More Gainnn!

[Lord-of-the-strings]

I have a crappy Peavey Rage 158 15 watt *blushes* amp that just doesn't have enough gain, are there any simple mods I could do to it to squeeze more juice out of 'er? I'm boosting it with a boss sd-1 overdrive pedal, but it's still kind of weak to my liking. So are there any simple ways to get some more gain out of that piece of garbage?

[Mattia]

Buy a 15 watt tube amp?

If a pedal's not doing it (although a Metal Zone or similar will do more for you than, y'know, an SD-1), that's my way to go. 15-30 watts all tube can be loud as all hell.

[exafro]

Geez, how much gain do you need?

[lovekraft]

I think we've discovered your problem!

....I have a crappy Peavey Rage 158 15 watt...

You need an amp!!

[crafty]

Try a Boss DS-1 Distortion or a Danelectro FabTone. I'm looking at picking up a Duncan TweakFuzz one of these days, but the Boss and Dano are only $30-$40 and they'll give you all the distortion gain you need.

Also, you can get good tones out of that little amp if you know how to run it. Turn up the master to about 7 or 8, run your mids and lows at 3 and your highs at 5. Use the volume control on the pedals and guitar to control the volume of the sound--not the master volume on the amp. Ideally, keep the guitar around 5-7 on its volume and use the distortion pedal to pick up the gain without turning to mud.