Just curious what other people think about the differences between these types of OD/Dist & also the practicality of them all in club settings...

1. power amp overdrive, (cranked tube amp)

2. pre-amp distortion (pre-amp tube saturation at lower volumes)

3. clean amp with pedals for OD or Distortion.

I like overdriven & clean tones. When I say overdrive think in terms of Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend, & Early EVH. I don't like todays harsh toneless distortion. Classic rock overdrive tone is where it's at for me. It sounds real because it is real.

Most often people agree that classic rock tone was made up of cranked Marshalls, HiWatts, Vox amps & Fenders. I personally love the clean tone of all black face Fenders. I also really love the crunch of a cranked Marshall JTM45 & a 50w Plexi.

However, a cranked 50w amp would be way too much in the average club setting. So I look at it like this. A good Fender tube amp with a quality overdrive pedal will give me the "holy grail" clean tone that Fender is known for but will also give me something "paint chip" close to a cranked British sounding amp. Maybe not dead on, but close.

On the other side of it, a Marshall will give me that classic crunch, but will not back off into the realm of Fender clean.

It seems to me that this is the reason that the Fender / Overdrive pedal combination is so widely used.

I'm still trying to figure out if I want to crank a 22w amp in a club or use a 50w amp with pedals for overdrive.

It's obvious that there are two schools of thought on getting overdrive.

I'm interested in what some of you gigging guitarists have to say about how you do things...

There are few pedals that can realistically replicate the overdrive of a tube amp.There are more and more hibrid pedals coming on the scene that have a 12ax7 or some other small tube in the circuit that can give a very good approximation but these tend to be pricey.Of all the solid state overdrive pedals I have tried I have found that the original British made Marshall Guv'nor in the heavy metal case to be the most realistic overdrive pedal-sadly the newer ones although quite good don't have the ability to obtain the natural overdrive tone as the original.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

I definitely agree with you on that. I have the Fulltone OCD & it is a really cool & versatile pedal. But still, I like the sound of a cranked amp. I just don't find cranking an amp to be practical in a club setting. Unless it's an amp with low watts such as Deluxe Reverb RI or maybe even smaller...

Here's a link to a cool pedal by Rothwell if you want to check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntepQvucDfY

+1 on the OCD. Love that pedal......... Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

think Rory Gallagher. thats one of my favorite overdriven tones ever. tube amp plus o.d. pedal and an incredible strat.

I gotta say that I love max clean headroom and add in an OD pedal. I recently discovered that the ProCo Rat gets some great bluesy OD tones which sound amazing through the Twin Reverb with Strat or Les Paul. I always thought the thing was just a distortion monster. Wrong!!! But I get all the distortion I need out of it too.

Hi JPH74: I think it's a very interesting question, so for starters thank you for that!

Without in the slightest intending to be facetious it rather depends what you mean by a "club setting". There's those you can comfortably fill with one of the modern small five watt amps and there's others where a full stack is perfectly in order.

Be clear, my playing out days are far behind me. But during the setting sun of that time my personal holy grail amp came along and it is still my ultimate babe to this day: my Marshall TSL122 100 watt Triple Super Lead combo.

Three channels, each with gain and master volume - so that takes care of the issue of not blasting people against the wall in a tiny room to begin with (unless you want to ). There are respected ears on this Forum that point out that the clean channel on that amp is not the same animal as a classic Fender sound, and they are of course right. But that clean tone does me quite well enough and I'm damn sure nobody in a real life audience situation ever noticed the difference between that and something with tweed on it.

The Townshend/Page/etc drive sound you indicated is the centre of the universe, far as I'm concerned. The crunch channel on my TSL does that to perfection: it's the breath of the gods.

And the lead channel sounds like Concord at the moment of take off when you are passing the end of the runway - which I just happen to have experienced, so I know whereof I speak! Like being hit in the face by an avalanche - in a nice way!

I wouldn't dream of shoving a drive pedal in front of any of those channels; it would be sacrilege. So give or take the odd compressor and delay pedal there you have my dream sound.

Now then: where this is all leading. Earlier this year I dragged home the little five watt Marshall Class5. I'm not going to make stupid claims for that simple amp but I can tell you it has given me a silly amount of pleasure. At anything less that flat out it gives a pretty serviceable clean sound; and cranked it is just sliding into a pleasant crunch.

And the clever bit: with my Blackstar HT-Dual pedal in front of it I can get everything from a bit of boost to '70s gritty drive to smooth Santana lead. Absolutely all you'd need for a smaller club for well under $600. Sorted!

Long post - my fingers ran away with me. Anyway: my thoughts.

Cheers - C

What do you all think about the Visual Sound line? The open road pedal demo sounded pretty good. If I had my choice I would have to try a Skull Crusher. There is a video of PhilX playing a Strat through an old ac-10 with a Skull Crusher and it sounds killer. They are pricey though.

I picked up a Boss Power Stack the other day and it has fantastic distortion. Very organic and not harsh like a lot of pedals in the uber gain segment of the market. Its more like nice Marshall pre-amp gain than I was expecting.

Thank you! No one could have said it better! I thoroughly enjoyed reading your thoughts.

You make a great point about different clubs accommodating different amps too.

In my case, usually the venues are small to mid-sized. Most of the places I play at I could probably crank a low-watt amp with great results. On the flip side, I could also run a monster amp at low volume with pedals.

I currently own a Peavey Classic 50. It's a great sounding amp & it's versatile as well. It doesn't need pedals & I like that. I really like the amp, but I wouldn't say it's my dream amp. At the moment, I don't know what that is.

I do know that I have played & would like to own a Fender DRRI, & also some make of a vintage Marshall. Probably a RI as well.

When it comes effects, I like to be as bare bones as "I" can stand. Meaning, I'll tolerate pedals that I really want in front of me but I don't go looking for more to buy.

I'm with you on the Marshall subject, I wouldn't want to put Overdrive or Distortion pedals in front of one either. It just doesn't seem right. They have a growl all their own & to put something fake in front of that is just disrepectful to the beast in my eyes. I like a couple mod pedals myself, delay & vibe. I do like my Fulltone OCD very much & would surely use it in front of a Fender for versatility.

The OCD can give you anything from a subtle blues drive to the sound of a British stack ready to BLOW & a lot of good tones in between.

Also, people in a crowded bar most likely couldn't tell the difference between clean tone & two bums fighting. So your right to say that the differences between clean tones of Marshall & Fender aren't really valid in the bar setting.

Don't take me wrong either, I like the tone of a Marshall clean & driven. My statement was based on the love I have of the clean tone that ooooozes from the DRRI... I've played one a few times & have never gotten over it. I'll probably buy one at some point.

Thank you again for the response. Very nice.

Peace~
JPH

Hang on, all them 60's players and more so the 70's players, put drives and boosts between their guitar and cranked marshall. I thought the purely cranked amp sound ended with red house.

It's the way the pedal interacts with the driven amp and the guitar surely???

Who on earth thinks that a cranked JVM drive or highgain channel sounds anywhere near as good as a plexi or bluesbreaker with a rangemaster or fuzzface infront of it?

Ok crank any marshall clean channel and you'll end up with sonic bliss. Move the eq section of the amp before the first preamp gain on that amp and you'll hit nirvanah. Slap a good suzzy boost infront of all that and Jesus himself will shake your hand and congratulate you on great tone.

That's my understanding of the tone.

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let's be fair now on the subject of rory...



i had the priveledge of seeing him in lowell, ma back around 1980.
amazing telecrunching went on that night.

i haven't played a venue yet where i could crank my amp up enough to drive it... one of these days.
i'm using a hot rod deluxe, and i find the controls difficult to deal with... so difficult i just use the amp clean and my od pedal for a little boost and crunch when i need it.... for my strat... and my tele too ;)

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'Morning Nick: I do!

Seriously, you know perfectly well that yours are the "respected ears" I refered to regarding my TSL's clean channel. I defer to you completely on that - and frankly on all things tone related. Never heard a single word from you to make me doubt your opinion on these things.

But honestly: when I run either the crunch or lead channels on that amp I just can't think of a thing to do to improve what I'm hearing. The idea of putting any sort of drive pedal in front of them just doesn't arise.

Obviously, if we're after some of the fuzzier Hendrix tones or a gorgeous Santana sound or anything in that ballpark then naturally we'll need a pedal for that. I'm nearly wetting my undies with excitement to hear what a Ninja-built fuzz pedal sounds like: it's going to be sex in box if I know anything about you at all!

But for all our '70s type drive sounds I've never found anything I like better than a guitar straight into my TSL. Pure and joyful! [Happy sigh]

Cheers - C

I'll lend you a attenuator on the proviso that you only use it on the clean or crunch channels, with everything except the reverb on 10. Then insist that you play substitute or I can see for miles.

Thats all the sound you'll (or more accurately I) ever need. The DSL/TSL clean is my absolute favourite sound ever. 59 Plexi's, BB's, 800's, silly 18watt things included. There is simply more scope on that channel and it responds better to the guitar volume than either the crunch or lead channels. The DSL clean side is the same as the TSL. If ever you listen to that recording of Tush I did all thats on that is clean channel of the DSL on 10 with a wah. Theres a bad monkey on the lead sound to push the high mids a bit.
Thats all the gain I'll ever need. The JVM just doesnt sound the same. It's like they've tried to get too much range on the eq and it suffers for it.
High gain channels just dont get squashy enough for me.

Making improvements to the fuzz. It's far from sex in a box. More like a flasher in the park.

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No no and no

I recently bought a Route 66,OD and Compression,and so far I like it.
The reason I bought it and in the past have used Tube Screamers is in relation the OP's question...I use vintage Fenders,a 22 watt BF DR and a 40 watt BF Pro Reverb mostly,and depending on the gig situation,I can easily push the DR into tube distortion with just the volume,the Pro is a little cleaner at higher volumes and the pedals are a good boost when I need it.
Both can sound good at lower volumes with the pedals....then you always have that clean Fender sound.
I'm not made of money but now can afford different cool amps for different venues when I need them...but I well remember the days when all I had was one amp and one guitar for all situations.