Is there an advantage in using amp gain than distortion pedals?

[mbengs1]

does it make a difference when you use pedals than channel switching for distortion? i can't really tell the difference. amp distortion and pedal distortion sound the same to me. and you don't have to run pedals through the loop when using pedals.

[onelife]

When I was playing through a Fender Twin Reverb with EVM speakers I found that, because of the wide frequency response of the amp, any pedal I introduced into the system sounded extremely thin compared to the straight through sound. My Twin was one of the Master Volume models so, with a Les Paul Custom, I was able to push the amp nicely into overdrive.

 

With a smaller Fender amp, a Princeton Reverb with a Jensen Alnico speaker, I sometimes use a Boss Blues Driver and it sounds natural - like the amp has an extra gain stage.

 

 

Personally, I find there is a big difference between the sound of amplifier overdrive and distortion pedals but then I'm not a real high gain player.

[bluesmann]

I've been messin round with AST head with the guitar direct in. (stock speaker sux) changed it. V1 I used a 50's tung sol long black plate (Rare find indeed) Tested high gain. power section has a matched pair of Bendix 5992 (6V6 type) its thick and harmonically rich sounding all by its self, no pedals needed. There is a sweet spot where it all comes together with just enough compression which in return causes sustain.

 

Is there a advantage?

 

Well most delays will work better before the power amp after pre / in a fx loop using amp overdrive. Into a clean tube amp I've found JJ ECC83 work better with od pedals but it still depends on the amp design. For me its all been trial and error. Its complex and I don't know the science because everything effects everything else. setup, pickup height, cables except after a buffer. One pedal into a clean amp has never worked for me. I don't think anyone can tell you what's going to work for you. I've been checking into some FET comps lately. good luck

[Bucksstudent]

Are you just a troll or something?

 

There is a huge difference between the natural gain of an amp versus a distortion or even most overdrive pedals. Traditionally, you use overdrive and distortion to kick the gain on the amp up a notch. Unless we're talking fuzz or pedals like Boss DS-1 or the Metal Zone, players didn't start using pedals in lieu of amp gain until fairly recently. There are exceptions to that rule, but there's definitely a difference.

 

You can't put the sound of a cranked Vox or Marshall into a pedal. They're many who tried, but I've never heard one that accomplished it. Gain and volume are the holy grail of tone, IMO. I'm not a gear snob, either.

[bluesmann]

The amplification happens within the tubes / valves. You can take those amps you're talking about and put tubes that are made today in them. The results will not even be close to what sound was available in the early years of amplification. Mullard is the sound. Mullard is the overdrive. nothing offered today spec's to RCA standards (that I'm aware of) show me a amp with new tube offerings that will make my jaw drop. none of them will compress and overdrive correctly compared to the standard set. So what's a poor boy to do? Add what's missing to the equation with pedals. I have some Bendix 5751's that test higher gain than any 12ax7 made today. A 5751 is supposed to be a lower gain tube. So where is the huge different you speak about?

Its in the tubes brother not the amps. for those stirred to go try some nos tubes, get a orange VT1000 first because the thieves and liars are everywhere. and do watch out for Jesse the money snatcher. Half of what I find on ebay gets returned .

[mbengs1]

Are you just a troll or something?

 

You can't put the sound of a cranked Vox or Marshall into a pedal. They're many who tried, but I've never heard one that accomplished it. Gain and volume are the holy grail of tone, IMO. I'm not a gear snob, either.

 

no i'm not a troll. just sharing a thought. you can't put the sound of a cranked marshall into a pedal but if the people in power perfect the technology of amp modeling so it mimics the sound of the amp its modeling perfectly, getting the sound of a cranked marshall through a pedal must be possible.

[soundcreation]

 

no i'm not a troll. just sharing a thought. you can't put the sound of a cranked marshall into a pedal but if the people in power perfect the technology of amp modeling so it mimics the sound of the amp its modeling perfectly, getting the sound of a cranked marshall through a pedal must be possible.

 

 

 

Sound maybe. Feel....not yet. Not that I've ever tried anyway.

 

There is a response factor that tubes give (not always...some tube amps suck) that has yet to be modeled.

 

Plus every distortion pedal I've ever heard....whether it's the ones I've played or youtube demos...has a color too them. The more distortion pedals I hear the less I want any of them.

[soundcreation]

I disagree. Obviously tubes make a difference in tone...that goes with out saying. But I've got a fantastic set of old school Valvo's (Mullard) and while I do love the sound they make the difference between them and a set of groove tubes is not THAT dramatic.

 

I'll post an A/B shootout I did with them below. See if you know which is which.

[soundcreation]

[YOUTUBE]pV-NLc5Lc0o[/YOUTUBE]

[mistersully]

there is a difference

 

but i'm REALLY happy with my wampler plexi drive deluxe pedal

[bluesmann]

I didn't like the sound of either one. No even order, lets say butter. BTW, what's pushing them in the preamp, especially V1, makes all the different in the world. shi- in shi- out. Trust me, you haven't arrived yet based on this clip. imo

[soundcreation]

lol....ok man...whatever...

[WRGKMC]

I have some modeling pedals and rack units that nail the sound of their amp counterparts very well.

Maybe you guys need to expand your pedal collection because they come closer then ever now.

 

On a recording properly tracked and mixed its absolutely impossible to tell a difference.

 

Amp drive channels can be good to outright awful depending on the amp type. You would think with the extra cost and space the electronics in a head would be a step above many pedals. 30 years ago you'd probably be right, but today it just doesn't hold true in most cases.

SS used to be the worst but many new designs have gotten so much better in the past 20 years or so, its just not the case.

 

Tubes are tubes. If you're talking tube drive into a driven speaker with no other solid state devices in the chain

it has the tone and feel of compressed saturation with even order harmonics which are very pleasing to the ears.

 

I do prefer tubes myself because its a technology I grew up with and even trained in to became a tech.

 

I'm not blind to the fact however that tube technology is on life support. There have been no new tubes or circuits have been invented in many decades. What is being made is simply clones from the past and circuits are simply adaptations that make minor changes.

 

You also have a flood of low quality tube amps poorly designed using low grade parts that don't come close to producing good tube tone, so you cant make blanket statements that say one technology is good or one is bad. You have to drill down and take it on an individual basis to determine what's good and this is bad.

 

I do find it amusing when a musician says he prefers tubes yet uses a chain of 10 solid state pedals and the tube amp is merely a power amp. Those pedals aren't going to produce even order harmonics just because you have a tube power amp at the end of the chain, so those musicians are essentially hybrids just like their rigs are using whatever sounds best for them.

 

Add to this some manufacturers are combining SS and tubes together using some nifty ideas that seem to be getting better, or at least more popular.

 

In the past, Solid state makers tried for a long time to recreate what tubes do and often failed because of the way transistors have a short gain slope and the required more gain stages to get the signal to higher volumes. They were able to get clean tones very well even on many older amps but for drive the sine wave would get clipped to produce odd order harmonics which a musician with a trained ear can easily detect by the way string beating occurs.

 

Newer designs have gotten past many of those hurtles now to make some SS units that not only sound right but also have the feel of tubes. They still have to do more to get the string touch/attack to match as the signal gets pushed into saturation softly, but I can say some of the newer pedals like the Vox Stomplab series and others even have that nailed down closer then its ever been. When you add some of the high resolution digital modeling some amps can be convincing enough where its only a difference in the mind of the performer.

 

Of course if you purchase a pedal today that was based on older designs they will still behave like they did in the past. There are scores of these older generation SS pedals that don't come close to sounding or feeling tube like, nor were they ever supposed to. Many remain popular because they do things tube amps simply cant on their own. Even when these pedals are modded you still cant consider them to be new technology because the components used just don't do what tubes do.

 

Some of the amps that use FET and Mosfets, use circuits that emulate how tubes actually work very well and can be convincing enough for a performer to have difficulty telling the difference in a blind comparison. When you add some high resolution digital modeling its actually pretty amazing what can be done.

.

[bluesmann]

I don't mean to rag on your tone or anything like that. The only examples I have where you can hear is in some of my recordings. If you wish I'll post a example. Modern preamp tubes suck bad compared. 10 dollar turds.

[onelife]

Sound maybe. Feel....not yet. Not that I've ever tried anyway.

 

A very successful guitarist friend of mine used an analogy of a punching bag. He said that using emulators was like hitting the surface of the bag and that was it - whereas using a full blown tube rig was like hitting the bag and having the ability to decide how far you were going to push your fist into it.

[Bucksstudent]

Dear mother of God.

[soundcreation]

I've tried many different pre amp tubes and they make much less of a difference in tone. There are currently NOS Chinese military grade Beijing 12ax7's which have a very good reputation among the tube snob crowd.

 

Power tube's make way more of a difference.

 

But by all means....feel free to post any vids you'd like.

[soundcreation]

Yeah I like that one. It does make sense.

 

I always say with modeled amps, it's like you're playing a recording of a great amp. Sounds great, and nobody will know the difference,,,,,but the player will feel the difference.

[badpenguin]

I am somewhat of a dinosaur here. I don't really care for modeling amps, since I DON'T want to hear the amp, I want to hear the amplified guitar. I love my Yamaha THR-10 for recording, just because I don't have to plug in 4 or 5 pedals to get a tone.

BUT the difference between amp gain and pedal gain, is like comparing Van Hamster's tone from the studio to the live recording 20 years apart. Stupid comparison....

[GAS Man]

Gosh, I think it just kind of depends upon what tone you want. I'm no longer doing any gigging, i.e. back to the lowly guitar player-life-form of a "home hobbyist/enthusiast" but I do find that a "bit of both" can do wonders for tone.

 

Lately I've been favoring a Timmy overdrive pedal to nudge the gain along at lower volumes.

 

So far my favorite OD pedals are the Timmy, Fulltone OCD, TS-9 and the Tech 21 Sans Amp Blonde. I really can't say enough good things about that Blonde by Tech 21. (I bought all of them and that "character" pedal is my fave) It's not at all like it's the "be all end all" of OD pedals, but It will add girth to an amp's tone that may otherwise seem implausible. The only downside is that some amps "Can't take the truth" of what the Blonde can deliver, and may start to sound very woofy (which can be adjusted with its 3-band EQ) if the don't have enough capacity from the speakers. That pedal is designed to take you from black face tone and then as you turn the Character knob clockwise it morphs into the Tweed tone. Somewhere around 12 o'clock high, or slightly more (with the gain knob around the same spot), is where I love that pedal's OD tone. So if you want to convert an amp's tone that may be more "hi-fi" or more British in character (e.g Vox or more modern Marshalls) , the Blonde can help you pull out some nice Tweed tone OD (like early Fender Tweed amps or the earliest of Marshalls). And yeah, I know it's a modeling pedal, but when it comes right down to it, it's still basically an OD pedal with some voicing added in. But I'm much more of a OD player than a Distortion box player. Oddly, later in life I'm getting more and more into the crunchy tones whereas I used to be more in pursuit of great clean tones, like what you'd get from a '65 Twin and a sick amount of reverb. But distortion tones are rough on the wife and probably my neighbors.

[mbengs1]

I don't really need channel switching amps. i just want a good clean tone and add distortion and overdrive through pedals. but i can change. i just find using pedals much easier and simple. what are some great single channel 100 watt heads out there?

[Danhedonia]

There are a lot of people here who are going to be very surprised when they learn how out-of-date their ideas about amp modeling are.

[soundcreation]

There are a lot of people here who are going to be very surprised when they learn how out-of-date their ideas about amp modeling are.

 

 

Like what?

[WRGKMC]

Just buy a SS power amp and use your pedals as a preamp then. Many players do this using rack gear.

[Bucksstudent]

There are a lot of people here who are going to be very surprised when they learn how out-of-date their ideas about amp modeling are.

 

I've heard some great examples via PC apps, but I'm not sure why this thread took that direction. I haven't recorded with a real amp since 2013. It's always my Digitech RP-150, which is a decade out of it's prime.

 

FWIW, I prefer my fuzz pedal over turning my Marshall to eleven.