies where the noise can be clearly heard:
- First, the 4 dB boost at 5 kHz is applied, to add the missing crispness.
- Then, the low-pass filter adds a 12 dB per octave cut to everything above 6 kHz or so.
- Then, the expander speeds up note decay, leaving less time for noise in the original recording to be heard.
- Finally, the tape plugin smooths out the frequencies, so that any remaining noise is less defined.
When I do that, I get this:
To my ears, it’s cleaned up the noise quite a bit … but it’s also undone some of the benefit of that 4 dB boost too.
I can try to fix that by (you guessed it!) yet another plugin.
C-Vox is a specialist noise reduction plugin. It’s got to be used cautiously; I find that it can be quite destructive to the sound at higher settings. I think of it as that the tool for that last 10% or so of noise reduction; I don’t rely on it for 100% of the noise reduction.
I can take the previous plugins and their settings, turn up the low-pass filter up to around 7.5 kHz (to let more of those airy frequencies that I lost through), and then use C-Vox on 15% to clean up the noise that’s getting through.
To my ears, that’s brought the crispness back in the top-end (compared to the previous demo). There’s still some background hiss there, though.
With the self-taught hobbyist skills that I have, I’m not able to use these tools to achieve the low-noise recording that I want. I’m clearly doing something wrong …
These Plugins Are Hiding Problems, Not Solving Them
I think this is a good rule of thumb to work with: plugins don’t solve problems, they only hide problems.
So, to answer the question I posed at the start, what are the problems?
- There’s a lot of audible noise on my recording because my original recording is far too quiet. (In other words, it has a really bad signal-to-noise ratio.) The volume is averaging at around -27 dB, when it should be averaging between -12 dB and -18 dB.
- And I’m increasing the audible noise with that 4 dB boost at 4 kHz because my original tone simply isn’t bright enough.
The plugins can’t solve these problems because these problems have already happened. I need to fix them at the source. I need to fix the problems with the signal that I’m recording.
Using A Klon For A Better Clean Tone Recording
Klon To The Rescue?
Whenever I want to improve my tone, I turn to my trusty Klon KTR first.
I originally fell in love with it not as a boost for my overdrive pedals, but as a tone-enhancer for clean Strat tones. There’s three reasons why:
- the Klon’s buffer adds a nice bit of clarity to the top-end of the signal,
- the Klon’s mid-range boost helps lift the guitar tone forward in a mix, and
- the Klon has an active Treble control, which can be used to dial in the exact amount of top-end required.
I’ve got my Ceriatone Centura on the pedalboard right now; it’ll do the same job as my Klon KTR. I’m using it as a clean boost, to make sure that my recorded signal is a lot stronger than before.
Here’s how that sounds:
Focusing just on the background noise, this recording sounds much cleaner to me. Recording at a more appropriate signal level seems to have helped!
Because this recording has a much better signal-to-noise ratio, I can now get away with adding some compression in post to even out the dynamics a bit. Compressors raise the noise floor, making background noise easier to hear, so I’ve also added the C-Vox plugin too to compensate for that.
Here’s how that sounds:
I reckon that using the Centura here has solved the original problem. My recording has a much better signal-to-noise ratio, and no longer needs that 4 dB boost at 5 kHz.
But there’s always a cost …
The Klon Isn’t Transparent On Truly Clean Tones
With the Centura, my guitar tone has changed quite a bit compared to my original recording:
On a clean tone, the Klon’s mid-boost changes the overall character and feel of the tone. Some people like it, and some people really don’t.
And that’s where the Dutch ’24 comes in …
Using The Dutch ’24 For Clean Strat Tones
What I’m Trying To Do Here
I’m interested in using the Dutch ’24 to solve two problems:
- If I swap it in for my Centura, will I get closer to my original (pedal-free but too-quiet) clean Strat tone?
- If I add in a little bit of overdrive, can I even out the dynamics enough to avoid needing a separate compressor?
Using A Drive Pedal To Avoid A Separate Compressor
Overdrive is a form of audio compression. The signal distorts because it’s too loud for the overdrive stage. Parts of the waveform get cut off, which reduces the overall dynamic range of the signal.
Now, granted, the kind of low-gain overdrives that I favour don’t compress anywhere near as much as a dedicated compressor effect, but they do add some compression.
That’s fine for me. I don’t need much compression. I just need the pedal to overdrive a little harder when I accidentally dig in too much.
I’m still on position 4 of my Silver Sky. I’ve swapped out the Centura for the Dutch ’24. The pedal’s Treble is around 2 o’clock, and the Bass has been turned down towards 10 o’clock. The Gain is around 11 o’clock, and I’ve adjusted the Volume so that my recording is averaging close to -18 dB.
At first, I didn’t think that the Dutch ’24 sounded all that different from the Centura. The differences are much easier to hear if I crank the gain on the Centura:
To my ears, there’s a lot less mid-push from the Dutch ’24. I think it sounds a lot closer to the tonal balance of a totally-clean Strat than the cranked Centura does.
The Dutch ’24 provides another option, and I love having options.
(Just for completeness, here’s the same Dutch ’24 demo with the C-Vox plugin applied to clean up the background noise.)
If you like what you’ve heard so far, but wish the mid-range still had that characteristic Strat scooped tone, you’re in luck.
The Dutch ’24 has one last trick up its sleeve.
The Hi-Gain Boost Is Fantastic For Clean Strat Tones
There’s a second foot switch on the front of the Dutch ’24. Stomp on it, and the Dutch ’24 switches into its ‘Hi-Gain’ mode. Without touching any of the knobs, suddenly the Dutch ’24 is a cutting, fire-breathing dragon (appropriate, as I’m writing this from the land of the dragon 🏴).
And I think that this Hi-Gain mode is perfect for clean-ish Strat tones.
Wait … what?
The key here isn’t all the extra gain that’s suddenly on top. When I switch into Hi-Gain mode, it also triggers an EQ shift in the Dutch ’24. To my ears, this adds some extra energy to the upper-mids, which gives the impression of reducing the mid-hump that I hear in the regular Lo-Gain mode. The top-end also seems to get a boost too, adding cut to every note.
Here’s the same Silver Sky, still in position 4 (neck and middle pickups). I’m now running the Dutch ’24 in Hi-Gain mode. I’ve turned the Gain control down below 9 o’clock to compensate. Treble and Bass have been left the same, at 2 o’clock and 10 o’clock respectively.
Compared to the Dutch ’24’s regular Lo-Gain mode, the EQ shift is subtle. (I suspect it would be more pronounced if I turned the Gain up.) I’m sure it’s there, though. I think that the mid-range sounds a little more open, a little less congested than it did in the Lo-Gain demo.
I think it’s easier to hear when I listen to the Dutch ’24 back-to-back with the overdriven Centura demo:
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
The Hi-Gain Mode Does Add A Little More Noise Though
The extra bite in the Hi-Gain mode’s top-end does come at a cost for me: it’s also amplifying existing audible noise a little bit.
Thankfully, it’s very easy to tame with the C-Vox plugin again.
If you want to deal with it using tools that (probably) came with your DAW, the low-pass filter / expander / tape saturation technique from earlier can cut out the noise at the cost of a little loss of top-end:
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed where the Dutch ’24 took me today.
As a tool, it inspired me to spend the day looking at how to get position 4 (neck and middle pickups) sounding the way that I want. And that’s what good pieces of gear do: they inspire.
I will come back at some point and take another look at using the Dutch ’24 as a traditional blues-rock overdrive. I’m very keen to hear how it compares to the Pantheon, the Timmy and the Tubescreamer.
But if I only ever end up using it as a tone-shaping tool for position 4 on Strat-like guitars, I’ll still be happy to have bought it.
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