How do you set your amp when you use distortion/OD boxes?

[shredgd]

I'm asking because I normally use/need a very clean, "hi-fi" sound, which I achieve by maxing out both the treble and the presence in my preamp and by cutting the mids, but whenever I use a distortion box in front of it the extra-highs result in a harsh and bad sound. I can manage to get a usable sound if I turn the eventual tone pot in the box completely counterclockwise, but that's only a compromise, I think I lose something (most of all, an ordinary fuzz face, for example, doesn't have a tone pot...). On the other hand, if I lower the treble and presence controls on my amp to let the pedal sound at its best, I come up with a dark clean sound when I turn off the box. Am I the only one who has got this problem?

So, what are your reference points (equalization wise) when combining a distortion box with a clean sound? Do you give priority to the pedal (i.e. you look for the amp setting which best suits the circuit), to the clean sound or half to both?

Actually you can change a pedal sound extremely by moving your amp eq settings!
(I sometimes wonder then, which is the REAL sound of the circuit?)

Giulio

[petemoore]

Did you say what Kind of Amp?

[Elektrojänis]

Maybe you could add some kind of preset tone filtter to your OD/dist/fuzz pedals that would cut the treble. Other thing you might find usefull is to build some kind of treble booster for your clean sounds (so you could use less treble boost on your amp).

[shredgd]

My pre-amp is a Marshall JMP-1.
So it seems my problem is not as common as I thought. I should try a different amp and see what happens.

[Ansil]

My pre-amp is a Marshall JMP-1.
So it seems my problem is not as common as I thought. I should try a different amp and see what happens.

i dont' know what to tell ya i would normally use a nice midrange with the highs on 8.5 the mids on 5.5 and the lows on 6

thats my clean tone

[sfr]

does that amp have more than one channel that you can get the clean sounds you want out of?  what about setting one channel to work with your clean sounds, and one to work with your stomp box sounds, and then setting up some sort of fancy switching to turn on the fuzzbox and switch channels at the same time?

I ran into this problem trying to work out some of my new songs recently -I have a solid state Peavey practice amp that I play most of  my stuff through now that I'm not playing the loud thrashy stuff that calls for a stack , and it's got great tone clean, and plays really well with my FF (surprisingly so for a solid state) but not at the same settings - nothing that even registered in my mind working on these songs one bit at a time recording the demos at home, as I was recording parts seperately  - but when I tried to translate them to a band setting for the first time, I was desperately grasping for workarounds to be able to switch settings on the fly - being a one channel amp, I ended up using a treble booster for the extra edge to my clean settings and setting the amp to play well with the distortion and this (still a bit of a compromise, but I get anal about tone) and using an A/B box to switch the chains.  Of course, that led to a whole other set of problems since it swiped my A/B box which was normally in use for switching between two delay pedals . . .

[Marcos - Munky]

I had the same problem some time ago. Add a tone stack in the effect if you don't have a tone control in it. This is what I did, I made my configurations in the amp's tone stack for the clean sound, then used the Obsidian's tone pot to configure the distortion tone.

[Rodgre]

in my current live rig, I'm using a Vox AC30.

I use the normal channel, as it's got more bottom end than the brilliant channel. I set the amp so it sounds nice for a cleanish tone with just a little bit of hair when I dig in. This usually means the volume is on 2 or 3.

Then I set my pedals to work with the amp. Basically, my concept for overdrives is to sound like I've turned my amp up, so I use things like the Menatone TBIAC and various boosters and compressors for that effect. Then I have the wacky fuzz boxes like the Fuzz Probe and Experience/Tone Machine. Those are set as to not be too harsh with the amp as well, but the fact that I often leave the TBIAC on all the time, and last in my drive pedal chain (I have some delay and modulation after it, AND before it) it tends to gel the tone so it's not all of a sudden bad sounding.

Vox style amps have been notorious for not being pedal-friendly. Matchless and Vox and Fargen.... I've had bad luck with most pedals with them, yet great luck with others. I think those kinds of amps are more "true" to the tone in a way, and if your fuzz box has harsh overtones, you will hear them, whereas something like a Fender amp might be more forgiving.

Bottom line, set the amp for the standard tone you like, then set the pedals to augment that, not the other way around. That's my way of doing it.

Roger

[troubledtom]

i set any amp clean and spanky. then i hit it w/ the fx.
            - tom

[smoguzbenjamin]

Yeah, amp first, then pedals.

[Ed G.]

A friend of mine used a Fender twin that has two channels, modified for reverb on both channels.
On one channel, he set it up for his ideal clean sound.
On the other channel, he set it up to work with his overdrive pedal. He used an ernie ball volume pedal that panned between the two channels. Doing this, he could also 'blend' in-between the clean and dirty sounds. You could just as easily use an A/B box for this. In fact, you could get pretty creative with this, using certain effects in each channel, or put effects before the A/B box for both channels.

[cajununicorn]

my experience has always been to turn the presence down and use the treble for all my high end...presence is what turns my distortion boxes into crispy doorbuzzers....i use fenders and hiwatts, and i do try to get the best clean tone, just before the breaking-up point. lots of bass, moderate mids, moderate treble, no brites. then i set the boxes with just a bit of hi-end, just enough to cut through when i a-b with the clean sound. i di this on the treble pickup.....that way, i always have some headroom and lowend if i need it. the guitar has a lot to do with it too.....what kind of guitar are you using?  thanks, jon

[idlefaction]

lol, i don't get this at all, i have my amp set up so it's on the edge of breaking up (it crunches when i hit the strings hard - no NFB so plenty of touch response) and then hit the front end with pedals that kill it more.

clean sounds are for pussies!!!  

[Boofhead]

Very good question.

With a single channel amp you can't do better than set your amp for clean then adjust the tone on the pedals.

If you go for a very HiFi sound I can imagine a large proportion of overdrives and distortions will sound very buzzy and horrible.   If you build you own effects you can put EQ in them to improve the situation.

If you look at a lot DIY effects you will see quite a few have very specific equalization - I suspect a lot of this EQ is compensating for something in the builder's set-up.  Someone elses rig might need different fine tuning to get the same level of refinement.  Changing speakers can cause such refinements to go out the window.  It's a real problem with this stuff.

[Doug H]

My approach is different. I set up my amp to sound good with the pedals, kind of a flat EQ.  But I use a pedal that sounds clean (-ish) when I turn my guitar volume down. Then I just leave the pedal on all the time. The combination of a pedal that cleans up reasonably well and a properly-tuned treble-leak cap on my guitar vol pot seems to be the trick. I can go from spanky to mean with the twist of a knob.

I did my church gig yesterday with nothing but the Meteor and a digital delay plugged into my SS amp. I could go from all kinds of pretty, chimey clean sounds to a good distorted lead tone without having to push any buttons. I guess I've been preferring the "organic" approach lately.  I have done this sort of thing with the hwy89 too, and kicked on the hot silicon fuzz to drive the 89 for an extra push sometimes when needed.

Doug

[petemoore]

Equeing does help but..I started putting rolloff's caps on the output of many efkts.
 Before I was using a DYNA ST 70...and extremely forgiving [and much more tame] amp.
 When I started to plug in the Marshall MkII 50w, and get high end, it just tries to go from like no highs much to harsh 'kitchen sounds' high end...Nasty...I started to put rolloffs ... but the brilliant channel of the amp [input 1 high or low] can't be used very well and the highs are either off or harsh like carborundum [sandpaper grits].
  I think I need a new volume pot for channel one and diddle with it's capacitor...I put a smaller one in there and now the glitch in the pot is up where it doesn't matter so bad but the highs need more mids now....dohh...
  I guess after this I must start digging into the amp again...double dohh

[shredgd]

Hi and thanks for your replies.
Mine is a programmable preamp, so I actually can set a clean tone to use only in association with distortion boxes, but of course that involves stomping on two bottons at the same time if I want to switch between my (original) clean and distorted sound in a live situation.
The fancy switching and wiring needed to reduce the "stomping" to one would be too messy for my liking but of course that would be an ultimate solution.
However I've been messing again with pedals only recently (because I built them..) and I don't know wether I'll end up using them or I'll stick to my preamp overdrive (I like my amp distortion, I'm exploring pedals just to widen my sound palette).
Mine was just a sort of "poll" to know wether I am or not the only one who usually finds distortion pedals too bright to use in front of a modern, very clean sound.

Giulio