setting up an amp with a scope

[awilson40]

So, I had my Music Man 130 on the bench to do a couple repairs and a mod or two and I was using a scope, dummy load and a signal generator to check crossover distortion etc when I had an Idea.

 

I ran the tone generator signal (set at my guitar's voltage level )

through my pedal board and to the amp ( Zoom G2, barber Direct Drive and a Bad Monkey)

 

Then I kicked on the Monkey. I didnt have a nice , slightly clipped signal, it was real triangle shaped at the peaks. So I kept tweaking the tone controls on the amp until I had a nice smoothly clipped signal at different frequencies.

Then I did the same with the Direct drive. I kept playing with the amp tone controls and the Monkey tone controls until I had good , smooth clipping on the monkey, and a little harsher clipping on the DD.

 

Setting the amp to match my pedals this way really resulted in a great sound.

It was very interesting how the tone controls would alter the wave shape of the distortion pedals.