NZGuitars.com

How are you using them? Stacking? Different levels / flavours of gain? Interested to hear what you use and how!

I’ve traditionally used two drives as a three stage system, drive one (light/transparent), drive two (mid gain), third stage both drives (solo tone usually). I’ve also usually had a clean klon on if you count that as stacking, and solos get lifted with a fully clean boost that just adds volume.

What you want to know?

MattAnt wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:08 am I’ve traditionally used two drives as a three stage system, drive one (light/transparent), drive two (mid gain), third stage both drives (solo tone usually). I’ve also usually had a clean klon on if you count that as stacking, and solos get lifted with a fully clean boost that just adds volume.

What you want to know?

Pretty much exactly what you said, that’s kind of how I think I’m going to structure my board, just interested to know how others do it and what flavours of pedals combine well

- klon/es don’t like being pushed, they should be early
- generally low gain into higher gain stacks nicely but not always
- last pedal in the stack has the most say in the matter, so if you want to retain the character of a pedal in its stack put it last
- if your drive isn’t unity gain it is going to drive the next pedal a lot more for better or worse

Just experiment, there are no rules, some pedals like it and some don’t

I use a totally clean amp with 4 stages

1 as clean, slightly above unity, always on for light compression and limit headroom. Same as Mattant (I hate comps)
2 Coloured Vol boost set high, only used to push the next two drives for more gain when needed
3 Medium - high gain distortion
4 Low - medium overdrive

3 & 4 can switch position as needed. I prefer high to low because of how od's compress.

All can run together for when things get crazy but last pedal will always colour the overall sound/compression.

Jops wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:21 am I use a totally clean amp with 4 stages

1 as clean, slightly above unity, always on for light compression and limit headroom. Same as Mattant (I hate comps)
2 Coloured Vol boost set high, only used to push the next two drives for more gain when needed
3 Medium - high gain distortion
4 Low - medium overdrive

3 & 4 can switch position as needed. I prefer high to low because of how od's compress.

All can run together for when things get crazy but last pedal will always colour the overall sound/compression.

I like this. I should experiment more with what you are doing in position two, I don't do that much.

Add a clean boost at the end, after drives and fuzz, for when you just want louder. Or you can just use it on its own for a clean boost.

Conway wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:33 am Add a clean boost at the end, after drives and fuzz, for when you just want louder. Or you can just use it on its own for a clean boost.

This is how I run my clean boost, it doesn’t add even a hint of gain

I was running a clean boost like that too, to give me more hotcake!

Tube Screamer into a scooped fuzz really tightens things up! I think it's more common to run it the opposite way, but then it's too Tube Screamer-y.

At the moment I have two 'boosty' pedals at the start - uncoloured clean boost, and a mid-humped slightly dirty Tube Screamer boost. Then I have three flavours of drive - a scooped fuzz, a soft+creamy Hotcake and a bright+angry OCD. Just using one of the boosts and one of the drives at a time gives me six different options, five of which are very usable (TS into OCD not so much).

Actually, why the fuck do I have five gain pedals on my board? I play jazz.

Have a look at the Justin Johnson Rig Rundown I posted in the YouTube Goodness Thread. Forward to the pedal bit if you like. He has some interesting comments on ODs and Boosts and how he uses the different ones he has.

Normally I only run two gain pedals in parallel with each other on the ES5. Only time I might run more than one is to put a boost on is after fuzz to clean it up, or the klone into the BE-OD.. Having the es helps with all this...

Gain structures. I work from the amp backwards to the guitar. I never play clean...there is always a little bit of grit in my sound....subtle, but even a little additional boost will push it into overdrive. So on the gig board, only two gain stages...an EP Booster (Solo tool), and MI Audio Blues Pro (low level grind). And that's it. Volume knob on the guitar does the rest.

Caveat - I play Les Paul live so it drives the amp harder. But if I was swapping between say an old Strat and a Les Paul, I would need another stage to balance the signal better, so stage volume and amp drive stays somewhat similar.

Great thread. I go high gain to low gain into clean amp. First in chain is a hybrid Si/Ge fuzz. Next is a Plumes set to medium gain and then a Timmy as an always on set at a little above unity gain for a "bit more of the amp". I find this combo gives lots of options including all three on for balls to the wall. I should mention that I have taken to running an EP booster in the fx loop of my amp; hard to explain but it takes away some the stiffness of the poweramp section by adding some sag and extra dynamics at low volume. ( bedroom player mostly).

This is quite a good discussion around OD pedals and some stacking examples.