Nobels ODR-1 Natural Overdrive
When a fellow Talkbass user recommended I should try the Wampler Belle, my first reaction was scepticism. The Belle is Wampler’s take on the Nobels ODR-1.
I knew that the ODR-1 has been in the guitar world for quite a while now and that it is “The Other Green Pedal” besides the Tube Screamer – but I never looked up if that means it is like a Tube Screamer or if it is largely different.
I simply assumed that when a drive pedal that has been around for decades and is somewhat known in the guitar world but more or less nonexistent in bass circles, there must be a good reason for it.
Nonetheless, I started nerding my way into the ODR-1.
The history in a nutshell: In the early nineties, Bernhard Kurzke, a German engineer, was disgruntled with how popular drive pedals take the middle range of the guitar’s tonal spectrum and mush it together, creating overdrive that will force its way through a mix, but at the same time altering the guitar’s tone. He liked the sound of an amp that is pushed into drive way better, because it sounds and feels more natural – and he set out to make a pedal that does exactly that. His take on the drive puts the clipping stage first, then adding EQ with a knob called Spectrum that never really does ‘flat’, but creates a slight mid scoop with enhanced bass and treble on one end, and limits bass and treble at the other:
Looking at that graph had me at the edge of my seat, I liked a lot what I was seeing there.
Researching how the pedal works with bass yielded a single video with a short demo and another video referring to the ODB-B which is the bass version of the Nobels – a somewhat even obscurer pedal that you can find on reverb, but only for a collector’s price.
However, the newest version of the ODB-1 has a bass cut switch, because they claim that some players with humbuckers in their guitars might get too much bass out of it.
So far, I failed to spot the red flags for bassists (apart from the fact that at some point in time, they must have made a bass specific version that has been discontinued).
I looked around on my go-to platforms for second hand pedals and quickly found an ODR-1 for an acceptable price. Those pedals are not that expensive to begin with, so a used Nobels ODR-1 in pristine condition with all the original packaging comes with a two figure price tag, which is nice.
When I got the ODR-1, I hooked it up to my system and started playing around with it.
The term Natural Overdrive is well chosen. The pedal does give you a wide variety of drive capabilities. You start with a mostly clean signal where single notes will not sound dirty at all, but double stops start blooming with a little fluff around the edges. You can easily take it from there to “real” overdrive, all the way to a mid gain pedal that does a solid wall of sound. The “natural” aspect stays with you for most of the dial. Only in the extreme settings, you get the feeling of playing an artificial overdrive that comes out of a box.
There is no loss of bass. There is not much harshness in the sizzle on top.
It feels like the little midscoop that is shown in the graph tries to even out the frequencies that seem louder when a guitar or bass is distorted and helps out the frequencies that don’t get through the ear canal as easily, creating a tone that feels more even.
In the lighter drive settings, I feel that the low end and top end of my fretboard will prompt the pedal to give me dirt, while the middle bit (A and D string fret 6 to 10) feels different under the fingers when playing – for lack of a better word, I’ll go with saying it feels more potent in a mix, while feeling a bit more thick but less defined when playing solo. Set the gain a notch higher, and you get this area dirty, too.
The gain is very responsive and reacts lively to playing dynamics. There is no sweet spot you’ll have to locate and set with great care, the part on the dial where the magic happens is huge.
The compression that happens along with the drive is something I’ve never encountered in this manner before. I know dirt pedals compress your signal and I know that there is a point where playing harder into the pedal will not yield more volume, but more drive because it’s already clipping the signal so hard, there’s no way to get louder.
Both the Nobels ODR-1 and the Wampler Belle start with the compressing when the signal is still fairly clean and you’d wager you still have headroom left. You can set the amount of dirt with your playing dynamics and hand position, yet your harder notes do not stick out as much as they would on other low gain pedals.
There is that area where the added harmonics from the clipping and the dry bass signal overlap – the highest mids or the low treble or however you might want to call it. To my ears, the Nobels pedal is ultra smooth in that tonal area. It feels like it covers the edges with a thin blanket spun from the finest of silks.
The Spectrum knob on the Nobels is rather easy – I found my favorite setting with the knob dimed 🙂
The one thing I fail to understand is why this pedal is not more popular among bass players. It’s a great drive that is simple to set, gives a range of good tones, is very dynamic and does not steal any low end. It works right out of the box and it is quite cheap.
What’s not to like?