Why do metal players run overdrive pedals into their amp?

[elsupermanny14]

I'm very curious as to what the overdrive pedal is for when someone is running through a Mesa Boogie or Peavey 6505? Those amps are built to have insane brutal distortion so why is the pedal needed?

 

From what I have gathered is that a pedal like a Maxon/Ibanez 808 "cleans things up" but I don't understand how.

 

Please don't poke fun at this sound because it can be bad ass!

[DaleH]

cause if they don't use it ,the cookie monster will.

[Mesa/Kramer]

The pedal is "Not" used to add more overdrive/Distortion.

 

It is used to tighten up and smooth out the amp by boosting and slightly compressing the signal.

 

Some of these high gain amps tend to get slightly muddy in the low end when the gain is set high.

 

Level on the pedal is usually set high, but the gain on the pedal set at zero.

[twisty571]

I am just a bedroom hack but from what I read it gives them more options to cut through the mix so if they have somewhat scooped mids they can add some in the pedal for cutting thru for solos and such. All stuff I don't have to worry about playing at home

[-TJ-]

adds compression

 

adds mids which helps sound bigger and stand out in the mix

 

cuts bass (depending on the pedal)

[timmyfirst]

Like most have said its basically to clip the input stage, it makes the palm mutes tighter and more aggressive.

[poolshark]

 

adds compression adds mids which helps sound bigger and stand out in the mix cuts bass (depending on the pedal)

 

 

Co-rrect. Most of them tend to add some high-end grit/fizz as well, which seems to do good things for pushing a hot tube amp. Never have liked the way most OD pedals work with a clean amp, but they do interesting things for leads on an amp that's already cooking.

[notjonahbutnoah]

Yeah, it makes it tighter.

 

I know we've all clicked out DS-1's on in front of a dirty solid state combo... it doesn't sound like that.

 

It takes what can be a really fizzy, hairy, loose distortion and turns it into a very tight, punchy metal sound. Those chugga chugga palm mutes that hit you in the chest... OD into high gain amp.

[stent]

someone already mention changing the eq of the sound. One popular option is running a tube screamer into an overdriven amp, which cuts some bass and slightly boosts mids. this might not sound good in theory or even on its own but with a band those bass frequencies can muddy the mix up when there is a bassist playing and the mid boost helps the guitar to have the right "place" in a mix.

 

it sounds cool and is alot of fun to play metal with scooped mids on your own but once you add bass and drums a guitar with this tone will almost completely disappear in the mix. The low frequencies are overpowered by the bass and the drumkit and the highs are overpowered by the cymbals. an electric guitar fills the midrange frequencies so boosting them can help it push through the mix more.

 

in terms of gain it might seem odd to add more gain to an already heavy sounding amp but the players might not have the amp's gain knob turned all the way up. by having the gain at e.g. 60% then using an overdrive pedal you have 2 sounds at the press of a footswitch. its good to try these things out yourself as some things are difficult to describe. try running an overdrive pedal into an overdriven amp and vary the gain and volume of the amp and pedal and notice the differences in tone, texture etc.