I play at low volume at home. Will an overdrive pedal allow me to get an overdriven sound from my 5 wat tube amp even at low volumes? Thanks.

Hi Rudy: essentially - yes.

What's the amp, BTW?

And what kind of music are you into? That'll help folks suggest the right pedal - and they're all itching to start in on that!

Cheers - C

I don’t own any over drive pedals so I’m not for sure how they respond at low volumes but if I had to guess, the answer to your questions would be yes…I do however own a few distortion (which are essentially higher gain overdrive) pedals and use them in the fashion in which you speak. Turn the pedal on and at full volume on the guitar you get max gain from the pedal..as you roll the guitar volume back you go from lead gain the overdriven crunch, to blues kinda tones, to all most clean pre amp clipped kind of sound….most pedals have again controls on them as well (depending on what you got) to further shape tones… for low volumes it’s the way to go as you don’t have to push the valves to high output (volume) for your dirt…..

Cheers
Bill

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(80’s Hair Metal) = A snapshot in time before Grunge ruined Rock & Roll forever!!!!

Ceri:

The amp is a Mesa 5:25 and the musical genre is blues. Thanks!

I use mt Ibanez TS 808 with my 5 watt Champion 600 all the time.

I keep the amp set at around 8.5. This is sort of my sweet spot YMMV. I get a pretty nice variation of what Stevie Ray Vaughan called "the King Tone" (Earl,Freddie,BB,Albert,) and sort of the base of his tone.

When i used to play blues rock kind of stuff live I used an old Deluxe Reverb. With this set up, and my outboard reverb tank, I get a really nice low volume reproduction of that tone. In fact I can't get that sweet tone on the bigger amp without raising to eviction level volumes. It's not exactly the same, but in the ballpark, and just as good, only it has it's own character.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

TwelveBar:

Where are you playing to allow you to have the amp at about 8.5? I have my master volume at about 1. If I were to make it 8.5, it would be audible a block away and would be completely ear splitting to play in my house.

Oh neat! No problems there, then.

Like Bill said above, set the amp's output where you (and the neighbors) want it, then balance the "drive" and "level" knobs on the pedal for the sound you want.

Do all that with the guitar's volume knob set to about six. Then you can drive the whole set up from the guitar: turn the volume up for more grit, down to clean things up.

Drive safely! - C

I live in a 4-plex townhouse, all units side by side.

If I play in the living room I turn down, but I tend to use the volume knob on my guitar rather than the amp. I still get that nice creamy crunch when the overdrive kicks in.(Edit--Ceri is right on the mark, i do the volume just above halfway on my guitar too, then I can get a HUGE variety of tones from my guitar by rolling the volume knob.)

Keep in mind, unlike yours, my mini amp has no master volume.I can't get that breakup unless the amp is turned up a bit. I tend to like the way non master volume amps break up a bit better, but don't take that to mean I don't like how amps with one sound. You should be able to squeeze out those broken up sounds at a lower volume.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I use a Digitech RP355...it has the tube screamer pedals and a bunch of others. If you shop around you can get a good deal on it. It also has some really nice features...headphone plug in and ipod in(all 1/8" jacks) The learn a lick feature is really nice too because you can slow the song down to 1/4 speed and it stays in tune...really great for working out leads. JMo...hope it helps

PS - though what I'm ignoring (above) is that with the control set on that Mesa 5:25 you should be able to get a pretty good drive tone at humane volume levels just by balancing the gain and master knobs, no? And the five amp option should make that even easier.

With that amp a drive pedal is just icing on the cake...

Cheers - C

Ceri this is right on, what the drive pedal does is give you instant access to some extra gain that you would otherwise have to bend over and adjust the amp to get.

that said there are a variety of nice OD pedals. My fave is my TS 808, but it is an original. The new ones are nice, but they are pricey. I took a friends son out to look at some, and I have to say I was really impressed with the Danelectro Cool Cat (not just the overdrive, but the whole range of effects,) they are cheap, but sound really really good, to my ear better than a few that cost almost 10 times as much. i am not sure if they are robust enough to tour with, but certainly they are more than sturdy enough for home use.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Hi Twelvebar: we've both been writing - and editing - simultaneously... I went back and changed "what we're all ignoring - " to "what I'm ignoring - " when I saw that you'd gone back to make that very point.

Cheers - C

hehe, so is it "Great minds think alike?" or "Simple minds seldom differ?"!!

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Great minds think alike - oh, you just said that!

- C

Ceri:

I can get a reasonable drive tone out of the Mesa 5:25 at low volumes. I just don't know whether a pedal will help make it more pronounced.