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will a Boss DS-1 break an amp if turned up loud?


mbengs1

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You worry about too much. The answer is no but no one does that because bypassing the effect causes the instrument level to disappear.

 

Just set the pedal for unity where the driven volume and the bypassed volume of the clean guitar are the same.

 

You can then mark your pedal settings with a sliver of masking tape so you know exactly where the knobs need to be set for 1:1 volume levels.

If you then need more volume simply turn the amp up and leave the pedals gain alone.

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You'd have to push an amps input very hard to blow something, much more then a pedal can provide. There again I wouldn't take a clean boost pedal and boost a SS amp input by 30dB like some can. Tube amps would simply distort the preamp tubes with no consequences. Solid State components are made of layers of silicone in direct contact with each other.

 

The current from super strong signals can overheat the layers and damage them. It would need to be allot stronger then most guitar pedals however. Transistors biased to run clean have a super nasty breakup when driven to the point of frying. Its why many guitarists hated them in the beginning. Few had natural sounding drive circuits and when the cleans were pushed hard the ripping sound of clean circuits being overdriven sounded like a bad cord or blown speaker. Nothing of value musically. Modern SS amps have built in drive circuits designed to be overdriven, like mounting that DS-1 circuit inside the head for a drive channel that wont damage anything.

 

The first stage in a SS amp is usually a clean boost however. Most manufacturers design it to handle even the loudest pedals however so its unlikely you'll damage anything so long as the amp is healthy.

 

Like I said, so long as the driven sounds loudness is equal to the clean guitars bypassed sound you'll be fine. Even if the drive is boosted up several dB for giving a lead guitar a boost its not going to hurt anything. It may sound mean but that's simply a psychoacoustic effect of the drive being louder then it actually is.

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