Mod sounds not compatible with cranked amps?

[joegrant413]

I'm not satisfied with the way effects like phasers or even delays sound into my amp when it's cranked. And I really like the tone of my Nano head cranked up, but I'm starting to think you just *can't* do a lot of great modulation sounds with that.

 

Is that just the way it is?

 

 

I mean, if you did want to have some cool overdrive + phaser stuff going on, does that mean you really need to do this...

 

guitar -> OD pedal -> phaser -> clean tube amp

 

 

... and just stay away from this....?

 

guitar -> phaser -> cranked tube amp

 

 

 

If that's so, then I need to look around for a good OD pedal sound, and feed that into my Pro Junior clean, rather than my Nano cranked up.

 

 

Any thoughts?

-- Joe

[Wyatt]

Yep.

Not only is the amp distorting the modulated tone so that it is unrecognizible, but it also compresses the signal, so that repeats and degrading signals, which are supposed to be fainter get boosted to the same level as the dry guitar sound.

That's why many hi-gain amps haveFX loops. It alows you to dial in some heavy overdrive in the preamp and then place the mod after that.

However, smaller, more vintage amps, where we crank the power tubes too, aren't really helped by an FX loop.

[joegrant413]

Thanks, Wyatt!

I was also reading some Q&A stuff today from Foxrox's site about the TZF Paradox, and Dave pretty much said you need to run the Paradox, or a lot of other mod pedals -- with the OD/Dist -> mod pedal -> clean amp chain.

- Joe