Amp overdrive VS. Pedal overdrive

[rickenbackerkid]

I've been on an interesting tonal journey this year. I started out playing a 50 watt clean amp, with a couple of overdrive pedals and a digital delay that I loved. All was well, but I noticed that in the studio, when I could crank the amp, I got an amazing dirty tone out of it. There was no way I could crank it live, so I started keeping a eye out for a low watt amp. I ended up getting a THD Univalve, 12 watts and built in attenuator to get the volume down even lower.

At first I had the amp set slightly dirty and was still using pedals, but I couldn't escape some fizz and general slight naff-ness. In frustration I plugged direct into the amp and was blown away by how good it sounded. So I started using the pedals less, but it was hard work training myself out of just hitting a pedal to build the song up. I guess I had "past participle of get" a bit lazy.

The other part of the puzzle is that the digital delay just didn't quite work in front of the amp. I tried all kinds of settings, but the modulated, fairly big echo that I like creating too much distortion and fizz and just plain sucked. I ended up trading for a Deluxe Memory Man, which works gloriously in front of the amp. I'm still planning on getting a digital delay for dotted 8 stuff, but that won't be a major part of my sound like it has for the last 5 or so years.

TL;DR

But here we are today, the last couple of gigs I have used only one gain pedal, my EP booster, and that I have only used on single note stuff. Everything else I have done with playing dynamics. I've found I can organically go from almost totally clean to moderate OD just by adjusting my picking. If I play my Strat, the whole thing leans towards clean, if I play my ASAT then it leans towards dirty. It's making me a better and more dynamic player and the tones are really good.

Latest pedalboard:
BBE, Verbzilla, Boss DD-3, one Korg tuner are for acoustic.

Anyway, for me I think I've cracked it, and found that amp distortion kicks ass and is way better than pedals. Anyone else found that same thing? Or just think I'm an idiot?

[slash-ed]

Nah, don't be silly. There's no reason why most of the great recorded tones weren't built off a Boss Metalzone into a Fender Twin Reverb.

[Pastasauce]

Same deal for me. I haven't had a chance to play that way live yet but I'm very much looking forward to trying.

Ryan has my amp and is installing voltage scaling. Getting the plexi voice modded low input on my Marshall down to a couple of watts should be fun.

I'm also planning ahead and thinking I'll run a Pedaltrain nano, with 4 pedals: a tuner, a boost, an analogue delay and maybe a reverb. Or just the A/B switcher for my amp channels.

[Slowy]

Best tone I ever had was straight into Barnlaw's vintage AC30, wide open while I rode the guitar volume. It still gives me chills. Nothing has ever matched it.

It probably contravened someone's Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty though.

[jeremyb]

Nah, don't be silly. There's no reason why most of the great recorded tones weren't built off a Boss Metalzone into a Fender Twin Reverb.

[Bg]

Hd500,


Bogner blue and bogner red, not the pedals though....

[jeremyb]

The thing I like about clean amps is the range of tones you can get with different dirt boxes, but having played with the Soldano model on the HD500 almost exclusively recently I can appreciate the awesomeness of having one really good amp distortion, way more flexible than I imagined!

[The Scarecrow]

Amp o/d wins for me most times. But it can depend on the pedal you're using/clean platform you're going into. I used to use amp gain for one band and clean channel/od pedal for the other band. Personally, for higher gain stuff, amps always sound better to my ears, and for lower gain, pedals do a better job, but that's possibly dependant on the genres you're playing.

[Single coil]

Pedals >> Clean amp is good, dirty amp being made clean with volume control is better.
For me the argument's similar to real cheese and processed cheese, but not as bad; running pedals into the twin sounds pretty good, but it's nice having actual overdrive from the blackheart or AC30 too.

[Pastasauce]

Pedals >> Clean amp is good, dirty amp being made clean with volume control is better.
For me the argument's similar to real cheese and processed cheese, but not as bad; running pedals into the twin sounds pretty good, but it's nice having actual overdrive from the blackheart or AC30 too.

Didn't you buy a Marshall too?

[Single coil]

Yip, but I bought a sick one (knowingly) so it's still being dealt to.

[Capt. Black]

Pedals >> Clean amp is good, dirty amp being made clean with volume control is better.
For me the argument's similar to real cheese and processed cheese, but not as bad; running pedals into the twin sounds pretty good, but it's nice having actual overdrive from the blackheart or AC30 too.

Wait til you try driving a fender twin into overdrive. Fuckinscaryawesome!
Put hair on your chest that will. Man card etc.

[Single coil]

I've tried that. Maybe my valves are old, cuz it sounded pretty rats.
Jumping the channels for overdrive works a treat though.

[Miza]

I've always found this an interesting debate.

While amp overdrive is much more desireable, pedal gain is much easier to obtain at reasonable volume, etc etc.

My (limited) experience with cranking my Ceriatone 18W was (while it sounded really nice) it made playing really messy. You couldn't palm-mute chords properly, there was just too much overlapping noise. It was flabby, rather than tight. Could have been partly to do with using single coils (tele), but possibly just that that amp is not designed for tight, high gain sounds.

I think my preferred option will always be a combo of both: Running an amp hot enough to get a warm clean tone just on edge of break up, and use pedals to push it into full on OD/Dist.

[Conway]

Flying in the face of current trends as usual... pedals are bestest and funest. Stuff the "less is more" brigade - more is more! The backlash starts here!