How do you use OD pedal with 2 channel amp?

[Chris McKinley]

MJ Slaughter,

Think of high quality overdrive/boost pedals as you would the aftermarket extras you might put on a Mustang or Trans Am. The stock car itself, without any modifications, will be sporty and quick. But with a turbo, higher ratio transmission, and a nitrous bottle added, it will absolutely smoke.

That's exactly how these amps are. People keep thinking that an off-the-shelf Recto is responsible for all the cool heavy guitar tones they've been hearing on the radio for the last 15 years and don't realize that almost all of them have had additional help from boutique quality pedals and/or studio quality effects, including overdrive, distortion, EQ, compression, etc.

It's actually quite rare that you'll ever hear a recorded Recto with absolutely no additional dressing on it from the studio engineer. That's not something, frankly, that Mesa would want to be well-known, but nonetheless it is the case.

 

[Chris McKinley]

MJ_Slaughter,

You mentioned that you are using a T.C Jauernig Luxury Drive in front of a Fulltone Fulldrive 2 MosFET? Two overdrives in a row are likely going to give you a muddy mess of a sound, especially since the Fulldrive 2 is already a darker, muddier sounding overdrive if you're not careful with it. The only exception might be if you're using the first overdrive purely as a volume boost with its gain set to "0", in which case you'd still do better to use an actual clean boost pedal instead.

SabuJSE recommended that if you are looking for a clean boost you try the Keeley Katana or Java Boost. He's absolutely right about the Katana, as it is an exemplary clean boost that also has the additional option of adding in some higher order harmonics with a switch. He's absolutely wrong about the Java Boost, which isn't a clean boost at all, but a treble booster based on the Dallas Rangemaster. The Java Boost will have a very definite effect on your tone (a great one, I might add), even moreso than most overdrives, and is a very poor substitute for a clean boost as it does not offer enough total increase in dB, plus it is unavoidably noisy when the output knob is cranked to full, something inherent to all treble boosters. Just thought I'd clarify that for you.


srf399, you asked what the BBE Sonic Stomp does. It is not an overdrive or clean boost effect. What it specifically does is to provide an very slight delay between the sounding of higher frequencies and lower frequencies in your guitar's signal. This provides a much clearer sound to both when they reach your ear. IOW, one doesn't overpower or hide the other, both are heard clearly and distinctly.

 

[jab]

to the post above: the levels of gain on Xotic pedals goes RC the least, AC mid, and BB the highest. I have the AC and haven't gone beyond 11:00 on the gain setting yet. Plenty of headroom there.

The BBE Sonic Stomp is best described as "taking a blanket off your amp". Read the reviews at Musicians Friend and Harmony Central and you'll get the idea. 2 knobs, couldn't be easier to use to clean up your sound. Extremely effective on acoustic guitar, clean channel, and bass. Somewhat effective on saturated guitars. Even bought a rack mount for the PA to clean up the vocals and overall mix and wildly effective there too.