Do You Use Your Amps Overdrive Or A Pedal

[Muzz]

Distortion pedals are very useful for holding up the lounge when one of the legs break. There are a few ways to get some nice creamy tone,

Drop your amp off with the local amp guy and ask him to put an extra tube gain stage in.

or

or one of these

or one of these with one of these plugged in.

I would even bend my religious principles for this or this.

Who was it who said that life is too short for bad tone?

Any others?

Edited December 5, 2007 by Muzz

[avengers63]

I'm an unrepentant pedal junkie. For amplification, I use a Crate power block and a 2x12 cabinet. Everything else comes from my 3 pedal boards. In order, they are:

BOARD 1

Rocktron Big Crunch compressor

BOSS Acoustic Simulator

VOX wah

Digitech RP-50

used only for reverb & as a tuner

old DOD 6-band EQ

BOARD 2 (all distortion)

Digitech Bad Monkey

Marshall Gov'ner

Marshall Jackhammer

BOSS DS-1

BOSS Metal (I think it's the HM-1, but I'm not sure)

Danelectro Fab Metal

BOARD 3

MXR Phase 90

DOD Flanger

DOD Chorus

Rocktron Short Timer delay

Rocktron Hush

BBE Sonic Maximizer

I'm pretty sure that all of these have a true bypass switch, so the tone isn't TOO muddied. The only ones that are always on are the reverb, hush, & maximizer. The others are all determined by the song. I play a wide variety of styles, so I need a wide variety of distortions. The two Marshalls are my favorites. I use them for medium & heavy OD. I rarely use teh DS-1. I'm considering taking it out completely.

For Sunday morning service, I leave the distortion board at home. I just bring an old yellow Digitech pedal that has two different distortion settings. The music director doesn't let me go too crazy, but he does let me use distortion. I've been playing with him for about 6 months, and I'm still amazed that he lets me do what I do. We've been pulling them kicking & screaming into semi-modern music.

I have a Danelectro Free Speech that I've been learning how to use, but I'm not quite there yet.

[WezV]

mostly just use the amp but a boost pedal comes in handy to push it that bit harder. I also have a big muff (the pedal you dirty buggers) - its an altogether different sound to what i can get from the amp

[Muzz]

I did forget one. These little red kidney bean things sound great, there must be a pair of tiny tubes hidden in there somewhere .

Edited December 8, 2007 by Muzz

[Muzz]

This has been sitting at the back of my shelves for a while. I had forgotten how much fun this toy is.

I plugged it into my computer and played a little bit of Monty Norman for a sound bite

So don't be shy, boast your distortion toast

Edited December 11, 2007 by Muzz

[Jehle]

I've been a long time user of the Sans Amp.

Dead simple to use and since I don't gig, I can set it to the sound I need for the bass, guitar, acoustic, voice, and overdub to my hearts content.

I tried using the POD, Johnson, Pandora, and other amp emulators and they all tried to do too much. The Sans Amp is just an amp in a stomp box and that it.

[Muzz]

I have never tried a Sans Amp I must give it a go if you recommend it. I have noticed that the power amp that is paired with various preamps makes a huge difference to the tone. There seems to be a compatibility or chemistry issue at play.