#CoffeeAndKlon is my (irregular!) Sunday morning magazine series, where I talk about whatever’s on my mind right now. There’s always coffee, and there’s normally chat about the Klon and its many competitors.
Today, I want to feature MP Audio’s Blue Brit Overdrive pedal, and show how it can be combined with a Klon klone to shape and craft a tone even further.
Table of Contents
- No Coffee Today
- Introducing The MP Audio Blue Brit Overdrive
- A Very Quick Recap
- Using The Blue Brit To Boost The Dutch 24
- Options For Handling Low-End Mud
- Final Thoughts
No Coffee Today
This series started off with me sitting down with a nice cup of coffee while I explored a topic. I used to live-tweet the whole thing, and then publish it afterwards here on the blog so that it never got lost.
That approach worked well back then. But that community has largely fallen away these days: partly due to the pandemic, partly due to Twitter’s current ownership, and partly due to having run its course.
And partly because it’s now taking me days (and sometimes a week or two) to explore a topic enough to turn into a blog post. Which means that I’m mostly working on it on the evenings, a far cry away from its Sunday morning origins.
I’ve got another one that I’m finishing up too, and then after that I’ll get back to working on these with a cup of coffee in hand.
Introducing The MP Audio Blue Brit Overdrive
What Is The MP Audio Blue Brit Overdrive?
The Blue Brit Overdrive by Australian company MP Audio is a boutique overdrive pedal, launched in 2015.
Here’s Shane from In The Blues putting it through its paces back in the day:
And here’s the wonderfully Mad Henning demonstrating it too:
Yes, But What *Is* It?
I’d describe the Blue Brit as a wide-frequency, transparent low-gain overdrive pedal. That’s a lot of buzz words, I know!
- wide-frequency because it doesn’t shelf off any of your guitar’s treble or low-end (which means that it stacks well behind other pedals …);
- transparent because it doesn’t add a significant mid-boost to the signal;
- and low-gain because it mostly adds grit rather than full-blown overdrive
So it’s a bit like a Timmy, yes? Well, yes and no …
Definitely Not A Timmy
The comparison with the Timmy goes beyond just the tonal buzz words that they have in common.
I got my Blue Brit to use as a boost pedal, to stack in front of other overdrive pedals. And that’s exactly what I was already using my Timmy for back then.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly where I got the idea from that the Blue Brit was primarily a boost pedal. This was years before I started the blog (I often rely on my old blog posts to remember details like that). Maybe this came from Shane of InTheBlues, as he was pretty much the only person on YouTube who had one? 🤷♂️
Although I’ve been using them for the same purpose, they actually sound quite different.
To start off with, here’s how my MXR Timmy sounds. I’m on the bridge pickup of The Earl (my PRS Paul’s Guitar), and the bridge pickup is split.
And here’s how the Blue Brit sounds, with everything else the same:
The Blue Brit makes the Timmy sound like a mid-hump monster! That’s quite something, considering how the Timmy is one of the poster-child pedals for “transparent” overdrives.
But also listen closely to the character of the overdrive. As guitars go, The Earl is a bit of a low-end monster, and that excess low-end is causing the Blue Brit to fuzz out a bit. I can’t get the Timmy to do that.
Both of these characteristics – flat (if not scooped) mid-range and the low-end thickness / fuzziness – are going to be key later on.
So, if the Blue Brit isn’t a Timmy, what the heck is it then?
A Bluesbreaker, But Not Like Any Other I’ve Played
I reckon that this is actually a bluesbreaker-style overdrive. But it’s doing a few things that are different to every other bluesbreaker pedal that I’ve ever tried.
As a result, I can’t think of another pedal that sounds like the Blue Brit.
The closest I’ve managed to get is with the Snouse Electronics BlackBox 2 (BB2 for short). Here’s how it sounds, compared to the Blue Brit:
The BB2’s the only bluesbreaker-style overdrive I’ve tried that retains this amount of low-end. All the others shelve off a lot more low-end (because, in general, that low-end causes more problems than it solves).
It’s also the only one that comes close to the Blue Brit’s lack of mid-range hump. Alas, if I turn up the gain in the BB2 to try and match the Blue Brit’s fuzzy grit, that introduces more mid-range into the BB2.
In the Blue Brit, we seem to have a bluesbreaker-style overdrive pedal with:
- more retained low-end than other pedals in the genre;
- less (if any?) mid-range push than other pedals in the genre; and
- a thicker overdrive characteristic, despite being a very low-gain pedal.
I think that these unique characteristics make it very very interesting as a boost pedal, to stack with other overdrives …
… especially if I stack it with not one but two other drive pedals.
A Very Quick Recap
Building Around The Dutch 24
In my last #CoffeeAndKlon, I stacked the JRAD Archer Clean in front of the LPD Pedals’ Dutch 24 to give me two tonal options for The Earl’s middle position:
With this setup, I can play with a lighter touch to get more dynamics out of the Dutch 24 alone; or I can stomp on the Archer Clean and dig in a bit more to add some extra grit while keeping the Dutch 24’s beautiful tone completely intact.
Why Boost Like This?
Why did I use the Archer Clean as a boost? Why not just turn up the drive control on the Dutch 24?
When I turn up the drive control on the Dutch 24, the tone changes. I’m really happy with how I have the Dutch 24 dialled in, and I don’t want to use that tone. So, when I want more drive, I need to get that drive by adding in a second pedal.
There’s another reason too – which I don’t think I mentioned last time.
Practical Constraint – No Knob Fiddling!
Imagine I was gigging with this pedal board. (I’m not – I’m playing at home. Just humour me for a moment.)
I don’t want to be tweaking knobs on the pedals during any sort of gig or live performance, just like I don’t want to be tweaking amp controls either.
- Adjusting the guitar’s controls? That’s fine.
- So is stomping on pedals (or a pedal switcher) to turn pedals on and off.
But tweaking controls on the pedals? No thanks. If I’m playing live, I want to be focused on the performance, and not trying to dial the pedals in for different sounds throughout the set.
One way to get around this is to stack pedals together, and combine them to get the different sounds that I need.
That’s where adding a second boost pedal comes in.
Using The Blue Brit To Boost The Dutch 24
Why Use The Blue Brit Here?
Earlier on, I pointed out that Blue Brit does a few things differently:
- more retained low-end than other pedals in the genre;
- less (if any?) mid-range push than other pedals in the genre; and
- a thicker overdrive characteristic, despite being a very low-gain pedal.
I’m going to use those to my advantage – hopefully!
Adding Girth
On its own, I’ve got the Dutch 24 dialled in to give me this sound:
It’s not a thin sound, but neither is it remotely thick or saturated in the mid-range. Let’s thicken up the Dutch 24 by throwing in the Blue Brit:
To my ears, it still retains all the articulation and clarity that I’m loving the Dutch 24 for. There’s just more mid-range, more grit now that I’ve put the Blue Brit in front of it.
Notice that I said ‘thicken’ and not ‘fatten’. With the Blue Brit’s retained low-end, shouldn’t it have fattened up the tone too?
Got a Fat-Sounding Guitar? Mud Incoming!
For the previous audio demo, I actually switched over to The Earl’s bridge pickup to do the recording. If I’d stayed on the middle pickup position, I would have got this instead:
I’m sure there’s folks out there who have a use for that sound. I don’t.
The Earl is an unusually fat-sounding guitar: the neck pickup puts out a lot of low-end. I believe it’s an important part of what makes this guitar special. But it’s also a pain at times, as we’ve just heard.
As far as I know, there’s no way to dial out low-end mud on the Blue Brit itself. The only way to tackle that mud is to throw other toys at the signal chain.
Options For Handling Low-End Mud
Option 1 – Just Use The Bridge Pickup
By far the easiest solution here is to just switch to the bridge pickup, like I did earlier.
Problem solved.
Option 2 – Stack Two Boosts Together
Another option – and the experiment that inspired me to write this whole blog post – is to stack the Blue Brit with another boost pedal. Together, they can shape the tone and avoid a big mudfest.
As it’s already on my board, I’m going to throw in the JRAD Archer Clean, giving me a signal chain of:
- PRS Paul’s Guitar (middle position: neck humbucker, split bridge),
- into JRAD Archer Clean
- into MP Audio Blue Brit
- into LPD Pedals’ Dutch 24
and into my amp.
It’s important to note that I haven’t touched the controls on the Archer Clean at all. (I’m still keeping to that self-imposed constraint that I’m not allowed to tweak any of the pedals’ knobs.)
Here’s how this signal chain sounds:
While I haven’t completely avoided a mudfest (alas), I do feel that the Archer Clean has brought out a bit more clarity and note definition than I had before. I just need to clean up that low-end.
Oh, before I do, for reference, here’s how this signal chain sounds if I switch to The Earl’s bridge pickup.
I think that demo really shows the tonal shift that the Archer Clean is adding to the signal chain. Another useful option to have!
Option 3: Change The IRs
I like almost everything that I’m hearing from stacking the Archer Clean, Blue Brit and Dutch 24 together. I just want to get rid of the remaining low-end mud.
Because I’m running a hybrid rig (physical pedals into a digital modeller), I can simply change the impulse responses that I’m using too. It’s kinda cheating, but not at the same time (I could use MIDI to switch my pedalboard switcher and the digital modeller IRs together in a live gig setting).
To clean up that low-end mud, all I need to do is change the low-cut on my Cab block from 80 Hz to 120 Hz. That gives me this:
That gives me a very different character to the tone I get by simply switching to the bridge pickup. Or, to put it another way, it gives me options.
There’s probably a good argument that I should just stick to the 120 Hz low-cut across all the guitar tones. It creates much-needed space for the bass and kick drum. So I could make this change permanent, and then it’s not cheating at all 😁
Option 4: Tilt EQ For The Win
But what if I’m not using a hybrid rig? What if I’m playing into a real amp and cab? I don’t have the option of messing about with mic placements and changing the low-cut on the mics mid-performance.
Let’s assume that I’m using a pedal switcher like the Gigrig G2 or Boss ES-5 (so just one stomp to switch on/off however many pedals I need) … and use it to control a fourth pedal: an EQ pedal of some kind.
I’m going to put this pedal between the Dutch 24 and my amp.
By placing it here, I’m letting the Blue Brit see all that low-end from my guitar, which translates into a thicker guitar tone going into the Dutch 24, and hence more mid-range saturation as a whole. And then I’m using this EQ pedal to stop the low-end mud from reaching my amp.
I’m using a virtual Tilt EQ pedal in my Axe-FX 3 for this, but the technique should work just as well if I was using a physical Tilt EQ pedal into a real valve amp. And here’s how it sounds:
Out of all the options I’ve tried, this is the one that I prefer. Cleaning up the mud before it hits the amp gives me more clarity and crunch than I got from adding a low cut to my virtual mics. I feel that I’ve retained more of that original Dutch 24 sound this way.
Here’s where I started from with the Dutch 24:
and here’s with the JRAD Archer added:
and here’s with the Blue Brit added too:
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Final Thoughts
I’m a huge fan of experimenting like this. As children, a lot of our play was also how we learned things. It’s a little sad that we lose this as adults. Expect more play in future instalments in this series!
I cannot begin to get across just how much fun I’ve been having with the LPD Pedals’ Dutch 24 since I bought it. I would never have looked at the Blue Brit like this if I didn’t have something inspiring me to do so.
And, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have realised that the Blue Brit is a great bluesbreaker-style overdrive – one that I need to start using as a primary overdrive rather than just as a boost pedal.