Pedals or amp?

[roodyrocker]

For me it depends on the amp. Some amps like my Bogners, Randall MTS, etc... don't need a pedal upfront as they have plenty of gain. As far as turning down the volume and still getting good tone, thats a dilemma. My Uber is probably the best of the bunch in this regard, still sounds good at low volume. My Dual Recto on the other hand is pretty much useless at low volume, the tone changes drastically. The Axe Fx shines here. With it you can get your Marshall shound, Boogie sound, etc... at pretty much any volume. The Randall MTS series amps let you run EL34's or 6L6's or a combination of both so thats nice. Currently I'm messing with my Marshall Rhoads amp which is non-master volume. I'm trying out the Ho and THD Hot Plate attenuators with it to see if they will work to bring the volume down but retain most of the tone. Its always a search for something!

[MSGfan]

So I'm sitting here in "wish I had a..." land and I'm really wishing I had a Marshall again. Don't get me wrong, I love my Boogie, but... it ain't a Marshall, ya know?

Which brings me to my dilemma - I can go out an buy a Marshall & I've been looking at the Vintage Modern or an old JCM 900 MK III - combos - 2x12 probably. If I bring a new amp home, that means the Boogie needs to go, since, you know, the wife is in charge.

Anyway - a lot of people really seem to get by with distortion/overdrive pedals. There's obviously pedals everywhere that apparently will give you any type of sound you want. Me? I've always been an amp-man. Sure I've got stomp boxes, but they're for effect - i.e. I've never had my main "sound" originate from a pedal - I've always just worked with what I get from the amp, and then add onto that.

So my question is this - what do you get your primary sound from - an amp or a pedal?

My second question is this - is there a pedal out there that will give me a high-gain modded 800/900/Vintage Modern Marshall sound through my Boogie? Here's a list of pedals I know won't do that:

- Tubescreamer
- MXR Classic Distortion
- MXR Dual Distortion
- BBE American Distortion
- BOSS Metal Zone

How about that Radial Tone-Bone Plexitube or something like that?

The Radial Tonebone Hot British or Plexitube will give you that modded Marshall sound but not thru the Boogie. You must run either pedal into a non-master volume, totally clean tube amplifier!! I get the most killer tone thru my`76 Marshall 50 watt markII (non master) or my`74 Marshall 100 watt Super lead useing a Hot British pedal. And you don't need to spend big $$$ on a vintage Marshall to achive that modded Marshall tone either! I also get Killer tones from`70's Ampeg V2's and various vintage tube Bass heads with the Hot British pedal. Only draw back...the Tonebone pedals are noisy at high gain levels but an ISP Decimator easily takes care of this! Oh Yeah, also try the BlackStar HT-Dual pedal for hard rock and blues gain, and don't get the BlackStar metal pedal (can't remember the model), it doen't sound good. The Tonebone pedals are the best I've found and I've been thru a butt load of tube distortion pedals! The Tonebone pedals gives you the most control over your mids, more so than any other tube dis. pedal out there. Good Luck in your tone search!

[Grandturk]

I checked out the Crunch Box, the Plexi Love whatever and they both put out some pretty righteous sounding crunch tones. I dig them. I'm hearing maxxed out 800 kind of sounds there which could work for me.

I only checked out one vid of the Metal End. Didn't really do it for me, but it seemed pretty cool.

So far, though, the Plexitube is sounding like the way to go based on the demos I've seen - little more top end gain and flexibility, especially the lead channel on the Plexitube.

Anything else out there?

[Grandturk]

Alright, bought up a Plexitube this weekend. I played it at the store through an Orange Rockerverb - I think an EL34 amp, right? Sounded cool. I guess one of the things I was looking for was that crisp broken glass Marshall sound, and the pedal delivered it at the store.

Brought it home, got it going through the clean channel of my Boogie. Took a long time to get it tweaked. If you're not familiar with Boogies at all, the Preamp-EQ section is completely bonkers and interactive - so where say, Presence on a Marshall adds some sparkle, on the Boogie, it ratchets up the gain, changes the way the Treble control works and adds top end. So, with say, the Treble on 7 and the Presence on 7, you get this weird high frequency clipping sound when running the pedal in bright mode. I had experienced the same kind of clipping with a Metal Zone, as well.

Anyway, I finally adjusted the Boogie to sound relatively "flat." Preamp 5, Treble 4, Bass 2, Middle 1, GEQ Out, Presence at like 4, Pull Bright In, Pull Shift Out. This in not the most spectacular clean sound, but by pulling either the Bright or the Shift, you get Fender Blackface and Marshall JTM sounds, respectively (kinda wish those were footswitchable).

Once I settled on that, I was able to get a totally usable range of sounds out of the Plexitube. Its a neat pedal. I ended up with a great Maiden kinda sound - played along with Flight 666, Powerslave and Number of the Beast.

Overall impressions - Its got enough gain on tap from AC/DC to Slayer, I'd say. Very organic sounding - not pedal-harsh at all. It also wasn't noisy, though I was only up in the the 100-105 dB range. Some things to consider - the Treble, Bass and Contour controls all affect the output volume. I found with these controls at 50%, and the channel Level maxed out, I was still just under unity gain. The Mid-boost control also affects overall volume. The pedal is loudest when all controls are maxed/boosted - so if you need a loud clean sound and a distortion sound that is equally loud, you may have trouble.

I had the most fun with Channel 1, which I understand is not the "Hot British" pedal sound - Channel 2 is the "Hot British" - i.e. you're not getting two "Hot British" pedals in the Plexitube. I favored Channel 1 with the pedal set at Bright, Scoop and Mid's boosted 1 level, Gain 60%, Bass & Treble about 2 o'clock and the Contour at about 2:30. Great kinda Slash Appetite sound - lots of crushed glass. Switch to Flat and its Maiden heaven.

At max gain you get that Slayer kind of flubbiness. Add a Tubescreamer, and it nails throse South of Heaven tones.

I didn't mess around with low gain "Plexi" sounds, although you can definately get there.

Overall - this pedal just sounds good. The proof will be if I find out I've just dialed in the pedal to sound like the Boogie's lead channel. Its tough to tell without a recording studio. I obviously have a sound in my head that I EQ for. I think, though, the Plexitube gets me that crushed glass Marshall sound that the Boogie couldn't.

[DonP]

Did I mention I love my DSL100 1/2 stack?

[Dreamland_Rebel]

Did I mention I love my DSL100 1/2 stack?

me too.

[Grandturk]

If anyone cares, here's a quick video I made with the Plexitube through my Boogie ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usr7CHYdWl4

[emperor_black]

Cool sounds! But I still feel it sounds thin. Maybe it needs a little equalization to beef it up? is it guitar going directly into the plexitube?

[Hellbat]

You should get an axe-fx man. Then the wife just thinks it's an effects box and not a new collection of amps.

[Grandturk]

Cool sounds! But I still feel it sounds thin. Maybe it needs a little equalization to beef it up? is it guitar going directly into the plexitube?

Guitar - plexitube - amp. I wouldn't discount the crappy video camera I have. Its not the best at picking up the low end. But I did EQ more top end on the pedal - I'm not looking for a rumbling sound.

[themisfit138]

I thought it sounded pretty good. Don't get rid of the Boogie dude you might regret it later.

[gregthatshreds]

there's nothing like good amp distortion. havent found a pedal yet that could touch a good tube amp distortion(EVen the ones with tubes in them)

[VitaminG]

Turk already has good amp distortion with his Boogie. But he wanted a different flavour without buying another amp

[gregthatshreds]

true dat, the title of the thread was amp or pedal distortion.

[Grandturk]

true dat, the title of the thread was amp or pedal distortion.

I guess I was trying to get to the question - "does anyone use pedal distortion exclusively?"