How do you use OD pedal with 2 channel amp?

[MJ Slaughter]

Both my amps, DC-5 and Stiletto Ace are, as you most likely know, 2 channel amps. When I play out I need a clean, classic crunch and high gain. The trouble is that I can get all the sounds I like on my amps but don't have time to fiddle with the controls between songs. I don't want to buy a Roadster or any other amp but have come to terms that I may need to use my overdrive pedal more to get the different sounds. The issue is that I much prefer my amps sounds to any pedal and have to decide on a compromise somehow. It's hard for me to use a OD pedal when I know I have superior tones with the amp alone but just can't make setting changes between songs on the gig.

How does anyone else deal with this or am I the odd ball here? With my Stiletto I use the tight clean and crunch of channel 1 and the tight gain of channel 2. I figure that I can either;

1. Keep channel 1 on tight clean and use the OD for a little crunch leaving channel 2 on the tight gain or

2. Keep channel 1 on tight clean and setup channel 2 for crunch then use the OD for high gain stuff while on channel 2.

Your input would be greatly appreciated. Would you rather us an OD to approximate a crunch tone or for high gain? My OD pedals, I don't want to start another rant about the different pedals, are the old Ibanez TS-9 and a new Fulltone Full-Drive 2 Mosfet. I do not want both in my board at once. Don't even like the idea of having any of them in line.

Maybe I should just ask Santa Claus for a new Stiletto with a 3rd channel borrowed from the Lone Star for the great clean tones leaving the original 2 channels as they are. Too bad that doesn't exist anymore than Santa Claus does.

We pay so much for our gear, tube amps in particular, just to use an OD pedal for help. Just doesn’t seem right. Sometimes I think I should just jump off a bridge or buy a solid state amp instead of using expensive, heavy tube amps; don't know which would be worst.

 

[SabuJSE]

A good overdrive pedal will not color your amps tone - just hit the front of it with some added juice. I recommend the Fulltone OCD for that.

But, if you are only looking to boost things a bit, try a boost pedal like the Keeley Katana or Java Boost.

Again, a good quality pedal isn't going to change the sonic qualities of your amp.

 

[lyman]

i've been through the same dilemma. this is a pretty common roadblock to hit. i like using a clean, crunch, and higher gain sound and wasn't sure how to configure everything.

my approach is getting a good clean sound, overdriving it with a pedal (you know, a little volume boost plus a little pedal grit) for a "classic rock" sound and then use the amp's 2nd channel plus the OD pedal for a higher gain sound. plus, that way I don't have to use as much amp pre-gain on the 2nd channel and I find that sometimes yields a tighter, less flubby tone (but your results might be different of course).

if you're not happy with the sound I would first suggest trying out other OD pedals until you find the one which is a match for your taste, style, and equipment. good luck.

 

[recto-robbie]

check out the OCD. leave your clean channel alone. Hit the OCD to add some gain. Leave your high gain channel alone also,, just hit the OCD for more dirt if you like it or need it. My favorite sounds are on channel 2 tight gain with the OCD adding saturation and sustain. You will find that you can lower your channel twos gain a bit.
The secret to using an OD with a high gain channel is to keep the pedals gain at its lowest setting or just above and turn the volume knob on the pedal high. You will like what you hear.
And like what an above poster mentioned stick with a good quality OD and it wont take away from your amps sound. It will more than likely add just a hint of goodness.

 

[srf399]

Also try rolling your guitars volume down a bit in Tite Gain to get your crunch and then up to solo. This gets a nice Van Halen high powered/smoother type of crunch

 

[insideout]

I'm doing the same thing. Ace is set on clean 1 and drive 2. I hit the clean with a TS-9 or BD-2 for the slightly clipped OD sound. I know what you're saying though - it's kind of frustrating having 6 preamp options, but can only realistically use 2 at a time due to eq. I can get away with switching from fluid drive to tight gain without tweaking eq, so I guess I have 3 :lol:

 

[MJ Slaughter]

Great tips from everyone, thanks. I'm going to try these different techniques at my next gig. It's been a long time since I've used my guitar's volume to affect the gain but I'll have to stop being so lazy and try and incorporate that again. Actually, the last time I did that was when I played a Marshall years back so bringing it back with the Stiletto should be natural enough. Keeping chanel one clean is really the best way to go using my OD of a little dirt when needed.

I am using a T.C Jauernig Luxury Drive in front of my Fulltone Fulldrive 2 Mosfet. Has anyone else ever used the Luxury Drive? I find it to be a great, transparent pedal. Perfect to kick in when playing split coil settings or single coil to bring it more out front.

Thanks again for all the feedback and suggestions.

 

[dcgdc5]

I always use the OD pedal in ch 1 (clean) To me that gives me the truest pedal sound while not messing with my lead sound.

I use a midi effect switcher that also swithes channels in the amp so I can go from clean to crunch to solo with just one step.

 

[jab]

To MJ Slaughter:

I could have written your same question word for word. It's a problem with Ace - sounds great, but don't want to muck it up with a pedal but you need clean, crunch, lead. Here is something I've tried that is "ok".

- Ch 1 crunch (12 o clock), Ch 2 Tite Gain (1:00). When I need clean, I use Ch 1, roll back the volume on my guitar to clean it up, then use the Solo boost to bring the volume back to where it was. Not bad, but a bit "knobby" of a solution. And you can't do a one switch flip over to Fat Clean and hit the Solo boost because the Fat Clean db cut is severe and the Solo boost is not enough to bring your volume level back to normal. Problem is we were playing out last week, and I flipped over to Fat Clean for a song we were playing and I used my wireless to get out in front of the PA to hear it, and man, it sounded great. Probably much better than my rollback the guitar volume / solo boost idea while in Crunch.

- So now I think I should try a Fat Clean / foot pedal approach for clean/crunch. I've heard so many great things about BB Xotic Preamps I may have to try that. Ch 2 Tite Gain is so great sounding I almost hate to mess with that. I guess the other alternative is go Fat Clean, Crunch on Ch. 2, and use a pedal for high gain.

What have you settled on since you did your initial posting to this problem?

 

[buddaman71]

I used an Xotic BB Preamp on the clean channel of my Lone Star Classic for about a year, and it worked great for classic medium gain crunch rhythm.

I have heard many players state that the BB is Tubescreamer-esque, but I didn't find that soft midrange tone at ALL when tweaqking with the active tone controls. Very nice Marshally crunch with non-icepicky edge.

 

[buddaman71]

I used an Xotic BB Preamp on the clean channel of my Lone Star Classic for about a year, and it worked great for classic medium gain crunch rhythm.

I have heard many players state that the BB is Tubescreamer-esque, but I didn't find that soft midrange tone at ALL when tweaqking with the active tone controls. Very nice Marshally crunch with non-icepicky edge.

 

[MJ Slaughter]

To Jab,

I haven't settled yet but last gig had a good fat clean on ch 1 and used my Fulltone FullDrive 2 Mosfet for a little crunch and set ch 2 for a nice crunch then used the pedal to give me addition overdrive. Later in the night I set ch 2 to tight gain, which I really like, and set channel 1 to a light crunch so it was easy to roll my guitar's volume down to get an ok clean sound and the pedal gives me a heavier crunch sound.

If they ever release a 3 channel version of this amp I'll be all over that! I just hope they wouldn't do anything to muck up the sound they have going on now just for more goodies. I'd rather it stay the way it is if that were the case.

I'm happy with my Full-Drive pedal but would like to try the BB pre as well. Sometimes I feel like a junkie chasing the next, best overdrive pedal that will give me nirvana.

 

[jab]

to MJ Slaughter:

We have a shop here that sells nothing but boutique pedals and the owner is a real pedal guru. I called him yesterday and asked about solutions to the 2 channel problem. He said as a "general rule", set Ch 1 clean and Ch 2 as high gain, and use a pedal on Ch 1 to get your crunch. He advised me to bring my head and guitar down as he has 40 choices for me to listen to, but off the top of his head he thought the Xotic AC+ was what I was describing (give me some crunch but don't color my tone). The Xotic BB he said is a little too over the top on Mesa's due to the massive gain already in the amp.

I liked your thought though: set Ch 1 to clean, Ch 2 to crunch, and use the same pedal to make Ch 1 crunch or Ch 2 higher gain. I'll have to try it all and I'll post my thoughts whenever I get that completed. I have noticed by the way that you can put Ch 2 Tite Gain on a low gain setting (10:00) and it sounds similar to crunch at a 2:00 gain setting.

If you guys come up with great solutions, let us know.

 

[srf399]

Off the topic maybe but I agree with you on the Tite Gain mode. I love the voicing of that mode for soloing. When I was looking at the manual and the Boogie site before trying it out I thought Wow...fluid drive is where it's going to be for solos... but the moment I tried Tite Gain I just stayed there and have rarely used Fluid Drive.

 

[MJ Slaughter]

I agree, tite gain is my favorite on ch 2. I've played with fluid drive but I don't have a use for it with tite gain. If I need/want anything more than the tite gain I just kick in my OD pedal or Luxury Clean Boost while on tite gain.

 

[Grendeltone]

I had the Stiletto and wasn't a crime to use a pedal in front of it.. It just gave it more sounds. If you have a Stiletto and DC-5, I would get a Framptone splitter or the George Lynch Morley splitter and use that as another level of tones.. but have an overdrive in front of the AB/Y box... to get different levels of dirt.

If it sounds good is what really matters..

 

[jab]

I brought in my amp to my local boutique pedal dealer and tried about 10 different boutique OD/preamp type pedals. I setlled on the Xotic AC+. I'm keeping Ch 1 clean, using the AC+ to give it some grit, and using Ch 2 for high gain and using the other side of the AC+ to give that some liquid for solos. I'm pretty anti-pedal when it comes to messing with a great tube amp's tone and just like to use pedals in specific situations (e.g. U2 songs), but this is a great pedal that barely messes with the Mesa tone. The Xotic RC (lower gain) and BB (higher gain) also very cool. The AC+ is theoretically a 2 channel pedal with RC on one side and AC on the other and you can put them both on simultaneously. You should at least try before you buy something else. Didn't think I could deal with an "always on" pedal but it sounds great for crunch - never too old to learn I guess.

 

[jab]

MJ: I've been extremely happy the the Xotic AC+, maybe too much so. I'm keeping Ch 1 Fat Clean, using the right side of the AC+ for a great crunch, Ch 2 Tite Gain. I use the left side of the AC+ to add some liquid to either Ch 1 or Ch 2. The AC+ is like a RC/AC in one pedal, and it has more than enough gain (BB is not necessary). You can even run both sides of the AC+ simultaneoulsy for higher gain. I've never met an OD pedal I've liked in 25 years because it always changes the overall tone/dynamics of the amp. But this thing lets Stiletto keep all it's punch and spank, just gives you more of it. It's possible I'm liking ch 1 fat clean and various levels of gain on the AC+ even moreso than Tite Gain on Ch 2. I can't believe I'm saying that but I am. Maybe it's because Fat Clean is so big and somewhat dark, that adding gain to that voice eliminates any thin or shrill Ace's can tend to put out. Try that AC+ with Stiletto if you can - impressive indeed.

 

[srf399]

I have been gassing for the BB Preamp for my Deuce but the AC sounds intriguing as well. Also... what does the BBE Sonic Stomp do?

 

[eltrain858]

sorry to hijack with this post, i just wanted to see the BB preamp i bought today show up in my signature :lol: