A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

I discovered tube amps sort of late in the game - in my youth I couldn't explain why those rickety looking combos at the music stores with low wattage cost so much money Anyway, I kept hearing different things about why tubes are better, etc.

Feel free to disagree, but my opinion now is that tube amps first and foremost are to get that harmonically rich, musical clean tone that responds to the touch, can be pushed into light overdrive by digging in or turning up, etc. Especially when the volume is UP and the power tubes are cooking.

Now, what about the "classic rock" crunchy chugging power chords and searing solos? What do you do when playing live - some version of a tube screamer or distortion pedal or the dirty channel on your tube amp? Seems like turning up the "Drive" knob gives you preamp tube crunch, not power tube, which is more similar to what a pedal can do (?)

I guess the reason I am asking is because I hate batteries as much as I hate extra cables (adapters). I have a couple of pedals that sound good (Vox Valve Tone, Danelectro Daddy'O) and now that I'll maybe have a 2-channel amp (footswitchable), I'm wondering if I even need them anymore. I've heard the expression that "the best tube screamer is a tube amp turned up to 8"... Curious about how y'all feel. Again, not asking about recording here, it's mainly about the practicality and minimalist setup.

That depends a great deal on the tube amp. Some are best clean or only a little dirty. Some deliver a very nice crunch without pedals, and some can do high gain without pedals.

Mainly pedals because play at home, low volume

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Chocol8 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:26 pm That depends a great deal on the tube amp. Some are best clean or only a little dirty. Some deliver a very nice crunch without pedals, and some can do high gain without pedals.

That's what I'm fishing for - specific combinations of amps/pedals/tone people use (if they care to share). I don't play metal, so for me "crunch" and "searing lead" just means classic rock and blues kind of tone - sometimes you want a lot of it for sustain, harmonics.

Pedals for the same reason above and I have several.

I play quiet,and I prefer tubes. Using preamp gain makes it easy. I could keep my 120-watt 6262 combo at home volume without difficulty.

I have a couple of dirt pedals, but I don't use them.

Chocol8 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:26 pm That depends a great deal on the tube amp. Some are best clean or only a little dirty. Some deliver a very nice crunch without pedals, and some can do high gain without pedals.

Exactly. Some pedals through a clean amp sound terrible. Most old fuzzes and probably another dozen or so of older pedals barely get you unity gain when cranked. Others are off the wall with so much gain they are hard to control. Strat with a fuzz cranked will go from acoustic like cleans to searing overdrive sustain.

Basically, yes. Only my Marshall Origin 5 tube amp can get cruch at a volume low enough to not piss off neighbors. Even that I usually use a pedal with.

This is something I learned by experimenting. I used to set my amp and guitar up and totally rely on pedals. It’s the easy way out. Once I realized that the EQ can add gain (depending on the amp) and rolling back the guitar volume a little adds clarity and clean, I was never playing the same from then forward. There is so much available even in a guitar my itself. Then I discovered the fender tweed deluxe which flips everything on its head. Mind blown. It takes time to really get to know some amps and if a pedal is actually necessary. Truth be told a tweed deluxe is one that I could use pedal free. All of this can depend on the volume you play at though and for many reasons. Speaker choice impacts it also. In a perfect world I would set up my tone on the deluxe and never turn down. Mic for larger gigs

I might use 2 cleanish .ODs on low-high....instead of stronger distortion.
Some fuzz, though, at times. Pickups and amp depending. I have a lot to learn, though. Often play straight in with pups that can get to growl.

In answer to the question, "How do I achieve crunch from my tube amp in a live setting?"

It depends on which amp I'm using. With something like my Peavey Classic 30 there's all the built in overdrive I need (and a master volume) to get the classic rock/blues tones I need without pedals at a reasonable volume.

With my 65 Amps London I sometimes need more gain than the amp itself can provide, so I push the front end with a pedal.

I think that the "perfect" amp for the tones I typically need to achieve would be something like a 10 watt Plexi clone driving a 1X12 or 2X12 cab. Anyone know what amp that would be?

toomanycats wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 6:50 pm In answer to the question, "How do I achieve crunch from my tube amp in a live setting?"

It depends on which amp I'm using. With something like my Peavey Classic 30 there's all the built in overdrive I need (and a master volume) to get the classic rock/blues tones I need without pedals at a reasonable volume.

With my 65 Amps London I sometimes need more gain than the amp itself can provide, so I push the front end with a pedal.

I think that the "perfect" amp for the tones I typically need to achieve would be something like a 10 watt Plexi clone driving a 1X12 or 2X12 cab. Anyone know what amp that would be?

Origin 20?

18 Watt TMB.
https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/ ... pot?page=1

Gear_Junky wrote: ↑Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:01 pm I discovered tube amps sort of late in the game - in my youth I couldn't explain why those rickety looking combos at the music stores with low wattage cost so much money Anyway, I kept hearing different things about why tubes are better, etc.

Feel free to disagree, but my opinion now is that tube amps first and foremost are to get that harmonically rich, musical clean tone that responds to the touch, can be pushed into light overdrive by digging in or turning up, etc. Especially when the volume is UP and the power tubes are cooking.

Now, what about the "classic rock" crunchy chugging power chords and searing solos? What do you do when playing live - some version of a tube screamer or distortion pedal or the dirty channel on your tube amp? Seems like turning up the "Drive" knob gives you preamp tube crunch, not power tube, which is more similar to what a pedal can do (?)

I guess the reason I am asking is because I hate batteries as much as I hate extra cables (adapters). I have a couple of pedals that sound good (Vox Valve Tone, Danelectro Daddy'O) and now that I'll maybe have a 2-channel amp (footswitchable), I'm wondering if I even need them anymore. I've heard the expression that "the best tube screamer is a tube amp turned up to 8"... Curious about how y'all feel. Again, not asking about recording here, it's mainly about the practicality and minimalist setup.

I rely on pedals for absolutely everything...my amp has no drive channel, no onboard effects of any kind, and essentially just serves as a beautiful sounding clean platform for building all my tones via my pedalboard. I've found over the years that I greatly prefer this kinda setup, in that it allows me to expand the tonal palette pretty much infinitely with various pedals and I can have unlimited "channels" if you will - I play lots of different types of music, and it's awesome to be able to have one pedal for that very light breakup, another for bluesy overdrive, another for classic rock, another for the really heavy stuff, etc...not to mention being able to find the best delay, reverb, chorus, flanger, or whatever else you want that suits your needs and your particular setup.

Not at all suggesting that this is "the way to go", but it's the way to go for me and I haven't so much as looked in the direction of another amp in the 10+ years I've owned this one minus buying a little Vox head as a backup (cuz hey, this amp is going to turn 45 next year).

FWIW, I like pedals, for things like vibrato, tremolo, chorus, delay, etc. I think I even have an auto-wah. I even have a "pedal board", looks something like this:
I don't care what people think, I like most of these Dano mini pedals for their tone (and price). They're fine for light duty. In fact, I have 2 of these - one for "in front" and the other for the effects loop. That was the plan, except SCXD doesn't have a loop.

So I meant specifically regarding overdrive and distortion pedals vs. amp's own overdrive/distortion (and at live "with band, with drummer" levels).

with one exception all of my amps over my 15+ years of playing guitar have been solid state, and I've mostly relied on the on board distortion. the sunn beta lead and orange cr120 dirty tones really do it for me. in my current band however I'm playing thorough a jc-120 clean with chorus and reverb always on and getting my dirt from a big muff (jhs muffaletta on the triangle setting). big volume jump/ dynamic shift. i like the quiet/ loud thing. i havent quite figured out how to work in overdrive yet. i have a boss waza super overdrive on my board, but i don't use it in any of our songs currently. i may try a blues driver. i do like rats too

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Both

Great question and IMHO, there is no definitive answer. I do both and find using the amp for tone defines my sound identification ("oh, that sounds like Rob") and pedals help me comp many tones of other artists.

My electrified guitar playing journey kind of went like this:

1970's: I was an in-demand drummer, so which ever guitar playing friend would let me plug in to their rig. Also, we had an Alamo amp which was the equivalent of a tweed Champ in our house. So my roots are 'guitar into amp'.

Mid 1980's: Morely Wah/ Volume, Ibanez SD9 (gain set at 9 o'clock) & FL9, into a Roland JC120. About 1996, I replaced the SD9 with a Sholtz Sustainer (Top Gun anyone?). This era, I was a pedal guy doing covers in bands.

1988: My originals band was gaining strength and I was doing session work. Marshall 2553 Jubilee small head 50w, with (2) 4x12 Marshall 1960 Vintage cabs. Back to being a 'guitar into amp' guy, even though I had a Samson wireless into a Rocktron Hush noise gate to tame the RFI from the stage lights. At the height of that group, I was playing that and slaving (2) additional 100w JC800's. Master on '7' and the gain on '8'. I am surprised my hearing is as good as it is - probably due to the huge stages we played.

1990: Built a 15w AMI Blonde Vox type amp from a trashed Montgomery Ward Airliner donor. A brand new 1992 PRS CE24 into the amp, with a volume pedal on the amp mic. Played this in a very lucrative cover band for over a decade. Still guitar into amp guy,

2006: Built my Les Paul and also had a 2003 PRS McCarty. Switched from the Blonde to my AMI Lil Giant (1967 Bassman parts, remounted on a Princeton chassis, with a lot of my own cascading circuits, w/ reverb). Amp was set pretty gainy and I would volume-down for clean. Used a modified Ibanez TS10 (gain set 9 o'clock, tone at 2 and level at 3) as a solo boost. Still relied on the guitar-amp for gain tone.

2012: Pedals began to creep in. Amp was set on a few clicks past point of break up. Guitar into my Morley Wah/Volume, Boss ST-2 was the base tone for dirt, followed by an EHX LPB-1 (modified as a mid-boost) for solos. So I'd say I became a pedal guy.

Today, I am still bipolar when it comes to where my tone comes from. I have six very nice amps and am making pedal boards for each, but in two specific genres: 'tone from the pedals' and 'enhancing the amp tone'. My 1964 Fender Vibroverb, 1948 Alamo, AMI 20 & my AMI Blonde I consider amp-based dirt. I may used pedals for enhancements and would use those rigs for a recording or gig that I wanted to define a theme across all songs.
My AMI Mixmaster ('69 Plexi channel, '65 Twin Reverb channel and a JCM 600 channel) and my AMI 'lil Giant' have the ability to be tone monsters for guitar into amp, or awesome pedal platforms. I use these with my big pedal board for covering a wide genre of songs, depending on the pedals for tone.

I've never been a big pedal guy and have mostly always used a tube amp that supplied plenty of crunch for me. I bought an Ibanez 808 Tube Screamer in the late 70's or early 80's I really liked don't remember what I ever did with it and I always had a Wah on the floor but that was it. I always felt a good tube amp coupled with good right hand technique (or left hand technique for our lefty brothers and sisters) could create anything from subtle warm overdrive to screaming distortion to those squeaks we get from using just a very tiny piece of the pick.

I’ve got three amps: two tube, one solid state, and the approach with each varies depending on what I’m playing and where I’m playing.

Peavey Classic 50 is two channels with a MV, but I’ll use pedal as a lead boost.

Mesa DC3: I mostly use it as a single channel amp because the Lead channel a Lead channel. But the Rhythm channel is dynamic enough that if you dial it in properly, clean to crunch are controlled from the guitar.

Last, but not least, my current favorite, my Quilter OD200. Two channels plus a lead boost. Clean channel is amazing, crunch is raw and open. SD-1 and a Rat on the board for when I need more.


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to update:

my live rig is now a fender twin. i use the normal channel - volume 4, treble 7, mid 5, bass 7. very clean. all of my effects come from pedals. boss bd-2w for overdrive and jhs muffaletta for fuzz/distortion

the jc-120 is back home. boss sd-1w for overdrive. jhs cheese ball for fuzz/distortion

using on board distortion with my hilbish beta 200, sun beta lead, and amt stonehead

I have my crate v30 tube amp that does pretty good by itself on stage but too loud at home without pedals. So I added the mustang floor. Its neat because I can cheat and control the effect gain with the vol pedal control. So then I got good at that so I stopped using the tube amp gain. Recently I got a box vt40 w all built in fx. My James have been grab and go so now I got a sound from it I like and its light and flexible and gives the same tones loud or quiet through power scaling. It sucks to not be practiced with your performing rig so I dont know.

I think that we can all agree that pedals might be the deepest of the rabbit holes we can jump into.

In return for the $2000 you send me (pm'd address), I'll ship you a tubescreamer-ish pedal. This will save you years of time and aggravation (and GAS, buyer's remorse, elation, revulsion, consternation, etc).

Seriously, I am just now beginning to understand how my amp's voicing, eq and volume work in conjunction with my guitar, pickups, volume and tone knobs. I wish that I had done this sooner.

P.S. To come full circle, I think that we can all agree that pedal demonstrations on YouTube provide only an approximation of what to expect. Buyer beware. There are SO many variables that go into the tone. Many of them have tons of post production as well.

Even with a tube amp I'm relying on a pedal. Sometimes it's the Strymon Compressor with boost, other time it's a boost or OD pedal. Sometimes it's the gain from the pedal itself. But, almost always if I want control over the volume I get my gain at I'm using a pedal somewhere. I could potentially not do that with a good head and an attenuator (built in or separate) but I find I like the tones I get with the gear I have now better than most heads.

Guitar -> Tubescreamer clone, gain barely on, level cranked, tone around 10 o'clock -> British voiced amp, eq set preferentially, gain at around 1 o'clock to 3 o'clock(except the plexi gets both channel volumes dimed).
I'm not a big fan of too much pedal in my tone.