Distortion pedals versus amp

[mbengs1]

Anybody prefer using distortion pedals as opposed to amp gain ? it's the economical choice. you can get a ds-1 which is about $50 or a 100 watt Marshall that's $2000. why do you choose to use distortions rather than a good tube amp with decent high gain tones?

[Mr.Grumpy]

My first and only "big amp" that I bought was a Music Man HD-212 combo, which has a reputation and a very clean, bright sounding amp. So I have always used distortion and OD pedals. It's not that I prefer using distortion pedals, it's just a necessity. In a perfect world (for me), I'd have a 3 amp setup, but it's not practical for my budget. I'm happy with the tones from my amp and pedals, and don't feel the need to change or upgrade anything.

 

 

[WRGKMC]

I have both options available and both have their plusses and minuses. Cost is only one factor. People who don't own tube amps are likely lead to believe they offer more then do by the things they read. Likewise, those who look down on SS amps are likely out of touch with many of the newer designs available now. The debate will likely continue the rest of my life and if anything it makes for lively conversation and greater variety.

 

The truth of the matter is, Playing guitar is about making music. I typically find when people becomes obsessed with how tones are made its usually because they aren't making music to an audience. We know an audience doesn't give a tinkers dam How you amplify your notes so long as you make notes that are worth listening to.

 

I suppose you can blame it on good salesmanship. Seems like some people get stuck with a salesman's hook in them and they don't seem to have the will power to free themselves of their influence. Maybe is they listened to the lyrics of artists who been there and done it thay wouldn't give a dam is their amp was tube or SS.

When I'm drivin' in my car, and the man come on the radio

He's tellin' me more and more about some useless information

Supposed to fire my imagination..................

 

When I'm watchin' my tv and a man comes on and tell me

How white my shirts can be

But, he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke

The same cigarettes as me

 

I can't get no satisfaction,

 

 

 

[1001gear]

Cranked amps are way too loud. I find it laughable that a good percentage of rockers gotta have that tone and at the same time can't do anything musical with it. Many of them lose their hearing before they've heard music. Pretty dumb if you ask me. Use pedals, modelers, at levels you can actually hear. Learn what music is supposed to sound like. Far far better.

[Pine Apple Slim]

It depends on the amp. Small amps that you can crank or that have indigenous distortion I usually just use a clean boost for when I need it. My Micro Terror and My Crate VC2110R is like that. I set my amp gain, clean up with the vol knob and boost for solos. Done deal. I’ve used the distortion channel in the past on channel switching amps but I’ve never owned an amp w a separate distortion channel that I thought sounded better than a pedal. Now all my amps are single channel.

On cleaner platforms like my Carr Rambler or SF Bassman, where it takes ear splitting vol to get any crunch I use pedals. Usually a couple of light ODs. right now I use a Joyo Sweet Baby and a Soul Food(or sometimes the Joyo AC Tone and the Sweet Baby. I have a Rat and a nasty single knob fuzz, but I rarely ever hook those up because of the genres I mainly play.

 

 

[onelife]

Cranked amps are way too loud. I find it laughable that a good percentage of rockers gotta have that tone and at the same time can't do anything musical with it. Many of them lose their hearing before they've heard music. Pretty dumb if you ask me. Use pedals' date=' modelers, at levels you can actually hear. Learn what music is supposed to sound like. Far far better.[/quote']

 

I've got a great amp. It's an 80 watt Yamaha with a digital preamp. The preamp has a Master Volume which emulates the Master on a tube amp. It also has separate and independant Output level controls for the solid state power amp and the speaker emulated balanced line out.

 

I can crank the preamp then turn down the output level to bedroom levels, turn it all the way down for recording while standing next to the drums or turn it up enough to fill any room I'm likely to play in. The design of this amp is so goid that it does not require a noise gate. It has all the advantages of a tube amp with none of the disadvantages.

[1001gear]

A guitarist I know used one of those as a monitor because his Marshall half stack wasn't at ear level.

[guitarcapo]

If you are looking for great overdrive sounds, the LAST thing you want is a 100 watt amp. The reason you buy a high watt amp is to maintain clean sounds at a high volume. With a 100 watt amp, you will HAVE to use the master volume to get overdrive sounds at reasonable volumes...and master volumes suck tone. What you really want is a lower wattage amp like 15 watts or so. Lower watts like a single ended 6-10 watt amp usually sacrifices bass....and good overdrive has bass.

 

The most common problem people using overdrive pedals run into is that they rely too heavily on the pedal for the overdrive. You really want to have your amp running reasonably hot with no master volume (or as little as possible) and then use the pedal to push the amp over into overdrive. If you turn your amp down by attenuating the master volume and preamp volume/gain....cranking up the gain on the pedal won't save things. You need a smaller amp...not a bigger one.

[mbengs1]

A popular amp in this country is the JCM 800. It sounds great with distortion pedals. Unfortunately, I prefer not to use distortion pedals now. I want a real amp. That's why I like to get the JCM 900 more. I got into the the distortion pedal thing first buying about 8 distortion pedals to get different amp like tones. but I wanna get out of that and just get a good amp for my sound.

[mbengs1]

The amp I used mostly now is a Fender Champion 40. It has great sound. But it still sounds like a low price combo but I don't mind. it sounds decent for a digital amp.

[Mikeo]

My first and only "big amp" that I bought was a Music Man HD-212 combo' date=' which has a reputation and a very clean, bright sounding amp. So I have always used distortion and OD pedals. It's not that I[i'] prefer[/i] using distortion pedals, it's just a necessity. In a perfect world (for me), I'd have a 3 amp setup, but it's not practical for my budget. I'm happy with the tones from my amp and pedals, and don't feel the need to change or upgrade anything.

 

 

My first amp was a Musicman 210-65. Very loud and bright.

 

 

 

 

[Mikeo]

Some amps like the Fender Twin Reverb will not break up. If you want any kind of real distortion out of a Twin (not including the twins with a push-pull master volume: Paul Rivera design) you will need a distortion pedal. The best tones you can get are out of your power amp section, but that is subjective, as you really need to like the sound of the amp.

 

Pedal are a viable alternative to getting the distortion you want at a volume you need.

Plus they are easily switched out. I have a JCM 800 50 watt combo 2x12 and a Fender Twin Reverb at my house. I can't tell you the last time I actually used it. I take a varriac ocne a year and slowly bring it up to regular power line voltage.

 

I like the JMC 800 gain turned up and then will run the master volume to where I want.

My old Twin Reverb is a push Pull master volume and I got it new when I traded my Musicman 210-65 comb for it. The Twin Reverb cost me the Musicman amp and 125 bucks. The distortion off my Twin Reverb is not that sweet, however it's a nice build block for a clean tone. They are still a very popular back-line amp.

 

My amps of choice are much smaller. A 65 PRRI, a 65 DRRI, a Dr Z and a couple of 5 watters. I played a few places small enough that even 5 watts was too much.

 

 

[WRGKMC]

I have a vintage mint condition Music 65 Head made in 1976, the ones with an inverter tube. Even the chrome on it still shines.

I use on a 4X10 cab with alnico Jensen's but it will push any cab. It can be loud if you want it to but it does have a master volume and the preamp can be overdriven at lower volumes.

 

I was given the head by a buddy of mine who used to play in the Dickie Betts Band and had a popular club band here in Houston. He was moving back up north to start another band and needed to unload the gear he had accumulated. I was buying a bunch of rack guitar preamps off him and he threw the head in as a deal sweetener. He told me it wasn't working. I opened it up and found two bad colder joints, one on the grid resistor and one on the deep switch. After soldering it came up and worked flawlessly.

 

The head has a SS front end and tube power amp. It had EL34's in there and I put the reissue 6CA7 tubes in there when they came out.

Its hard to say if its louder then my 50W Sound City or may Blackface Bassman. When I run it's Volume on 3.5~4 its as loud as my Marshall Valvestate running on 6.

 

My loudest head is probably my 76 Sunn Concert Lead head. That thing is 200W and people know you're in the room when you play through that thing. That's another head a buddy of mine gave me. He owned it since buying it new. He had collected at least 100 basses and 20 bass amps and simply gave it to me because he hadn't touched it in decades. I had to recap the thing before plugging it in. All the power caps were leaking.

I use the thing now mostly in a Bi Amped Bass setup and use it to drive the mids and highs. I have two other bass heads, a Crate 200W and a new Ampeg Portaflex head Each of them drive separate cabs.

 

One of these days I'll sell them all and settle for one single decent bass amp. My do the same with the guitar amps too. I'm quickly reaching retirement age and I have yearning to get one decent amp. I'm still leaning towards a Tweed Bassman Reissue. If it doesn't have them already and I'll mount my Jensen Alnico's in there. Its one of the best sounding stage amps I've heard used. Not too loud, not to wimpy. You can use a single drive pedal and a Tele and make the thing do anything you want.

[Mikeo]

I spent almost a year test driving bass amps. Everything from American made Ampegs to SWR, Eden, Hartke amps.

 

 

After all was said and done, I heard about this new company called Ashdown, so I found a dealer in FLA and called them. Bass Central. I loved the Ampeg amps, but this was for just fun.

 

I settled on the Ashdown ABM 500 4x10 combo. The 2x10 combo was the same price, so what the heck I got the bigger on.

 

What was I thinking, the amp came freight on a pallet, an weighs 110lb. I never move it anyway, it's just my cellar player studio fun amp. Just about 20 years later I still have the thing. I got the EQ foot switch and the sub foot switch too.

 

 

These days things are different. I think my next amp will be one of those Quilter micropro combos. They make 4 of them and I called the Quilter company. They told me to seriously look at the 8" speaker one. I was thinking I would like something bigger, but not the HD one.

 

IDK. I wish there was a dealer whert I could line em up and demo them all at once.

 

Maybe NYC at Sam Ash.

[video=youtube;GB30KQd-iQY]

 

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

A popular amp in this country is the JCM 800. It sounds great with distortion pedals. Unfortunately' date=' I prefer not to use distortion pedals now. I want a real amp. That's why I like to get the JCM 900 more.[/quote']

 

No offense but...

 

Repeat after me: JCM 800 >>>> JCM 900.

 

All day, every day, and twice on Sunday.

 

The JCM 800 IS a real amp - even if you're using a pedal with it to goose it / add dirt.

 

I got into the the distortion pedal thing first buying about 8 distortion pedals to get different amp like tones. but I wanna get out of that and just get a good amp for my sound.

 

Then get a good amp. Not that the JCM 900 is a bad amp necessarily - if that's what you like, then go with it... but to suggest that the JCM 800 isn't a "real amp" is just laughable.

 

As far as pedals vs amps for overdrive and dirt, put me down in the "all of the above" category. But if you want to do amp-generated dirt at reasonable, ear-safe, real-world volume levels, then smaller amps are the way to go, not 50-100W models. If you want a 50W or larger amp to break up, you're going to need to crank it to ear-splitting volume levels, or you're going to need a master volume control, which basically relies on preamp based distortion, which is much different in character than a lower wattage amp cranked up and running hard - that will give you much more power amp breakup, which can sound and feel significantly different.

 

 

[Jazzer2020]

WRG and Mikeo, pardon my ignorance, but what are the reasons a 6-string guitarist would want to buy a bass amp, especially over any 6-string guitar amp?

[mbengs1]

 

No offense but...

 

Repeat after me: JCM 800 >>>> JCM 900.

 

All day, every day, and twice on Sunday.

 

The JCM 800 IS a real amp - even if you're using a pedal with it to goose it / add dirt.

 

 

 

Then get a good amp. Not that the JCM 900 is a bad amp necessarily - if that's what you like, then go with it... but to suggest that the JCM 800 isn't a "real amp" is just laughable.

 

As far as pedals vs amps for overdrive and dirt, put me down in the "all of the above" category. But if you want to do amp-generated dirt at reasonable, ear-safe, real-world volume levels, then smaller amps are the way to go, not 50-100W models. If you want a 50W or larger amp to break up, you're going to need to crank it to ear-splitting volume levels, or you're going to need a master volume control, which basically relies on preamp based distortion, which is much different in character than a lower wattage amp cranked up and running hard - that will give you much more power amp breakup, which can sound and feel significantly different.

 

 

The reason I like the JCM 900 more is coz it's more for hi-tech rock, but still sounds warm. Is it popular with the shred guys ? or the instrumental rock people?... and then it I think it sounds great with metal too. I used the amp model of the JCM900 on my Digitech RP on my demos and I think it had the warmest modern sound on that effects processor. I also used the Mesa dual rectifier amp model but it's a bit too metallic. I prefer a rock tone reminiscent of Hendrix but more modern, which is what the JCM 900 is really. But since these are just amp models, I'd like to hear the real thing. So I really can't wait to get my modern sounding rock-geared halfstack! ) but i'm sure the JCM 800 is a fantastic amp, I just don't like the artists it's related with.

[1001gear]

Not that this matters to me but I read the 900 uses a diode to drive the lead channel. Ok OCDs use diodes but still...

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

The reason I like the JCM 900 more is coz it's more for hi-tech rock, but still sounds warm. Is it popular with the shred guys ? or the instrumental rock people?... and then it I think it sounds great with metal too. I used the amp model of the JCM900 on my Digitech RP on my demos and I think it had the warmest modern sound on that effects processor. I also used the Mesa dual rectifier amp model but it's a bit too metallic. I prefer a rock tone reminiscent of Hendrix but more modern, which is what the JCM 900 is really. But since these are just amp models, I'd like to hear the real thing. So I really can't wait to get my modern sounding rock-geared halfstack! ) but i'm sure the JCM 800 is a fantastic amp, I just don't like the artists it's related with.

 

Which RP do you have?

 

Have you tried the actual AMPS? Not the models in an effects processor, but the actual Marshall amps?

 

No offense, but until you do, you really don't know what they sound like. You may know what a model of them sounds like, but don't assume that is going to give you a 100% accurate representation of what the actual modeled hardware really sounds and feels like.

 

Nor IMO should you base your amp choice solely on the "artists associated with" any particular amp. While that may help you determine some things you may want to try out, or narrow down the field a bit, you really need to try things for yourself.

 

As someone who has played through and recorded all three of the amps you've mentioned (JCM800/900, Dual Rectifier) numerous times, I can tell you that, regardless of genre, I'd rather have the JCM800 over either of the other two amps, and by a considerable margin.

 

As always, YMMV.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Not that this matters to me but I read the 900 uses a diode to drive the lead channel. Ok OCDs use diodes but still...

 

Indeed it does. It doesn't mean it's bad necessarily, but it's not 100% tube-based distortion. If you really want diode clipping on a JCM800, you can toss any number of pedals in front of one...

 

 

[Jazzer2020]

It seems replies are more likely to get noticed than comments so...

 

"WRG and Mikeo, pardon my ignorance, but what are the reasons a 6-string guitarist would want to buy a bass amp, especially over any 6-string guitar amp?"

 

• 
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

It seems replies are more likely to get noticed than comments so...

 

"WRG and Mikeo, pardon my ignorance, but what are the reasons a 6-string guitarist would want to buy a bass amp, especially over any 6-string guitar amp?"

 

 

I know you're not asking me but here's my take on it...

 

It entirely depends on the bass amp. I used to use a silverface 50W Fender Bassman head, and it was a great sounding amp for guitar when coupled with a cabinet filled with guitar speakers.

 

Most "guitar" or "bass" amps will amplify the full audible frequency spectrum - it's usually the speakers that make the biggest difference in the sound you hear.

 

The original late 1950s era 4x10 Tweed Bassman combo was also an excellent amp for guitars - in fact, it's far better suited for use with guitars than for bass - mainly due to the amount of power (~45W) and the speakers it contained.

 

Typically, a modern bass amp will have much more power and oftentimes will be fitted with a selection of speakers that can more easily reproduce not only lower frequencies (most guitar speakers roll off at around 70 Hz, while the low E string on a bass is around 40 Hz), but also higher ones than the typical guitar amp can generate. The usual guitar speakers top out at around 6-7 kHz, but many modern bass amps will have a high frequency tweeter in them that extends the HF reproduction much higher than that. Therefore, while earlier bass amps / speaker cabs are more in keeping with the usual frequency range of typical / modern electric guitar amps, many modern bass amps / speaker cabs are less than ideal for use with guitar unless you're looking for an extended bandwidth / more high-fidelity / full frequency response type of sound. This would be more commonly sought after for use with things like electric-acoustic guitars as opposed to electric guitars, but it really is all about individual preferences and the type of sound the player is seeking.

[Jazzer2020]

OK thanks Phil, I learned something new today.

However, a couple of things jump to the top of my mind with this.

 

In most guitar amps, the reverb is acceptable and players don't add a reverb pedal.

With a bass amp, a reverb pedal would seem to be imperative right?

 

In addition, all of those effects that companies put in new guitar amps these days,

they aren't there with those old bass amps right? And so it would mean pedals galore

to be added (not that players don't add them anyway).

 

 

 

[1001gear]

In most guitar amps, the reverb is acceptable and players don't add a reverb pedal.

With a bass amp, a reverb pedal would seem to be imperative right?

 

In addition, all of those effects that companies put in new guitar amps these days,

they aren't there with those old bass amps right? And so it would mean pedals galore

to be added (not that players don't add them anyway).

 

 

Why would any kind of pedal be imperative to a basser? Most bassing amounts to getting the right inversion across and most bass parts are simple and nondescript except they gotta be there. Bassists I know just plug and play the fattest bottom they can dial in.

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

OK thanks Phil, I learned something new today.

However, a couple of things jump to the top of my mind with this.

 

In most guitar amps, the reverb is acceptable and players don't add a reverb pedal.

With a bass amp, a reverb pedal would seem to be imperative right?

 

Depends on what you want to use the bass amp for, as well as your personal preferences. Most people tend to avoid the use of reverb on bass - even in the studio, where reverb is commonly used on vocals and on various instruments, reverb is rarely used on bass, and the reverb that is used on other things will often be processed with EQ to remove the very high and especially the very low frequencies from either the reverb send or the reverb return. This is done to make the mix less "muddy" - using reverb on low frequencies is a recipe for mud. Reverb + low frequencies creates a very indistinct sound.

 

Reverb is much more commonly used with guitar than on bass - but not universally. Some guitar amps don't have any reverb at all (VibroChamp, Princeton Amp, Tweed Deluxe, etc.), and not everyone likes to use reverb on guitar... some prefer using a delay instead, while others like both delay and reverb, and still others prefer a completely "dry" sound.

 

In addition, all of those effects that companies put in new guitar amps these days,

they aren't there with those old bass amps right? And so it would mean pedals galore

to be added (not that players don't add them anyway).

 

You're right - most older bass amps lack effects. Even most modern bass amps tend to lack onboard effects, with the notable exception of compression. If you use a bass amp with a guitar and like the sound of various effects, then pedals or other "outboard" effects would be needed.