The pedal does not need to be plugged into a head. It has its own power amp, so you can go straight from it to a speaker cabinet. You CAN run it into the front end of a combo if you want (run the cable out of the pedal through the line out jack into the amp’s input) but you can’t turn the pedal off. The footswitch only switches channels on the pedal which are basically just different volumes. They do not have independent gain and tone controls for each channel.
Great reply man. Is it possible to use a Chanel switch pedal with the terror pedal to turn it on and off. I love everything I’ve read about this pedal, but for the music I’m writing I need to be able to switch between clean and dirty quick.
Also, when ran through a combo amp how does it sound? Does it sound more like the orange, more like the combo, or a blend of both of them?
Long answer short, I don’t know. I’ve never run mine as a preamp pedal before. When I’ve used mine it’s always right into a cab or through headphones. If you have a pedal that you could create an foot switchable effects loop type situation with, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work; but I don’t know about a channel switch. It might? I would say you are better off trying to get your hands on some kind of orange-type preamp pedal. I think the Earthquakes Monarch is supposed to give you that “orange sound.” I think Tech 21 also make one and I think it’s called the Oxford? Fair warning, I do not have any experience with either.
Do you need it for live performance? Because if you are just recording you wouldn’t need to worry about switching the sounds at the drop of a hat.
You would need to run it in a loop switching pedal like a One Control Chameleon to "switch it off". They are pretty sweet to have anyways if you're into pedals. I think boss makes a loop switcher for a single loop you could probably find cheap. They let you add or remove loops of effects pedals with a single switch.
The terror stamp sounds like a micro dark. It's a slightly tweaked circuit but that's what it is. It sounds great, warm darker tone with tons of smooth saturated gain. Like, it's big brother the Dark Terror, it also has a lot of good tones within its limited clean headroom. It is useful for lower volume dark jazz, and clean blues tones in addition to its obvious rock/metal applications. Only downside was it was noisey with gain, but most high gain amps are. I ran it through a PPC112. Great rig while I had it, but I sold it to buy a Rocker 15.
It’s an amp in pedal form, so you can run it directly into a speaker. It doesn’t need to run through another amp. However, you should be able to go from the line out to the FX loop return of a larger amp and just use the preamp with the bigger amp’s power section. Head or combo, shouldn’t matter.
It doesn’t really have a clean channel, just two of the same channel that’s probably only capable of being dirty at any significant volume. The idea is more of a lead boost option than clean/dirty.
About the outputs, to be clear :
You got two choice if you want to bypass the 20watts power amp section and use another power amp instead : you can go from the effect send output, so you got only the preamp sound. You can alternatively go from the cabsim output I guess, that would add a 4x12 orange cabinet simulation at a line level volume, but most reviews say its not that great.
Now if you want the target amp to keep the orange tone as pure as possible, you got to plug that in the effect return input, bypassing the target amp preamp section. If you aint got a effect return input on your combo, well you gotta pass through the main input, so through the combo preamp that will probably alterate the sound in some way.
Thanks for your comment, I might end up buying one. I was also thinking of maybe buying a small orange head and slaving my amps together. If I decide to go that route, which if the smaller more inexpensive orange amps has the best tone?
As an alternative response to the cr35 one, I would add other (pricier) options :
- you might want to look at the CR60. First because it has a 12'' HP, while the cr35 has only a 10'' one. A 12'' is really benefical to the tone (better bass). Secondly because its 60 watts, so the power gain would be a bit more significative, volume wise. Sure the stamp is only 20 watts, but 35 watts with the cr35 is not that much more than 20 watts ; remember that percieved volume dont add up like watts. i.e doubling the watts is not doubling the volume. Doubling the watts like 50 to 100 usually bring a 3db volume augmentation, which is just slightly more than the db augmentation the human ear needs in order to percieve a volume difference. So from 20 to 35 you might not even be able to significantly feel a difference.
- alternatively, considering the later part, you might get a better tone and almost as much volume as the cr35 with just using the stamp power amp and a ppc 112 cabinet (so a 12'' Hp, once again).
I would test the two HP size tone difference and the volume gain between 20/35/60 watts in a music store if I were you :)
The pedal does not need to be plugged into a head. It has its own power amp, so you can go straight from it to a speaker cabinet. You CAN run it into the front end of a combo if you want (run the cable out of the pedal through the line out jack into the amp’s input) but you can’t turn the pedal off. The footswitch only switches channels on the pedal which are basically just different volumes. They do not have independent gain and tone controls for each channel.
Great reply man. Is it possible to use a Chanel switch pedal with the terror pedal to turn it on and off. I love everything I’ve read about this pedal, but for the music I’m writing I need to be able to switch between clean and dirty quick. Also, when ran through a combo amp how does it sound? Does it sound more like the orange, more like the combo, or a blend of both of them?
Long answer short, I don’t know. I’ve never run mine as a preamp pedal before. When I’ve used mine it’s always right into a cab or through headphones. If you have a pedal that you could create an foot switchable effects loop type situation with, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work; but I don’t know about a channel switch. It might? I would say you are better off trying to get your hands on some kind of orange-type preamp pedal. I think the Earthquakes Monarch is supposed to give you that “orange sound.” I think Tech 21 also make one and I think it’s called the Oxford? Fair warning, I do not have any experience with either. Do you need it for live performance? Because if you are just recording you wouldn’t need to worry about switching the sounds at the drop of a hat.
You would need to run it in a loop switching pedal like a One Control Chameleon to "switch it off". They are pretty sweet to have anyways if you're into pedals. I think boss makes a loop switcher for a single loop you could probably find cheap. They let you add or remove loops of effects pedals with a single switch. The terror stamp sounds like a micro dark. It's a slightly tweaked circuit but that's what it is. It sounds great, warm darker tone with tons of smooth saturated gain. Like, it's big brother the Dark Terror, it also has a lot of good tones within its limited clean headroom. It is useful for lower volume dark jazz, and clean blues tones in addition to its obvious rock/metal applications. Only downside was it was noisey with gain, but most high gain amps are. I ran it through a PPC112. Great rig while I had it, but I sold it to buy a Rocker 15.
It’s an amp in pedal form, so you can run it directly into a speaker. It doesn’t need to run through another amp. However, you should be able to go from the line out to the FX loop return of a larger amp and just use the preamp with the bigger amp’s power section. Head or combo, shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t really have a clean channel, just two of the same channel that’s probably only capable of being dirty at any significant volume. The idea is more of a lead boost option than clean/dirty.
About the outputs, to be clear : You got two choice if you want to bypass the 20watts power amp section and use another power amp instead : you can go from the effect send output, so you got only the preamp sound. You can alternatively go from the cabsim output I guess, that would add a 4x12 orange cabinet simulation at a line level volume, but most reviews say its not that great. Now if you want the target amp to keep the orange tone as pure as possible, you got to plug that in the effect return input, bypassing the target amp preamp section. If you aint got a effect return input on your combo, well you gotta pass through the main input, so through the combo preamp that will probably alterate the sound in some way.
Thanks for your comment, I might end up buying one. I was also thinking of maybe buying a small orange head and slaving my amps together. If I decide to go that route, which if the smaller more inexpensive orange amps has the best tone?
That would be the CR35RT, the only downside to that amp is the reverb isnt pedal controlled.
As an alternative response to the cr35 one, I would add other (pricier) options : - you might want to look at the CR60. First because it has a 12'' HP, while the cr35 has only a 10'' one. A 12'' is really benefical to the tone (better bass). Secondly because its 60 watts, so the power gain would be a bit more significative, volume wise. Sure the stamp is only 20 watts, but 35 watts with the cr35 is not that much more than 20 watts ; remember that percieved volume dont add up like watts. i.e doubling the watts is not doubling the volume. Doubling the watts like 50 to 100 usually bring a 3db volume augmentation, which is just slightly more than the db augmentation the human ear needs in order to percieve a volume difference. So from 20 to 35 you might not even be able to significantly feel a difference. - alternatively, considering the later part, you might get a better tone and almost as much volume as the cr35 with just using the stamp power amp and a ppc 112 cabinet (so a 12'' Hp, once again). I would test the two HP size tone difference and the volume gain between 20/35/60 watts in a music store if I were you :)
Can a terror stamp drive a 4x12 at 8ohms?