Amps.... to pedal or not to pedal that is the question?

[Muso]

I was wondering what you guys think about the following ideas:

A) getting an amp with an amazing clean sound and putting a killer distorsion pedal in front of it or
B) Getting an amp with clean + distorsion channels and not using a pedal.

I just bought a keeley DS1-Ultra and the guy I spoke to was telling me to get a amp with a clean channel and to run it in front of that. he sounded like he knew he was on about but as with everything guitar related its just an opinion.
To my knowledge all the guitar gods have used something like a jcm 800 and then put an overdrive pedal in front of it, so in a sence overdriving a distorted channel which sounds complicated.
personally I really like the idea of having a really clean sounding amp and just bunging a load of pedals in front of it. Anyone got any experience in this field?

Cheers

[WITH FULL DISTORTION]

i´ll vote for the first option.
but i´m more a metal guitarrist
so, check it out with a boss metalzone, or a line 6 uber metal.
make sure to choose a tube amp with a well balanced tonal eq.
mids, bass, trble.
not a hyper bassy, or hyper bright.. nor even a scooped middle one
ahahahahah
Hails
J.P

[TwilightOdyssey]

Clean amp + distortion pedal = Hell. Very transistory, fake sound.
Mildly overdriven valve amp + boost or drive pedal = Heaven. 3 dimensional, harmonically rich and metalicious.

Valve amp with 2 great channels, so you don't need ANY pedals = much rarer, but priceless.

[stu__r]

Valve amp with 2 great channels, so you don't need ANY pedals = much rarer, but priceless.

Thats my vote every day of the week.

I personaly like to get my tones direct from the amp i use and i like the amp to be a simple tone monster of course.

Im never realy after high gain but i want a lead tone thats a smooth and open overdriven sound (think garsed crossed with satrianis more recent tones) and then i have my clean chanel set for a bluesy lead sound (think david gilmore) also but with less gain than the first channel of course and then i control how i want that depending on what im playing from the guitars volume or if i want a realy clean sound i just back off the preamp on the clean channel.

Imo getting the sounds direct from a great and very dynamic/responsive amp gives a far richer more complex tone overall and i find that aproach of useing how you play and your guitar setting to control tone direct from the amps 2 channels the best for me....

But all that aside if you are going to go with the above you HAVE to get just the right amp.

[willo]

Mildly overdriven valve amp + boost or drive pedal = Heaven. 3 dimensional, harmonically rich and metalicious.

Valve amp with 2 great channels, so you don't need ANY pedals = much rarer, but priceless.

I currently run the mildly overdriven amp thing, and it works great for all rock options. Getting the valve amp with 2 great channels is what I really want, I've been looking at Hughes & Kettner trilogy for a while now, and the review in Guitarist has further tweaked my interest...

[FELINEGUITARS]

Or go rack preamp.......
I would be cruel and suggest an ADA MP1 but I know you had one before


Although I have a friend who is selling an MP2 and that has some good clean sounds as well as great overdrive tones

The ENGL one is good too as is the Mesa Triaxis

I still have my rack as well as my Marshall JCM800

I still feel that the classic tones came from an old Marshall super lead played way too loud with a pedal in front of it as the tones were not just fizzy preamp distortion but power amp overload too.
And you could pull back the volume control and clean up the sound more that way too(with the pedal off)

[lepersmeesa]

There is a really cheap ENGL one, and the very expenisve.

The E 530 which is cheap but is awesome. Brilliant clean and really nice crunch channel. Obviously paired with the right power amp. I would favor a marshall one myself. The rest of the ENGL preamps would be useless i would think for most people, unless you really need millions of types of distortions and cleans.

I would personally say go for the setup of people's tone you like. There is no point in us standing here saying get this get that, when we dont really know what your needs our.

However, for me I dont like using pedals for distortion. At the moment i use the ENGL Powerball, no effects, straight in. This will do me for now, but I would much rather to have some reverb and delays....new thread me thinks.

[Shag101]

The guy is correct.  A distortion pedal should go in front of a clean amp.  If you put a distortion pedal in front of a dirty
amp you will be getting the pedals distortion and the amps distortion which to me makes a mess "Unless you like the
mess you get".... lol...Overdrive pedals are different.  They can go in front of a clean or dirty channel depending what
you are looking to do.  The distortion you get from an overdrive pedal comes from your tubes..As we all know a tube sound
is way better than a transistor sound so for me, a nice tube amp with decent distortion by itself is nice and you can use an
OD pedal for a little boost "I rate this # 2".  An amp that has the best of both worlds with no pedals is what we are all after "I
rate this # 1"...
Broke people like me have a fender hot rod deluxe with a distortion pedal "I rate this # 3"....lol....I wish I was a # 1 or 2...lol

[dave_mc]

Clean amp + distortion pedal = Hell. Very transistory, fake sound.
Mildly overdriven valve amp + boost or drive pedal = Heaven. 3 dimensional, harmonically rich and metalicious.

Valve amp with 2 great channels, so you don't need ANY pedals = much rarer, but priceless.

+1 on that.

I've also heard that the keeley modded ds1 works great as a booster, in fact better at boosting than at standalone distortion over the clean channel, but I haven't tried it.

[Searcher]

Clean amp + distortion pedal = Hell. Very transistory, fake sound.
Mildly overdriven valve amp + boost or drive pedal = Heaven. 3 dimensional, harmonically rich and metalicious.

Valve amp with 2 great channels, so you don't need ANY pedals = much rarer, but priceless.

+2  :)

[DeanS]

I'm really into the BSM range of treble boosters at present. For pushing an already overdriven amp into submission they just can't be beat. Check em out at;

http://www.lementryimports.co.uk

[Brow]

For my main tone I set my Orange head so be slightly gritty, so that it breaks up slightly if I play hard, and cleans up when I play softer.

I then have 3 OD pedals that I use (each with different levels of gain etc) which push the amp in different amounts delending on the tone I'm after.

Alot of people see what I do with my pedals and think it's overkill, but it works for me and it gets the tones I want :)

[HJM]

Two tones for reference:

Satriani Boss DS1 into a clean Marshall (until his tone went to shite and he got a Peavey)

Vai uses a DS1 into an overdriven Carvin.

The key is what works for you, try taking your pedal along to a shop and ask if you can try out a couple of different amps. Personally I only like the DS1 into a clean amp at low volumes, as you turn up it can gat too transistory and harsh as TO says.  

You'll also find different amps react to pedals in different ways.

[Skybone]

Some pedals sound great in front of a clean amp, and some amp's dirty channels sound great, it's a case of try a load of stuff out using your ears as the ultimate decision maker.

My choice is a slightly driven/just breaking up amp with a pedal in front to add some "colour" and a bit of boost to the tone.

[hunter]

Slightly driven amp well in power tube breakup, pushed by an Overdrive Pedal is #1 for me. I've had Boogie Cal50, Rivera Knucklehead, Soldano HR50, 5150EVH, Engl Screamer (still have), and none of them in its purity sounded close as good as my UniValve cooking with the Diamond Drive in Front.