Valve based distortion pedals, the science?

[donovan.x]

Ok I have just got the DistX pedal by Blackstar and (if I dont loose any more money due to snow) I will be hooking it up in front of a Laney Lionheart 5 watt combo, would somebody with the tech knowledge explain the relationship between pedal and amp, I am aware that between the guitar and amp the pedal distorts the signal but does it change what goes on in the amp or does the amp just stay as it would if it where being played clean, or do the valves react to the new distorted signal?
Thanks guys.

[buttmonk]

Yo,

I have the same pedal, been using it with my Tiny Terror. This pedal is a true tube preamp just like the 1 in ur existing amp, but of course it is designed to allow u to overdirve the preamp tube in the pedal alot and create serious distortion. In fact, I think Blackstar now make an amp which essentially uses ths pedal for the preamp seciton, and of course adds poweramp and speaker.

So, there are at least 2 strategies for using it (well actually,  infinite:) ):

1) Put ur amp on a clean setting, turn up the gain of the pedal to add distortion, but adjust the output of the pedal to be quite low i.e. the power of the signal coming out o the pedal is low. Now, ur amp is really just amplifying the dirty signal coming form the pedal as faithfuly as it can without adding any of its own dirt. If you turn up the amp it will start to distort the poweramp tubes of ur amp which will add another flavour of distortion. Since the output of the pedal is low, u are not pushing the amp's preamp tubes into distortion and you are basically hearing the pure preamp distorion of the pedal.

2) Same as above, but turn up the master volume (level, or whatever) of the pedal so that it is pushing ur amp's preamp tubes into overdrive as well, or even turn up the gain on ur amp as well. If you do this with the gain on the pedal set pretty low u will be just boosting the input signal to ur amp like an overdrive pedal and overdrivng the amps preamp tubes without adding any dirt from the pedal. If you do this with the pedal gain set high u will get both. Personally, I think the latter is not that useable and produces over the top results, but u need to experiment.

Of course, if u play around with the settings on both amp and pedal u have a pretty much infinite bunch of combinations and thus tones to play with (not all of them good), but this might give u something to start with.  Also, u can then turn the pedal on and off giving u a kinda 2 channel setup, clean and dirty, this is good if u have a singal channel amp like the TT.

[donovan.x]

I see, thanks, thats kind of how it worked in my head :? 8) :lol: The whole idea has been to use it as the main distortion channel for the Laney, although the laneys gain channel is great, it isn't quite enough, so I was thinking of having the Laneys two channels set up for Clean and smokey blues crunch and then have the DistX for my solo/metal channel. Thanks very much.

[Will]

I saw a band last night with the amp set clean, and Blackstar (don't know which one, sorry) set to overdrive. It sounded great, I was a bit sceptical about them

[dave_mc]

i'm pretty sure those blackstar pedals contain some SS stuff in there too, despite their "all-valve" claim. could be wrong, but i'd imagine so.

[HTH AMPS]

if their BH-5 head is anything to go by, there will be plenty of solid state stuff in the signal path...

[maverickf1jockey]

The chances of getting a quality high gain distortion sound without at least some involvement of transistor parts is mostly wishful thinking IMO.

Transistors have certain harmonic biases and compression qualities that are pleasing in this circumstance.

Do not take this as me saying that transistor technology is the be all and and all but just that virtually all the distortion sounds of the sixties featured an outboard transistor pedal, and so that sound is what has pervaded tone ever since, meaning that transistors are necessary to achieve that tone.

[dave_mc]

if their BH-5 head is anything to go by, there will be plenty of solid state stuff in the signal path...

yeah, that's what i figured. :) i can't stand companies making stuff up if they think it'll help them sell. personally, i'd chuck the bar-stewards in jail for a few nights, how is that any different to being a con artist?

EDIT: don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that transistor-based pedals sound bad- far from it. I'm saying that making a mainly transistor-based pedal and chucking a valve in there, then claiming it's all-valve, is.

:)

[Adam.M]

i'm pretty sure those blackstar pedals contain some SS stuff in there too, despite their "all-valve" claim. could be wrong, but i'd imagine so.

Where are you getting this all-valve claim from?

I just checked the website to make sure, and all the blurb suggests to me that it's designed around a valve which is operating at 300V, not an all valve tone/signal path...

[HTH AMPS]

The chances of getting a quality high gain distortion sound without at least some involvement of transistor parts is mostly wishful thinking IMO.

Transistors have certain harmonic biases and compression qualities that are pleasing in this circumstance.

Do not take this as me saying that transistor technology is the be all and and all but just that virtually all the distortion sounds of the sixties featured an outboard transistor pedal, and so that sound is what has pervaded tone ever since, meaning that transistors are necessary to achieve that tone.

There are plenty of amps with distortion tones that sound awesome right out of the box without any solid state circuitry helping out.

That said, it doesn't mean that a great tone can't be had with transistor gear.

[dave_mc]

Where are you getting this all-valve claim from?

I just checked the website to make sure, and all the blurb suggests to me that it's designed around a valve which is operating at 300V, not an all valve tone/signal path...

http://www.blackstaramps.co.uk/products/ht/htdrivegallery.html

on the pedal sticker- "pure valve overdrive" (it says similar things on blackstar's other pedals). to be fair, when i originally posted i actually thought it said "all-valve", but now i remember from that link that it's "pure valve". I suspect they used that because it's possibly one of those wishy-washy terms which sounds vaguely scientific which doesn't really mean anything- but it's pretty obvious what they're implying. it's pretty clever, as you can't really sue for implying something, but it is clever in the "cunning" vein...

:)

[jpfamps]

Just because something is "all valve" doesn't mean it will sound any good.

I've played some shocking amps that are all valve (I've probably built some too!!).

Ultimately, REALLY high gain will tend to produce a square wave, which will be more or less the same whatever technology is used to generate it.

I've built high gain, 4 or 5 pre-amp gain stage amps that (in my opinion) sound great. I've also got great distorted tones using distortion pedals + a valve amp.

The key with cascaded valves stages it to get the appropriate attenuation between each stage. Valves can output very high voltages, often way too much for the input of the following stage. Unfortunately, going through several cycles of gain + attenuation can cause a dramatic increase in noise.

Personally, I'm not a great fan of really high gain amps. The guitar sound becomes very compressed and looses it's dynamics (although as a drummer friend of mine states when asked about dynamics "Dynamics?! I'm paying as loud as I can"), however each to his (or her) own.

[phlip]

It's certainly not all valve as anyone who's opened one up can confirm (and the HT-5 shot confirms) But the valve does contribute a lot to the sound and isn't just a pretty light. I've tried 3 different valves in mine and they all changed the charateristics of the sound.

[dave_mc]

Just because something is "all valve" doesn't mean it will sound any good

i agree. i'm just saying i don't agree with cynically taking advantage of guitar players who don't know this (as blackstar presumably do know it).

Basically, I don't have a problem with their making a valve-based pedal which also has some transistors/ICs etc. in it. I do have a problem if they make one containing solid state stuff and describing it as "pure valve".

:)

[The Mexican Pornstar]

I've been using the HT Dual on my board for the last few months and love it.
I have it in the front of my amp ( Carlsbro 100x tranny amp which is ok but will be getting upgraded soon).  I have tended to use the 1st channel as a clean boost and the second channel as nice distorted sound. 
Basically keep the gain down on channel one and you can use it to push the clean channel of your amp and give you a boost and the same applies to the dirty channel of the amp.
Channel two as i said is used as a nice rich distorted sound which typically has been slightly dirtier than my amp distortion.  It just gives you that little bit extra flexibility IMO.
I have yet to use this set up through a decent valve amp.
A little experimenting and you can find the right place for the pedal in your own set up.
As for the advertising.  I didnt really consider Blackstars advertising to be all valve.  Do a little digging about on the net and you soon find exactly what is involved as Blackstar have all their manuals on the website.
I have found Blackstar to be an awsome company, so much infact i soon intend to buy an Artisan 30 combo.