Stomp boxes and tube amps

[Firebird V]

The whole tubes = hot face melting gain is just a marketing scheme... Tone is so subjective. What I hear and need for gain might be way to little or too much for someone else... Anyway. Tube amps sound so alive and organic to my ears. I need to have the sag of a tube and the pick attack. I have tried the whole solid state thing and for some of the stuff I play they do sound better but I always gravitate to tube amps. I tend to put pedals to add gain in front of a tube amp more thaan i ever have in front of a SS amp though...

[kmanick]

Bill check out this guys pedal mods
Joe is a master

http://www.bodenhamer-electronics.com/

tons of guys on the 7 string forum own his modded pedals (I have his chaos Mod SD-1) it kills .
he makes a pedal called the bloody murder that is supposed to be the "pedal of all OD pedals"

[bibz]

I still gas for a bloody murder!

[DonP]

I always thought that the reason for getting a tube amp was so that you didn't have to put a pedal in front to get great distortion tones. This would be especially true if I spend >$2k on an amp. Is this not the case, cause I can also put a pedal in front of a SS amp.

Not trolling, but just want to be educated. btw, I do own tube amps.

Pete,

To answer your questions, I think people find that a Tube power amp drives speaker better than an SS amp, but sometimes a SS preamp / pedal sounds good on the front end.

SS devices have odd order harmonic distortion, giving that "sizzle". Tubes have even order harmonic distortion, giving warmth. Sometimes the two work together well to balance things out.

[jgcable]

One problem you will have Bill, no booster is going to kick the effective volume up in front of the Uberschall unless you have the gain WAY down. All that a boost in front of that amp will do is get more gain and compress more. To see what I mean, experiment with your guitar's volume control - notice that the actual volume doesn't get lower until you've cleaned it up a lot.

The way to get a boost out of the Uberschall is to run an anti-boost in the loop. You can use a good volume pedal or something like a Psionic Audio Lumos (basically a switchable volume control). This attenuates the volume from the preamp going to the power amp. It shouldn't fool with your tone but just change the actual volume.

This is one of the nice features of this Elmwood Modena head I have - it has switchable master volumes and you can automatically engage a gain boost circuit with the lead master volume.

Anti-boost.

[Partial @ Marshall]

I love the keeley MT-2...i run the pre-amp at 2 with my JCM800 and the master at about 6 or 7, then kick in th keeley. Power tube distortion rules...nice and tight and angry