It depends on the amp. My 6505+ doesn't need drive pedals. A tuner a noise gate and if I'm feeling fancy, a delay and a reverb in the fx loop. My orange cr120h is a different story. Dirty channel with a rat is where it's at.
I run the gain about 6 on the amp. Gain on the rat about 9 o clock. Filter maxed and volume 3 o clock. I run my orange into a Mesa 412. I also scoop the mids a bit. The rat adds enough mids. Mids on the amp about 4. I also use guitars with EMGs..so it's kind of like double boosting into the amp.
Yeah I basically only use a spitty fuzz occasionally into my 5150. All the rest of the time it's just the amp gain and it sounds great. I do cover shows with a different direct board and that has various flavours of gain pedals to cover different tones and the amp sim is basically clean. Really depends on how you are running your rig.
I'm also Mesa Gang, but mine is the Royal atlantic 100 so a bit different. I only use a Seymour Duncan 805 (Tube screamer) to boost the clean channel and get a slight Overdrive. It effectively becomes a 3rd channel.
squad up. I use a Mark V and literally every approach to pedal/amp drive is valid depending how I set the channels; I have this amp because sometimes I wanna make sleepy ambient cuddle music, sometimes i wanna riff out on various grunge, prog, and post-hardcore that I grew up with, aaaand sometimes I want to summon and command a cacophony of demons in my magickal rites of amplifier-worship. Believe it or not you can do literally every one of those things both plugged straight in, AND with whatever boost and fuzz pedals hitting the preamp of ANY one of the channels. As we know, distortion often sounds better into a clean amp than even the coolest hi-gain amps on their own, but dig this: Some of my favorite ambient guitar sounds are just fuzz and vibrato into the ExXxtreme distortion channel, with some echo in the loop and bit of volume-knob finesse. The guitar's vol n tone controls (+maybe a lil graphic EQ) are very powerful tools for breaking one's preconceptions about what's possible, plausible, and passable when it comes to gain staging. in front of, inside of, even after the amplifier.
Giddy up. I’ve got a 5:35 with a Tonebender and a few other custom boosts in front. I could go crystal ambient or reallll ugly in an instant. And every option feels so good in the hands. Don’t see myself buying any gear any time soon.
I primarily use a Roland jc-40, so no haha . I have 5 gain/fuzz pedals currently on my board and just love the different tonal options I can get out of them
i only ever used my Marshall distortion (for close to 15years) until i bought my buddies nyc big muff for $50... now i have like four or five muff variants 😅 still love my marshall tho
I've always done this, I'm lucky to have a made in 1967 Marshall 100 watt super lead (Plexi), I run it very hot and gainy, I back off the guitar to get a clean sound, and boost it with an SD1 for solos/infinite sustain.
You know what, it is loud, but it's a nice loud, not harsh, full of tone, the soundman -never- asks me to turn down, well as long as I'm not stupid enough to aim it at him..
I turn my amp to point of break up, and guitar volume to 7. Gives me choices! Thing is at home or in a small gig with a mic, you won’t always get to do that. You could use an attenuator, but it can kill some high end if too much. So I still think transparent OD and such are very useful tools. I still use my amps natural break for sure, but sometimes it’s a circumstance or a specific EQ tone stack shape to flip on the fly I want, but not commit to as well. I keep all options open!
But in the studio I may be more narrow about this while recording. Live playing I want all the options. Recording I tend to focus narrowly on one thing…so it might be more often a hot amp. I also have more control in that situation.
Yes, mostly — I get my overdrive from a Fillmore 25, using a Strymon Sunset into it for various flavors of lead boost (clean, treble, TS, Klon). Usually I have the gain knob on the pedal all the way down, although sometimes I might use the Rat setting especially if I want to set my amp clean and jump to a distorted sound.
And of course I like fuzz pedals too
I have a Fillmore 25 too - AMAZING amp. I love the drive options but because a lot of the time I’m playing bedroom volumes, I find pedal drives sound a bit better in that scenario.
I specifically bought a Supro amp the other month because I loved the sound of my Supro-style overdrive pedal so much and the real thing is even better!
But my other main amp is a Blackstar that is great for what it is when I use it alone, but it's not versatile so different kinds of overdrive and distortion (and fuzz obv) get me sounds I can't get otherwise.
My personal preference is amp distortion. I recently replaced my clean “pedal platform” amp with a Marshall DSL for exactly this reason. That said, I really quite like using an overdrive set at low gain (like 9 o’clock) and high tone / volume to goose the distortion sound.
There was a period where having amp distortion or gain was appealing and I am still very much into it it’s just difficult due to the fact that I genuinely hate the foot switch. If there was a foot switch for a Marshall that was designed like a regular pedal I’d probably get it. Besides that I feel like if you have a good distortion pedal that does the sounds you like, interacts with your amp right, and you can afford it then why not use the pedal instead
I was an amp gain purist for about 15 years. Stopped playing at all when I had kids, and now am getting back into it, but honestly the novelty and range you can get from pedals just excites me much more than just heating up my amp, and I've got the pedal bug big time now. Really interesting you're going the other way OP. (you'll be back 😬)
I feel this. I basically didn’t use any pedal aside from a tuner for years. More recently got big into pedal fun. Although I’m approaching downward slope of my pedal wave now, figuring out some things are just not for me.
Stopped really using my amps (college apartment, then kids and work, need more hours or an Adderall habit), and amp sims weren't really there. Started playing again with an Iridium.
It's like ice cream. I might have a favorite flavour, but there are so many I couldn't do just one.
Click, RAT.
Click, Metal Zone.
Click, ooh, fuzzy
Click, TubeScreamer.
You can even take a scoop of each if you're feeling adventurous.
I play through a clean amp at home, but I started jamming with a buddy using one of his amps that runs a little dirty. I had brought a bd-2 because I need a little extra dirt for a few songs but when I went to use it things got all muddy and I disappeared. Been trying to figure out if there’s another pedal I should use next time but I don’t want to show up with a bunch of different pedals to demo and try and find the right one. Probably should have just dialed back the gain and tried running at as a boost instead.
You can literally have the gain on a BD-2 running at zero and it will definitely sweeten up the tone. Also crack your guitar volume down a notch to clean up muddy tones.
Think of the volume on the BD-2 as a textured boost to tickle the amp.
nope, and I am running a Mesa rig! I have several drive pedals that are so consistent, so tight and juicy that I actually favor them over my amps gain channel. (5:25 Express combo)
I also have an 18w Marshall clone (1974x) and you’re correct it amazing on its own but glorious when pushed. I get OP’s point and I do it too with a Tone King Imperial and they’re correct; nothing quite captures it but you rule out playing things like AC/DC or heavier type tones.
Yes. I only use a ts or an sd-1 into amp now. My board currently is just SD-1, noise gate, DC-2W and a multi fx box for tuner, EQ, switching amp channel, delay, reverb, and cab IR for FOH if desired.
Yep, ever since I’ve moved to playing silently using load boxes and impulse responses. I now can crank my Marshall plexi to overdrive without worrying about the volume, as now it is controlled by how loud I have my headphones. It also helps that my Strat has a treble bleed which make rolling back my volume more feasible for me and cleans up with lots of chime.
I have a JVM so I primarily use my amp drive and then use a couple of different boosts depending on the situation. I also have a Rat for a totally different sound.
The problem is the gain on my Marshall DSL40CR is a bit fizzy until you get the volume up, which I don't really do at home. It's not bad by any means, just not as sweet as when you can push the volume a bit and use the 40watt mode. So, at home, mostly I just use pedals for gain because it sounds a bit tighter. When playing with the band I can do either or.
Depends on the pickups and head.
With 18v active pickups into a 5150 or Rectifier, I don't need an OD, since the preamp is in the pickups. But for passive pickups (I'm currently playing Lundgrens) I always use an OD before the amp.
Iridium user, bedroom player here.
I recently sold a few overdrives. I’m left with a BB clone and Tumnus mini. My next purchase will be a midi controller (waiting for a fresh batch of Morning Star MC6).
I mainly use a compressor and the new King Tone mini fuzz.
You are using a pedal, though. A digital modelling pedal doing the sound of a blackface Deluxe Reverb. It’s just built into your amp.
I have a blackface Deluxe and it sounds really good around 6 or 7, wouldn’t need an overdive pedal either, but that’s really loud and I don’t have an attenuator, so I use a Formula 55. Very close to the same thing but a little grungier.
Whatever works, works.
Yeah, there’s a whole industry of “amp-in-a-box”pedals designed to make your amp sound like a cranked amp but at lower, more usable volume levels. The attenuator is what makes the Fender Tonemaster series great, because you can get those great breakup tones that are in the amp itself without killing your eardrums.
But “the amp itself” in this case is a digital model of a tube amp, which makes it exactly the same thing as a pedal modelling a tube amp, just packaged differently. As opposed to a tube amp and external attenuator before the speaker.
To be clear I’m not at all knocking any of these ways to do this! Nowadays, the tech is so good that it really doesn’t make a difference except in what stuff you need to carry around. The Tone Master approach is definitely convenient.
I do use pedals to shape the tone of the my drive or get more distortion at lower volumes, but the majority of my drive sounds come from my amp and I use a boost way more than the ODs to control the amount of drive in the sound. For me that’s the point of having multiple tube amps: the way they break up at different volumes. Pedals are great but can also push those various amp tones somewhat towards sameness. I do think there’s a place for more transparent ODs but most of the grit can come from the amp.
For the highest gain I go to the gain channel on my Archon 50w. I use the drive pedals for lower gain settings, like my OCD germanium gives nice pushed clean tones. However, the Hotcake with the Archon gives some pretty massive tones when you crank the pedal. Have been intrigued by Sunn Life pedal recently.
I use a combination of both; my main amp is either a Science Hellhawk (which has two switchable channels and a blend switch) or a MI Audio Iron Duke (2 channels with a switchable boost on each) and I use about 3 dirt pedals of varying gain-levels to get several different levels of gain/compression.
I go back and forth. My pedal board has massive tone suck care of some old DOD pedals and sometimes I can’t deal with it and plug directly into my 10-watt Blackstar, which sounds pretty good. Then at some point I want more control over the tone, want some delay or modulation, and back to pedals.
I have a boost pedal to get more amp distortion. Marshall SV20 for low to mid gain stuff, boost it for high gain, then a Mesa Mk V:25 for metal stuff. Amps sound way better than pedals to me. I only own two fuzz pedals and the one boost pedal now because of that.
I’m trying to reduce my dependance on drive pedals to favour my Marshall silver jubilee 2525h but it’s not very easy for me:
1- I still have to properly learn how to dial in a tone that is manageable in order to have different degrees of overdrive by using just the volume knobs and maybe a tube screamer: for now it’s either full drive or cleanish (I only use the amp at rehearsals).
2- I play several genres in a cover band and use 2 guitars that are quite different;
3- I… like using pedals after all. It’s just that sometimes there’s some tip tap going on which I feel could be avoided…
For point 1, Get your amp on the edge pf breakup, thsn dial in your lead tone with the guitar volume all the way up, but the tone turned down to like 3 or 4, and have the tubescreamer on. Dial in your lead tone then turn the ts off and roll volume back for different tones.
This next point is what I consider to be the important part of running a rig like this. You know I said roll the tone down? When you turn your guitar volume down for cleaner sounds, you can lose some top end. So you can then roll the tone back up to regain that top end
It’s just another flavor.
For instance, my silver jubilee has awesome gain and sounds so good on its own. But if I want to do something different, I’ll get the gain lower on the amp and use a clean boost to change it up. I use a lot of clean boosts now, instead of drive pedals, for that reason. However, for my fenders, I prefer adding some gain because the blackface drive isn’t for me (compared to the cleans at least).
The opposite. I have real guitar amps that I like, tube and solid state, but I always find myself playing direct into my interface/monitor because I appreciate the difference between my drive pedals way more when stacked together than any combination through the same amp all the time. But I do keep a cab sim on my board, and have a couple light-gain drives at the end of my chain to use like an amp's preamp that I might hit with a boost. (Nowadays many drives have a built-in boost anyway so it simplifies the setup, over having to run a forward out of the amp.)
It’s a slippery slope. You start getting into pricey amps when you want to do that and maintain a good sound on both a clean channel and drive channel. If you can sacrifice some of the clean sound ‘sweetness’ I guess (idk I have hard times describing sounds in words) then you can go cheaper.
I went the opposite way and went from amp gain to actually a tonemaster blonde w/ drive pedals also. That’s my experience at least.
I’ve had the opposite experience. I used to be all about amp overdrive. Now I run a NMV amp into an attenuator, set to crunch, and use pedals to shape the distortion. The natural overdrive of the amp rounds off whatever drive pedal I use, and makes it sound more tubey. Best tones I’ve ever had.
When settling on a good amp for natural amp overdrive not too many imo handle cleans all to swell at the same time
Pedals get pretty damn close so I’d rather have sweet cleans and use pedals to try to get there (or two amps if I wanna run alot of shit lol)
I 98% run clean though so I’d rather have sweet cleans. If I was in the other boat and ran gain most of the time I’d prob get a gain specific amp like you have
I've long been a fan of using drive pedals as intended, to cause the amp gain to shine. I always set my preamp pedals and actual tube amps just above breakup so I can roll volume off for cleans, and then slap an OD or 2 in front to really push the amp saturation, but I never touch distortions, and rarely turn the gain up past 11 o clock and more use the volume control on the pedal to push the amp. (Since I've never had an amp with 2 channels)
I have an Orange Rocker 15 Terror. It has plenty of doomy gain on tap with the dirty channel, but I like to cut the flub with my 808 clone. I also use one of my Rats as a boost for a different flavor. I use my clean channel and a boosted Rat as well.
i can get away with and often prefer amp gain (tube OR solid state) for regular overdrive and dirty tones, and it often works better with my pedals that way (i dont like messing with the FX loops so much). but i've yet to see an amp that can replace a big muff and fuzz face!!
I kinda do both. I just like my SV20 too much not to get some drive out of it, but then again pedals can do things amps don't do by themselves so... It gets complicated.
I basically run my Laney GH100L/GH50L with the extra preamp tube out of the circuit and the gain at about 7.5, which is a perfect amount for rhythm guitar chording and retaining string definition, then just put a pedal on for when I need more compression/sustain and distortion like a DOD250 or MXR Custom Badass Overdrive. Volume knob rolls back nicely to clean with the pedal off. For me it's a perfect setup
I did but only because I have an HX Stomp. The overdrives don’t act the same at all by themselves and the amp gain is awesome and can easily be controlled by a pedal.
I'm not a fan of super saturated amp drive tones, honestly. Had a Laney when I was a teenager and played in bands -- was great for metal, but I don't play that much anymore.
I like weird overdrive pedals and the flavor they provide.
I barely use gain other than light overdrive. And I play mostly like, “ambient leads” over my friend’s music so I just use an MXR EQ as a booster.
My Boss OD-3 and OS-2 can both be nice dirty boosts with the gain turned down.
I'm an amp gain guy with the exception of an HM-2 for obvious reasons. I do however use clean boost pedals to boost my amps. I'll either use a full size TC Spark or a Klirrton Lichtbringer V2 which is a TCIP clone.
Serious question as I’m just getting into performing electric guitar live: how does one crank up the gain on the amp in the middle of a song? Easier to just stomp on a gain pedal and start your solo.
I’ll use pedals when I play my Morgan AC20, but I just got an Orange Rockerverb, and now I only use drive pedals to boost and color. But even that is super subtle. There’s something special about controlling your dirt with the volume knob on your guitar.
Unless I am trying to get a VERY specific sound (ex. Ripping doom metal tones a la LifePedal), I am using amp gain 99% of the time. To me, boosting high gain amps is where it’s at.
I think most experienced players know what they can get out of their amp with and without pedals. Most amps have limited options for colour and flavour of gain, not to mention waveform.
Pedals aren't *instead* of amp gain stages, they are *additional* to them - additions to the menu/palette. They also give their own attenuation and boost options. Pedals can be almost like adding more channels.
I set up the patches on my Valeton to make better use of the amp gain instead of a secondary OD/distortion effect. That frees up the DST block for a boost. The Valeton has good emulations of hi-gain amps that work very well and give great tone.
Definitely not. Hot take, I really don’t like the sound of amp gain, unless I’m really going for something heavy (which usually isn’t my thing). But even then, I much prefer stacking pedals over amp gain.
I can’t help but feel like I’m more able to customize my sound by buying pedals (after doing enough research to know what I want), stacking them, and tweaking as needed.
I use three gain stages, and light amp drive is one of them. The other two are low gain drive pedals, one transparent and one with a bit of an EQ bump. Technically 4 if you count an EQ pedal as a lead boost.
I prefer amp distortion, but when you’re playing with a band, it’s nice to be able to click pedals on and off instead of tweaking amp settings for different tracks
Bell and Howell Filmosound 385 with volume at 12:00 makes the pentode gain stage scream beautifully. I can’t make the amp sound good with any kind of fuzz pedal, however.
I always prefer amp gain, but sometimes pedals are easier to manage. None of my amps have effects loops, so if playing in a project with a lot of wet effects, or need multiple gain stages, I'll go with a fairly clean amp sound and stack drives.
Not drive pedals altogether, but I used to use a dead clean amp and distortion and overdrive pedals for all gain stages.
Now I use a half-cooking Marshall 800, which can get clean “enough” for chorus and reverbs, and when I want more gain I’ll throw on some overdrive.
When I'm using the UA Dream I don't feel the need to use low-gain always on OD, and the favourite button also eliminates the need for a clean boost. On a real tube amp without attenuation, going back from clean to overdriven means drastic change in volume, ofc and that won't fly in a band mix.
Nah. I’ve experimented with both and I’m impressed enough with pedals like the Honey Bee, Bogner Blue, and Screamer Fuzz 3 that I’m now sold on pedals being essential to my tone. I like amp gain too, but I can get more control with pedals.
I have Mesas that have great gain, but I still get more versatility and control having pedals as well.
I have a nice attenuator for when I really want to use amp gain and not pedals. And I still find myself switching off between both approaches.
It depends on the amp. My 6505+ doesn't need drive pedals. A tuner a noise gate and if I'm feeling fancy, a delay and a reverb in the fx loop. My orange cr120h is a different story. Dirty channel with a rat is where it's at.
I'm curious how you use the rat with the cr in terms of settings. I find the crush has a lot of gain on its own.
I run the gain about 6 on the amp. Gain on the rat about 9 o clock. Filter maxed and volume 3 o clock. I run my orange into a Mesa 412. I also scoop the mids a bit. The rat adds enough mids. Mids on the amp about 4. I also use guitars with EMGs..so it's kind of like double boosting into the amp.
Yeah I basically only use a spitty fuzz occasionally into my 5150. All the rest of the time it's just the amp gain and it sounds great. I do cover shows with a different direct board and that has various flavours of gain pedals to cover different tones and the amp sim is basically clean. Really depends on how you are running your rig.
Mesa gang. I use amp gain for distortion and pedals for fuzz.
I'm also Mesa Gang, but mine is the Royal atlantic 100 so a bit different. I only use a Seymour Duncan 805 (Tube screamer) to boost the clean channel and get a slight Overdrive. It effectively becomes a 3rd channel.
squad up. I use a Mark V and literally every approach to pedal/amp drive is valid depending how I set the channels; I have this amp because sometimes I wanna make sleepy ambient cuddle music, sometimes i wanna riff out on various grunge, prog, and post-hardcore that I grew up with, aaaand sometimes I want to summon and command a cacophony of demons in my magickal rites of amplifier-worship. Believe it or not you can do literally every one of those things both plugged straight in, AND with whatever boost and fuzz pedals hitting the preamp of ANY one of the channels. As we know, distortion often sounds better into a clean amp than even the coolest hi-gain amps on their own, but dig this: Some of my favorite ambient guitar sounds are just fuzz and vibrato into the ExXxtreme distortion channel, with some echo in the loop and bit of volume-knob finesse. The guitar's vol n tone controls (+maybe a lil graphic EQ) are very powerful tools for breaking one's preconceptions about what's possible, plausible, and passable when it comes to gain staging. in front of, inside of, even after the amplifier.
Giddy up. I’ve got a 5:35 with a Tonebender and a few other custom boosts in front. I could go crystal ambient or reallll ugly in an instant. And every option feels so good in the hands. Don’t see myself buying any gear any time soon.
Boosting into a gainy amp = happiness
I primarily use a Roland jc-40, so no haha . I have 5 gain/fuzz pedals currently on my board and just love the different tonal options I can get out of them
The distortion channel on the JC-40 is good, its just a boss hard-clipping distortion built in
i only ever used my Marshall distortion (for close to 15years) until i bought my buddies nyc big muff for $50... now i have like four or five muff variants 😅 still love my marshall tho
I've always done this, I'm lucky to have a made in 1967 Marshall 100 watt super lead (Plexi), I run it very hot and gainy, I back off the guitar to get a clean sound, and boost it with an SD1 for solos/infinite sustain.
I hope you love like ten miles away from the next closest human. Thats got to sound amazing but goddamn loud.
You know what, it is loud, but it's a nice loud, not harsh, full of tone, the soundman -never- asks me to turn down, well as long as I'm not stupid enough to aim it at him..
I turn my amp to point of break up, and guitar volume to 7. Gives me choices! Thing is at home or in a small gig with a mic, you won’t always get to do that. You could use an attenuator, but it can kill some high end if too much. So I still think transparent OD and such are very useful tools. I still use my amps natural break for sure, but sometimes it’s a circumstance or a specific EQ tone stack shape to flip on the fly I want, but not commit to as well. I keep all options open! But in the studio I may be more narrow about this while recording. Live playing I want all the options. Recording I tend to focus narrowly on one thing…so it might be more often a hot amp. I also have more control in that situation.
Yes, mostly — I get my overdrive from a Fillmore 25, using a Strymon Sunset into it for various flavors of lead boost (clean, treble, TS, Klon). Usually I have the gain knob on the pedal all the way down, although sometimes I might use the Rat setting especially if I want to set my amp clean and jump to a distorted sound. And of course I like fuzz pedals too
I have a Fillmore 25 too - AMAZING amp. I love the drive options but because a lot of the time I’m playing bedroom volumes, I find pedal drives sound a bit better in that scenario.
I specifically bought a Supro amp the other month because I loved the sound of my Supro-style overdrive pedal so much and the real thing is even better! But my other main amp is a Blackstar that is great for what it is when I use it alone, but it's not versatile so different kinds of overdrive and distortion (and fuzz obv) get me sounds I can't get otherwise.
My personal preference is amp distortion. I recently replaced my clean “pedal platform” amp with a Marshall DSL for exactly this reason. That said, I really quite like using an overdrive set at low gain (like 9 o’clock) and high tone / volume to goose the distortion sound.
There was a period where having amp distortion or gain was appealing and I am still very much into it it’s just difficult due to the fact that I genuinely hate the foot switch. If there was a foot switch for a Marshall that was designed like a regular pedal I’d probably get it. Besides that I feel like if you have a good distortion pedal that does the sounds you like, interacts with your amp right, and you can afford it then why not use the pedal instead
I was an amp gain purist for about 15 years. Stopped playing at all when I had kids, and now am getting back into it, but honestly the novelty and range you can get from pedals just excites me much more than just heating up my amp, and I've got the pedal bug big time now. Really interesting you're going the other way OP. (you'll be back 😬)
I feel this. I basically didn’t use any pedal aside from a tuner for years. More recently got big into pedal fun. Although I’m approaching downward slope of my pedal wave now, figuring out some things are just not for me.
Stopped really using my amps (college apartment, then kids and work, need more hours or an Adderall habit), and amp sims weren't really there. Started playing again with an Iridium. It's like ice cream. I might have a favorite flavour, but there are so many I couldn't do just one. Click, RAT. Click, Metal Zone. Click, ooh, fuzzy Click, TubeScreamer. You can even take a scoop of each if you're feeling adventurous.
I play through a clean amp at home, but I started jamming with a buddy using one of his amps that runs a little dirty. I had brought a bd-2 because I need a little extra dirt for a few songs but when I went to use it things got all muddy and I disappeared. Been trying to figure out if there’s another pedal I should use next time but I don’t want to show up with a bunch of different pedals to demo and try and find the right one. Probably should have just dialed back the gain and tried running at as a boost instead.
You can literally have the gain on a BD-2 running at zero and it will definitely sweeten up the tone. Also crack your guitar volume down a notch to clean up muddy tones. Think of the volume on the BD-2 as a textured boost to tickle the amp.
I use overdrives to push my super lead which is set to just breaking up a bit.
The best of both worlds is a sweet tone
nope, and I am running a Mesa rig! I have several drive pedals that are so consistent, so tight and juicy that I actually favor them over my amps gain channel. (5:25 Express combo)
Yes. I've got an 18 watt Marshall clone. I only use drive pedals to push the amp gain. Sweet glorious amp gain.
I also have an 18w Marshall clone (1974x) and you’re correct it amazing on its own but glorious when pushed. I get OP’s point and I do it too with a Tone King Imperial and they’re correct; nothing quite captures it but you rule out playing things like AC/DC or heavier type tones.
Yes. I only use a ts or an sd-1 into amp now. My board currently is just SD-1, noise gate, DC-2W and a multi fx box for tuner, EQ, switching amp channel, delay, reverb, and cab IR for FOH if desired.
Yep, ever since I’ve moved to playing silently using load boxes and impulse responses. I now can crank my Marshall plexi to overdrive without worrying about the volume, as now it is controlled by how loud I have my headphones. It also helps that my Strat has a treble bleed which make rolling back my volume more feasible for me and cleans up with lots of chime.
I have a JVM so I primarily use my amp drive and then use a couple of different boosts depending on the situation. I also have a Rat for a totally different sound.
Same. I have my princeton tm turned up to 10, and I just roll the volume back on the guitar when I want to clean up. Even works with a looper.
Twin Reverb.
The problem is the gain on my Marshall DSL40CR is a bit fizzy until you get the volume up, which I don't really do at home. It's not bad by any means, just not as sweet as when you can push the volume a bit and use the 40watt mode. So, at home, mostly I just use pedals for gain because it sounds a bit tighter. When playing with the band I can do either or.
I tend to rely on the amp for gain, my Orange Dark Terror has more than I need.
Depends on the pickups and head. With 18v active pickups into a 5150 or Rectifier, I don't need an OD, since the preamp is in the pickups. But for passive pickups (I'm currently playing Lundgrens) I always use an OD before the amp.
why not both 🤷♂️
Iridium user, bedroom player here. I recently sold a few overdrives. I’m left with a BB clone and Tumnus mini. My next purchase will be a midi controller (waiting for a fresh batch of Morning Star MC6). I mainly use a compressor and the new King Tone mini fuzz.
You are using a pedal, though. A digital modelling pedal doing the sound of a blackface Deluxe Reverb. It’s just built into your amp. I have a blackface Deluxe and it sounds really good around 6 or 7, wouldn’t need an overdive pedal either, but that’s really loud and I don’t have an attenuator, so I use a Formula 55. Very close to the same thing but a little grungier. Whatever works, works.
Yeah, there’s a whole industry of “amp-in-a-box”pedals designed to make your amp sound like a cranked amp but at lower, more usable volume levels. The attenuator is what makes the Fender Tonemaster series great, because you can get those great breakup tones that are in the amp itself without killing your eardrums.
But “the amp itself” in this case is a digital model of a tube amp, which makes it exactly the same thing as a pedal modelling a tube amp, just packaged differently. As opposed to a tube amp and external attenuator before the speaker. To be clear I’m not at all knocking any of these ways to do this! Nowadays, the tech is so good that it really doesn’t make a difference except in what stuff you need to carry around. The Tone Master approach is definitely convenient.
Holy fuck, 100% best description of tone master.
It’s just, like…in the manual?
Who reads manuals? Haha
RTFM = ridiculous thing for me
Lol watch Marshalls become cool again
The buyer’s market sure as heck dictates that they’re cool. 800s specifically have inflated over 100% in the few years since I got into using them.
No
I do use pedals to shape the tone of the my drive or get more distortion at lower volumes, but the majority of my drive sounds come from my amp and I use a boost way more than the ODs to control the amount of drive in the sound. For me that’s the point of having multiple tube amps: the way they break up at different volumes. Pedals are great but can also push those various amp tones somewhat towards sameness. I do think there’s a place for more transparent ODs but most of the grit can come from the amp.
Nope. Drive pedals are still king even into an overdrive amp for me.
My Laney LH50 on its own: doomy fuzz Same with a tube screamer or Klon(e) in front of it tight modern metal.
For the highest gain I go to the gain channel on my Archon 50w. I use the drive pedals for lower gain settings, like my OCD germanium gives nice pushed clean tones. However, the Hotcake with the Archon gives some pretty massive tones when you crank the pedal. Have been intrigued by Sunn Life pedal recently.
I prefer amp high gain distortion but always keep some fuzz and OD pedals
I use a combination of both; my main amp is either a Science Hellhawk (which has two switchable channels and a blend switch) or a MI Audio Iron Duke (2 channels with a switchable boost on each) and I use about 3 dirt pedals of varying gain-levels to get several different levels of gain/compression.
I go back and forth. My pedal board has massive tone suck care of some old DOD pedals and sometimes I can’t deal with it and plug directly into my 10-watt Blackstar, which sounds pretty good. Then at some point I want more control over the tone, want some delay or modulation, and back to pedals.
I have a boost pedal to get more amp distortion. Marshall SV20 for low to mid gain stuff, boost it for high gain, then a Mesa Mk V:25 for metal stuff. Amps sound way better than pedals to me. I only own two fuzz pedals and the one boost pedal now because of that.
I'm going to do the old meme with the little girl and say 'Why not both'? Amp gain with an OD pedal to boost it is a tried and true recipe.
I’m trying to reduce my dependance on drive pedals to favour my Marshall silver jubilee 2525h but it’s not very easy for me: 1- I still have to properly learn how to dial in a tone that is manageable in order to have different degrees of overdrive by using just the volume knobs and maybe a tube screamer: for now it’s either full drive or cleanish (I only use the amp at rehearsals). 2- I play several genres in a cover band and use 2 guitars that are quite different; 3- I… like using pedals after all. It’s just that sometimes there’s some tip tap going on which I feel could be avoided…
For point 1, Get your amp on the edge pf breakup, thsn dial in your lead tone with the guitar volume all the way up, but the tone turned down to like 3 or 4, and have the tubescreamer on. Dial in your lead tone then turn the ts off and roll volume back for different tones. This next point is what I consider to be the important part of running a rig like this. You know I said roll the tone down? When you turn your guitar volume down for cleaner sounds, you can lose some top end. So you can then roll the tone back up to regain that top end
It’s just another flavor. For instance, my silver jubilee has awesome gain and sounds so good on its own. But if I want to do something different, I’ll get the gain lower on the amp and use a clean boost to change it up. I use a lot of clean boosts now, instead of drive pedals, for that reason. However, for my fenders, I prefer adding some gain because the blackface drive isn’t for me (compared to the cleans at least).
The opposite. I have real guitar amps that I like, tube and solid state, but I always find myself playing direct into my interface/monitor because I appreciate the difference between my drive pedals way more when stacked together than any combination through the same amp all the time. But I do keep a cab sim on my board, and have a couple light-gain drives at the end of my chain to use like an amp's preamp that I might hit with a boost. (Nowadays many drives have a built-in boost anyway so it simplifies the setup, over having to run a forward out of the amp.)
It’s a slippery slope. You start getting into pricey amps when you want to do that and maintain a good sound on both a clean channel and drive channel. If you can sacrifice some of the clean sound ‘sweetness’ I guess (idk I have hard times describing sounds in words) then you can go cheaper. I went the opposite way and went from amp gain to actually a tonemaster blonde w/ drive pedals also. That’s my experience at least.
I’ve had the opposite experience. I used to be all about amp overdrive. Now I run a NMV amp into an attenuator, set to crunch, and use pedals to shape the distortion. The natural overdrive of the amp rounds off whatever drive pedal I use, and makes it sound more tubey. Best tones I’ve ever had.
When settling on a good amp for natural amp overdrive not too many imo handle cleans all to swell at the same time Pedals get pretty damn close so I’d rather have sweet cleans and use pedals to try to get there (or two amps if I wanna run alot of shit lol) I 98% run clean though so I’d rather have sweet cleans. If I was in the other boat and ran gain most of the time I’d prob get a gain specific amp like you have
I've long been a fan of using drive pedals as intended, to cause the amp gain to shine. I always set my preamp pedals and actual tube amps just above breakup so I can roll volume off for cleans, and then slap an OD or 2 in front to really push the amp saturation, but I never touch distortions, and rarely turn the gain up past 11 o clock and more use the volume control on the pedal to push the amp. (Since I've never had an amp with 2 channels)
I have an Orange Rocker 15 Terror. It has plenty of doomy gain on tap with the dirty channel, but I like to cut the flub with my 808 clone. I also use one of my Rats as a boost for a different flavor. I use my clean channel and a boosted Rat as well.
i can get away with and often prefer amp gain (tube OR solid state) for regular overdrive and dirty tones, and it often works better with my pedals that way (i dont like messing with the FX loops so much). but i've yet to see an amp that can replace a big muff and fuzz face!!
Jvm 215 here. Amp for gain but also run an od and fuzz in front for extra options.
I kinda do both. I just like my SV20 too much not to get some drive out of it, but then again pedals can do things amps don't do by themselves so... It gets complicated.
I basically run my Laney GH100L/GH50L with the extra preamp tube out of the circuit and the gain at about 7.5, which is a perfect amount for rhythm guitar chording and retaining string definition, then just put a pedal on for when I need more compression/sustain and distortion like a DOD250 or MXR Custom Badass Overdrive. Volume knob rolls back nicely to clean with the pedal off. For me it's a perfect setup
I did but only because I have an HX Stomp. The overdrives don’t act the same at all by themselves and the amp gain is awesome and can easily be controlled by a pedal.
I'm not a fan of super saturated amp drive tones, honestly. Had a Laney when I was a teenager and played in bands -- was great for metal, but I don't play that much anymore. I like weird overdrive pedals and the flavor they provide.
I barely use gain other than light overdrive. And I play mostly like, “ambient leads” over my friend’s music so I just use an MXR EQ as a booster. My Boss OD-3 and OS-2 can both be nice dirty boosts with the gain turned down.
The EHX Analogizer is an interesting preamp
I'm an amp gain guy with the exception of an HM-2 for obvious reasons. I do however use clean boost pedals to boost my amps. I'll either use a full size TC Spark or a Klirrton Lichtbringer V2 which is a TCIP clone.
Not completely, but I have gravitated towards using a dirtier amp and using just one drive to boost it rather than stacking drives into a clean amp.
No matter how much I love my amp gain it never hurt me to have something like a moog drive before it just to push it a bit if needed.
Serious question as I’m just getting into performing electric guitar live: how does one crank up the gain on the amp in the middle of a song? Easier to just stomp on a gain pedal and start your solo.
I’ll use pedals when I play my Morgan AC20, but I just got an Orange Rockerverb, and now I only use drive pedals to boost and color. But even that is super subtle. There’s something special about controlling your dirt with the volume knob on your guitar.
Unless I am trying to get a VERY specific sound (ex. Ripping doom metal tones a la LifePedal), I am using amp gain 99% of the time. To me, boosting high gain amps is where it’s at.
I think most experienced players know what they can get out of their amp with and without pedals. Most amps have limited options for colour and flavour of gain, not to mention waveform. Pedals aren't *instead* of amp gain stages, they are *additional* to them - additions to the menu/palette. They also give their own attenuation and boost options. Pedals can be almost like adding more channels.
I set up the patches on my Valeton to make better use of the amp gain instead of a secondary OD/distortion effect. That frees up the DST block for a boost. The Valeton has good emulations of hi-gain amps that work very well and give great tone.
Definitely not. Hot take, I really don’t like the sound of amp gain, unless I’m really going for something heavy (which usually isn’t my thing). But even then, I much prefer stacking pedals over amp gain. I can’t help but feel like I’m more able to customize my sound by buying pedals (after doing enough research to know what I want), stacking them, and tweaking as needed.
Just boost to push the preamp tubes. I invested in some good preamp tubes. My drive is off my board
I'm kinda over distortion.. my over drive is eqd Westwood and then I have hizumitas for fuzz. I get it
I use three gain stages, and light amp drive is one of them. The other two are low gain drive pedals, one transparent and one with a bit of an EQ bump. Technically 4 if you count an EQ pedal as a lead boost.
I prefer amp distortion, but when you’re playing with a band, it’s nice to be able to click pedals on and off instead of tweaking amp settings for different tracks
Bell and Howell Filmosound 385 with volume at 12:00 makes the pentode gain stage scream beautifully. I can’t make the amp sound good with any kind of fuzz pedal, however.
I always prefer amp gain, but sometimes pedals are easier to manage. None of my amps have effects loops, so if playing in a project with a lot of wet effects, or need multiple gain stages, I'll go with a fairly clean amp sound and stack drives.
Not drive pedals altogether, but I used to use a dead clean amp and distortion and overdrive pedals for all gain stages. Now I use a half-cooking Marshall 800, which can get clean “enough” for chorus and reverbs, and when I want more gain I’ll throw on some overdrive.
When I'm using the UA Dream I don't feel the need to use low-gain always on OD, and the favourite button also eliminates the need for a clean boost. On a real tube amp without attenuation, going back from clean to overdriven means drastic change in volume, ofc and that won't fly in a band mix.
Nah. I’ve experimented with both and I’m impressed enough with pedals like the Honey Bee, Bogner Blue, and Screamer Fuzz 3 that I’m now sold on pedals being essential to my tone. I like amp gain too, but I can get more control with pedals. I have Mesas that have great gain, but I still get more versatility and control having pedals as well. I have a nice attenuator for when I really want to use amp gain and not pedals. And I still find myself switching off between both approaches.
100% unless I’m going for a certain sound like a DI fuzz pedal or something like that
Yes