Tube amp distortion vs. pedal distortion... and player choise

[El Chiguete]

I was reading a post about how to get a good Satch tone an someone mention something that got me thinking, aparently Satch (like Gilmore) prefer to play on the amps clean channel and kick in a distortion pedal to have the distortion (at least in the old days).

So my questions are these:
- Is this something to consider against the amp distortion channel?
- What other player use this setup?
- Anything to consither when doing this?

[horns666]

odd and even harmonics.

[markD]

personally, i don't like pedal distortion. to my ears, it just NEVER sounds as good as what comes from the amp naturally. a lot of people disagree with me, but i have my choice.

to me, a guitar and amp are ONE instrument. using a pedal is like coating the tone of the guitar and amp. using the natural amp distortion is like having the "instrument" tone more pure....

i haven't found a pedal yet that offers the complexity of natural amp distortion. i am not just talking about preamp distortion either. the complexity, to my ears, comes from the the output stage too. i HATE amps will 6L6/5881 tubes unless it is a fender amp that will be mostly clean. i like EL34's because of the way they help the "instrument" sing and sustain. i prefer using an EL34 wired in triode at 50 watts. that gets me close to a class A type power distortion that retains some clarity while the preamp is overdriven.

i have also mixed 12ax7, 12at7 or 12ay7 preamp tubes at the same time to smooth out the sound. sometimes i want to lower the preamp distortion and let the pwer distortion create more of the sustain...

also, i find that some pedals get a bit expensive once you start buying different ones to try. i have gone that route before, and ALWAYS end up using the amp distortion!!!!

[Spivonious]

Tubes are analog, distortion pedals are digital. Different kinds of distortion = different kinds of sounds.

Like Mark, I prefer the softer breakup of tubes, but everyone's ears are different. Experiment!

[Partial @ Marshall]

I too run my amp clean and kick it with MT2 distortion (Master @ 6ish pre @ 2)....sounds tighter to me. Could just be my amp too. Bigger fan of power tube distortion

[Mordor]

Tubes are analog, distortion pedals are digital. Different kinds of distortion = different kinds of sounds.

Like Mark, I prefer the softer breakup of tubes, but everyone's ears are different. Experiment!

I think that most of the distortion pedals have an all analog signal path. Anyway I think that you can get a great sound with both amp distortion or pedal distortion. I used to be a "straight to the amp" guy, but lately I'm enjoing different pedals (expecially boosters and ODs) to try out.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

you are also forgetting that i lot of classic distortion tones come from the
distortion channel of the amp with an overdrive pedal pushing the front
end of the tube preamp, adding yet another dimension to the sound.

some other classic distored tones have been created running 2 pedals at
the same time either similar or dissimilar, ie. 2 overdrives or 2 distortions or
one of each. and then you have the order of the 2.


i know that was pushing the topic a bit... but there is something about
pedals that glisten the sound in a "HiFi" kinda way.


some prefer the harmonic sparkle of the clean channel of a tube amp and
distortion pedal. others prefer the "Balls" of straight up amp distortion. and
some like the sound of an overdrive pedal on top of a distorted channel.

[lerxstcat]

There are different views on this and it comes down to what you like the sound of. I like preamp distortion and prefer 6L6 tubes because they just warm it up a little and don't break up a lot themselves. I don't like the sage of EL34s, while MarkD loves them.

Who's right? We BOTH are for what we like! I have 2 different type amps, a 2-0channel Carvin and 2 3-channel Peaveys. All 3 have 6L6s. With the Carvin I use an SD-1 to hit the drive preamp for a clean boost, using the level rather than the drive for a lead boost. With the Peaveys, no pedal for that, it's the Ultra channel.

If you like a distortion pedal into the clean channel, use that. We all like different ways to get our sounds, so try it and see if YOU like it, because what I like doesn't matter.

[Endrik]

I like messing with pedals but I do prefer amp's own overdrive the most and I want to get the tone with the power tubes... I like 6L6's the most and to get them driving like EL-34's you have to play LOUD!... and that's what I like.

[emperor_black]

Overdrive is easier to achieve than distortion. Its easy to drive the front end of a tube-amp into overdrive, but harder to get it into distortion. ...Unless you have a high-gain amp. Once you enter that territory, its no longer "pure" IMO. there is some sort of solid state gain device in the preamp stage, and that is no different than using a distortion pedal to boost the clean channel of a tube amp. Take the 5150 for example. the "Hi" input has a 9 (?) db boost which is solid state. If you take EMG pickups, they have a preamp in them which is again solid state.

In a distortion pedal, the clipping happens in the pedal and the signal is sent to the amp's preamp or in my case the power amp (carvin ts100). Where the clipping happens is not important. Its important to keep it under check. If you want to push the preamp tubes into total distortion without a pedal, its harder and noisier. then you end up getting a noise gate and stuff. Why not use a controlled distortion pedal into the clean channel and preserve sanity?

There are hi-class distortion pedals which have several stages of gain just like the high-gain tube amps do. Backing up the volume will make the signal go clean just like a good tube amp does.

[Inazone]

Some people find an amp that sounds exactly the way they want with the guitars that they play, and don't *need* anything to improve upon that. Personally, I've never found an amp that sounded exactly the way I wanted in ALL situations, at which point I still needed a pedal or rack unit. Eventually, I found myself relying on pedals for most of the tone-shaping process, with a tube power amp giving it the "balls" to sound good recorded or live.

[metalchurch79]

I too run my amp clean and kick it with MT2 distortion (Master @ 6ish pre @ 2)....sounds tighter to me. Could just be my amp too. Bigger fan of power tube distortion

I do the same thing as you.
I run a Boss MT-2 into the front of the Engl620 tube preamp's clean side. The Engl has (3) 12AX7 TungSol's and I do that to take advantage of the natural tube tone of the Engl.
Essentially it's sort of making the MT-2 into a tubed type distortion in some respects.
This all goes into Side-A of my Marshall 9200 100w tube poweramp with Tung Sol 5881's, and Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 and 12AT7.

I sometimes run it into Side-B of the 9200, which I pulled (2) of the powertubes out of so it's now 50w (Marshall 9100).
It has (2) Sovtek 5881's and (1)Sovtek 12AX7, and (1) No-Name, that i'm guessing is a 12AX7 as well, because it's hotter than a 12AT7.
I'm getting some YellowJackets with EL84 Electro-Harmoixthis week for Side-B to either take the place of the 5881's or to use along with (2) of the 5881's.
The YJ's will bring it down to 20w by themselves, and 70w with (2) 5881's.

I guess I didnt need to go into all this detail did I? Sorry.

[Spivonious]

I think that most of the distortion pedals have an all analog signal path. Anyway I think that you can get a great sound with both amp distortion or pedal distortion. I used to be a "straight to the amp" guy, but lately I'm enjoing different pedals (expecially boosters and ODs) to try out.

I guess I meant transistor clipping instead of digital.

[emperor_black]

One other thing to keep in mind is that hi-gain and crispy cleans dont mix in a budget amp. So, if you dont want to pay an arm and a leg, the next best thing is to find a good tube amp with a good clean channel (easier to find) and drive it with a good distortion pedal (also easy to find). Now, you have best of both worlds.

Also, since you're using a tube amp, you still get the natural singing sustain and tube sag and feel with this option. of course it will probably not be as great as a $3000 pro tube amp, but again, you're not paying that much for this setup.

[emperor_black]

Check out these two distortion pedals. With pedals like these, who needs the amp's distortion? J/K

http://www.proguitarshop.com/product.php?ProductID=410&CategoryID=11

http://www.proguitarshop.com/product.php?ProductID=1207&CategoryID=11