Newysurfer said:
mtodd6 said:
Zzzzzzzzzz.... you can tell all these OD pedals have solid state in them. They sound somewhat decent because you're running it through a nice tube amp. If you don't believe me, try running your OD through a solid state amp cranked up really loud & see what kind of headache you get after a half hour. I haven't heard one OD that doesn't sound somewhat muddy & then comes the endless subjective discussion about which one gets you back closest to a tube sound. If you like OD pedals & not the tube pre-amp distortion, go buy yourself a Fender Pro Reverb BF reissue & save yourself $500+ to spend on more germanium/mosfet transistor floor radios. Or spend the money on a single channel boutique tube amp that will be a lot more reliable than a circuit board switching amp with a lot of relays which will eventually fail. I have a Fender Deluxe 5E3 I built myself & I have to use pedals with a 1957 design.
I bought a 5:50 because the distortion sounds *good*. I don't need no steenking pedals!!!
mtodd6 - that's a bit harsh I reckon hehehehehe.
Sure I agree with you that tube amp distortion sounds the best but distortion pedals still have an important place for tube amp users imo.
For starters most tube amps, like every Fender for example, don't even have distortion.
So ALL your Fender amp players are using distortion pedals, same with every Vox player - and the list goes on.
Plus - my 5:50 won't do Marshall JCM800, 900 distortion tones. It does great modern Mesa 6L6 tones but nothing Marshall.
As an old JCM800 owner I still love that cranked JCM crunch.
And the best way of getting those cranked Marshall crunch tones is a Crunchbox distortion pedal thru the 5:50's clean channel.
It's not quite as good as a real JCM800 but it's almost there - and an excellent option to have on tap for $100
Sorry, I wasn't trying to be harsh. As for the Fender or other single channel workhorse, yep OD is great & necessary if you want different sounds. However, I'm really amused to hear some guy with a switching Mesa amp & they apparently give up on getting good tube preamp overdrive sounds & play through pedals all night & leave the amp on clean channel!!! I just think about players like Eric Johnson & last video I saw on his board, I didn't see any OD but of course lots of A/B switching to go in & out of Fenders/Marshals.
I inherited two Boss pedals with a bundled purchase -- a metal-ish MT-2 & a Power Stack. They are probably DSP inside & not really analog OD pedals like the Fulltones, or boutiquies. It is interesting to play the Power Stack through the clean, switch it out & see how the crunch/burn modeling sounds different from the 5:50 crunch & burn. I seem to be going back to basics with my playing & weeding out more & more stuff. I bought the Mesa because I've been using a Roland VG-88 forever through single channel all tube amps, with the option of a straight bypass, because it's very convenient/versatile & I wanted something totally organic with maybe some delay in the loop. The Express reverb is to-die-for. I find the Express clean is so pristine, I find myself forgoing even the delay unless I want to accentuate some tremelo works. I'm still learning how to get the right overdrive sounds, especially when I put down the PRS & use the strat.
I guess I was surprised to find that Mesa players use so many OD pedals. I expected to find some real purists when I recently joined this forum. Or maybe I'm behind the times & these pedals are really, really good. The Fulltones are interesting, because the mosfet is trying to simulate the cascading gain stages in an amp. They sound good and not sure my ear could hear pick out the tube vs mosfet. I'm just wondering if we'll go back to a hybrid design: Fulltone front end on the amp with a power tube stage on the back. Essentially, that's what you are doing & using your clean preamp for equalization.
In my opinion, trust your ears. Go to a music store with your amp and try a few. With that being said, Fulltone pedals are pretty stellar. Also, the TC Electronic Nova Drive is killer, but you'll have a very hard time find one in person to try out.
