What boost/distortion pedals should I have had to drive my Sears 2-12/2-6L6 amp into sonic glory that year.  

Whether it was sonic glory is another matter but I was using a borrowed rosewood Tele and a Muff-Fuzz (the little one) into a borrowed silverface Super Reverb earlier that year, later switching to a homebrew guitar and a Peavey Classic (largely because I could use the Peavey's master volume and dispense with the Muff-Fuzz).  Most folks at that time that I knew would have been behind the curve effects-wise, rather than ahead of it, and had something like maybe one of the Japanese Jax/Royal/Shin-Ei/etc fuzz-wahs (with surf or siren effects), a Heathkit or Maestro fuzz or one of the earlier E-H things like a Muff-Fuzz or an LPB-1.

What you *should* have had is another matter again.  I take it you want to know what would have been the best there was to offer that year, rather than what your average pimpley bandmate was likely to be using.

I can't help but look back and think, "I sure wish I had a Black Fire/Jfet Booster/Tube Screamer/Rat/etc. back in 1973 when I had such and such crappy sounding amp.  

The Vox Tonebender I had sounded like a "farting elephant" and really turned me off to distortion boxes.  I should have gotten a Marshall, but the tech at the music store said they broke down more than anthing else and recommended Acoustic Solid State amps.  Boy did he miss the boat, and so did I.  Even a cranked Super Reverb would have been cool.  I was afraid cranking them would blow them up like your parents told you the TV or Stereo would do (I guess it can on second thought), but now I can afford to get it fixed.

"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"  

Nic pic Dan, what is that?

I think I had my father's Fender Bandmaster. I kept trying to turn it up to hear glorious tone. All I heard was loud and louder and ?

Everybody seemed to have the same crappy solid state amp. If you were stylin' you had a Fox Tone Machine, if you were slummin' you had a Shin-ei Fuzzwah like me, everything else, Teisco baby.

Regards

RDV

Quote from: WGThickPresenceNic pic Dan, what is that?

It's a Mosrite FUZZrite that just sold on ebay. Probably would sound great through a Silvertone!

Ha ha you old farts, that's the year I was born!   :lol:  And I feel old when I read about these 16 year olds. You dudes are ancient!

Something funny about this though, when I was a teenager I wasn't trying my hardest to sound like vintage Black Sabbath. I used an od-1 into a gorilla amp with my Washburn shred guitar (magma finish no less!) that I installed an EMG-86 in. I got pretty close to the Sabbath sound with that little setup, too.

Too young to die, too old to Rock.  Tell it to Jeff Beck.

I used one of those..
I had a home made preamp in a aluminum LMB box. The design was a metal can IC from motorola and I built it from the appnotes they published in the brochures at the electronics store. Noisy as hell but it had GAIN
I also built a wah circuit from some electronics magazine an housed it in a woodgrain box(I still have the box but the circuit is gone) from RS. It had a nice mid boost to it that pushed the silvertone just right. I finally blew the OT in the silvertone :cry:  great tone while it lasted

in 74-75, we had three amps:

a '59 Airline  two twelve two 6L6 amp that sounded glorious. Possibly Valco made. Not very loud tho

A brand new champ that sounded fabulous.

A 68 Twin with Super trebly super clean Altec Lansing speakers.

I tried two pedals to try and make the twin sound as cool as the other two amps, but did not succeed:
Screaming Tree EH pedal,  - what a mess!

A '74 Rozac fuzz - wow what a nasty sound! I would probably love it now though.

I loved the tone of the Champ and Airline together, that was cool.

What year did the MXR Distortion + and Tube Screamer come out?

I eventually started using PV Combo amps cause they were cheap and had the best distortion characteristics at low volume, I knew of at the time.

Didn't the tubescreamer come out in the late 70's?

I used a tube phonograph briefly to drive my Silvertone "amp in a case" into wild and crazy distortion around that time.

Doug

Around 1966/7 I discovered that running my Strat into a tube Watkins copycat with the tape removed and the level turned way up into my AC 30 it acted kinda like a pre-amp and was quite a pleasing sound, then of course it was Rangemasters and FF's etc before MXR and the TS showed up

I'm glad you two reminded me.  Round about 1971 or 72, I was plugging my guitar into the mic input of a Wollensak or Grundig mono tube open-reel tape recorder, putting it on pause, and running the line out to my amp, which was an abysmal house brand tube amp with more input jacks than knobs, and a muddy sounding 12" speaker.  It was combersome (big tape machine)  but it sounded absolutely wonderful.  The guys in the band called it the monster.  Never found out until 20 odd years later that formerMember1 Blackmore was doing something similar around the same time.

If you can find a tube tape deck in a yard sale somewhere, scoop it up.  The mic preamps are great and overdrive very easily when you stick a guitar into them.

he mark there is an old solidstate tape deck that does similar thing that i wish i could find it kicked serious butt

Circa 1973, the preffered rig of at least a few other players I knew were McIntosh HiFi amps totally tortured for guitar amp duty. They sounded real good right before they blew up. A veritable HiFi tragedy...

Kerry M

Garcia used a Fender Twin preamp into McIntosh 2300 solid state power stage.

Take care,
-Peter