Guitar Gear Forum

For years and years, I was an "amp only for gain" kinda guy. Didn't even like boosts so much, tbh. Certainly didn't dig running dirt pedals into a clean amp.

Welp, turns out getting a different amp, one famous for taking pedals well, changed my tune on that. I've actually gigged now with the Plexi set clean & using pedals for all my dirt ~ something I *never* thought I'd ever do!

But my current favorite set up is to have the Plexi (or whatever amp) set for low to mid gain crunch (nice, roaring growl, but not compressed & easily cleaned up from the guitar) and to use dirt boxes (either as boost or dialed to add gain from the pedal) for extra gain and for different flavoring. Seems so incredibly versatile that way, and the higher gain stuff actually sounds better that way to me now than a guitar straight into a high gain amp.

So, how do y'all do it?

Every way

I use pedals, boost the amps, boost distortion pedals with OD pedals... I have a preamp with more than enough gain..

pedals for now, but I prefer an amp with a dirty channel.

I've tried the cranked up amp thing, and it doesn't really jive with my style.

Depends... Pedals into a clean and amp dirt.

my current set up is a Plexi clone set to a "dirty clean" and using different pedals to get different OD, Dist and Fuzz tones

Straight in. Well, TU-2---> NS-2 then SLO/Sig:X

At the moment, a semi dirty Plexi, sodomized with pedals.

EQ or Aphex Xciter thrown in at low volumes to make up for low end you dont get with the amp not being turned up

I get my gains from protein and carbohydrates and fats.

ke2 wrote:Every way

+1

I have 4 basic sounds at the moment that are a combination of my OD pedal and my amp's channels:

Clean - amp clean channel/pedal off
OD - amp clean channel/pedal on
High Gain Rhythm - amp drive channel/pedal off
Lead - amp drive channel/pedal on


It's a pretty simple yet versatile set up.

A thing to remember when getting gain from pedals with NMV Marshalls, is your presence knob. How you set it, can make, or break your toan, IMO

Depends on what I'm doing, honestly. Lately, I've been using boosts into a semi-clean, slightly crunchy amp. But, every way as pointed out by ke2 would be my answer.

bogner fish or mako mak4

gsp1101 for fuzz and boosts

Uhhhhh all. No overdrive pedals though.

Fuzz, amp distortion, power amp distortion, ear drum distortion, etc

I love a great clean channel but in all seriousness have no use for one in any band I play in. I run a semi dirty clean tone (or very light crunch, either way you would like to classify it) and use my Ultimate drive pedal for leads. Or if it is something that needs more ballz in the rhythm department, I run the lead channel and hit the drive for leads in those situations. I would actually like to find a pedal that gives me a volume boost on the lead channel with just a touch of gain increase. I seem to stay at unity volume when I hit my lead channel with the dirt I have on hand. I run a 10 band in the loop at all times, so that is out for volume boosting.

Chuck Nutz wrote:Uhhhhh all. No overdrive pedals though.

Fuzz, amp distortion, power amp distortion, ear drum distortion, etc

In all seriousness, I have never been a fan of poweramp distortion myself. Maybe I need to hear a good example of it?

cavitation wrote:In all seriousness, I have never been a fan of poweramp distortion myself. Maybe I need to hear a good example of it?

This. or maybe I do, but don't know it.

Amp only. I've never heard a pedal that I liked.

cavitation wrote:

Chuck Nutz wrote:Uhhhhh all. No overdrive pedals though.

Fuzz, amp distortion, power amp distortion, ear drum distortion, etc

In all seriousness, I have never been a fan of poweramp distortion myself. Maybe I need to hear a good example of it?

Depends on the amp. Some just straight up aren't meant to distort.

Other. I generally run a boost into the front of a medium-gain amp. Lately though, i've kinda messed around with the gain between the amp and the boost pedal more. For example, i normally ran 95% of my gain from my amp and just a slight amount of grit from my Green Rhino. Now that i have the Doomsday Device, i like the gain structure on it much more than the Green Rhino. Because of this, i'm running less gain on my amp and more gain on my Doomsday device.

I just got the Doomsday Device today though, so this could all change. The aggregate gain between the two ( OD pedal and amp channel) generally stays the same regardless of what i am doing though. its just a 'which gain do i like more' situation and i use more from that device than the other.

All of the above.

I voted other - because it depends what I'm playing at the moment.

If I'm playing the 5 watter, with 2 gain controls and a MV - it's usually all amp, and since it's 5 watts, a combination of pre and power tube distortion.
If I'm playing my JTM45 - it's pedal based.

Chuck Nutz wrote:

cavitation wrote:

Chuck Nutz wrote:Uhhhhh all. No overdrive pedals though.

Fuzz, amp distortion, power amp distortion, ear drum distortion, etc

In all seriousness, I have never been a fan of poweramp distortion myself. Maybe I need to hear a good example of it?

Depends on the amp. Some just straight up aren't meant to distort.

I also prefer 6l6s and usually those tubes are used for clean headroom purposes, unlike 34s which have a dirtier thing going on. I just got my first el34 amp (Blackstar...I know cheap sh*t lol) in a long time and I can say you definitely hear the character of the power tubes when you crank it up, diode-clipping be damned.

I voted for dirty amp boosted because that's my lead tone which stands out in front of my other layers of gain. Lately since I've gotten the VH100R I'm boosting a lot less often than I used to. The amp just covers all the ground I need by itself. Out of habit and experimentation I was boosting all my channel options but that habit is dying on its own. I've just been using the BB preamp as a lead boost, which is what it excels at.

Ive been boosting gain a bit lately with the MXR 10 band I just aquired.

100 watt wrote:Ive been boosting gain a bit lately with the MXR 10 band I just aquired.

10 band for me is like my bad horsie. I will never get rid of it because it is a vital piece of my rig no matter what guitar/amp combination.