Pedal platforms or the concept of

Em7

deus ex machina
Joined
Apr 27, 2012
Messages
945
I have been playing electric guitar since the mid-seventies and have never been a big dirt pedal user. If an amp is not capable of going from clean to lead tone with just a twist of the volume knob, it does not come home with me. I personally do not get blackface clean amp plus dirt pedals thing. I have auditioned a lot of dirt pedals and they never feel or sound as good as even a well-designed solid-state amp like the Tech 21 Trademark 60. Heck, I only use the drive channel on that amp. The volume and tone knobs on a guitar are powerful tools.
 
I get what you're saying. I more often use a combo of pickup selection/rolled back volume with my Archon. As good as the clean channel is, I rarely use it unless I need crystal clear clean that I can dig into harder without break up.
I usually prefer a volume roll off.

That said, I totally get the other side as well. I have a Divided by 13 FTR37 and 2x12 cab that I consider the greatest clean tone of all time. It's freaking glorious. I've got a couple drive pedals that I use with it. With this amp, I go the exact opposite style- clean to edge of break up to mid level gain sound.

Different strokes. That's why we have so many options Great tones can happen both ways.
 
Yeah, I think it's a "different strokes for different folks" thing.

I, for one, really like my blackface + dirty pedals. However--and this is HUGE--you have to remove the "bright" cap from the amp (or switch it off) or else you're messing with the pedal designer's tone. I learned this from one of the best (David Barber) and in my experience he's right. I truly feel this one, simple, almost ubiquitous, amp "feature" is what has been making people complain for years that a pedal was "too fizzy."

On the flip side, I've had the opportunity to plug straight-in to some fabulous amps over the years. That's a great experience, too. Again, different strokes...
 
Yup...Have a couple Barber pedals myself...
And Vaughn...I run an MT-15 and a couple Dr. Z heads into a 2X12 and get some incredibly great, clean, fat tones...and love messing with pedals...TEHO...Enjoy it all!!!!
 
I have been playing electric guitar since the mid-seventies and have never been a big dirt pedal user. If an amp is not capable of going from clean to lead tone with just a twist of the volume knob, it does not come home with me. I personally do not get blackface clean amp plus dirt pedals thing. I have auditioned a lot of dirt pedals and they never feel or sound as good as even a well-designed solid-state amp like the Tech 21 Trademark 60. Heck, I only use the drive channel on that amp. The volume and tone knobs on a guitar are powerful tools.

My educated guess is that you prefer to use the amp's natural overdrive/distortion instead of pedals. Many amp purists also prefer this, using their volume and tone knobs for going from drive back to clean by rolling back on the volume.

Sometimes the key is finding an amp that has more touch dynamic sensitivity...meaning, one that can go from overdriven to clean solely with your guitar volume knob. What makes the difference is the gain and master knobs of your amp...the right combination of producing the desired level of edge or break-up with respect to the guitar volume knob...
 
Most of the tube amps that are derived from 50s designs have enough gain to go from clean with lead tone with a twist of a volume knob. It may not be a super high-gain sound, but it is touch sensitive. Leo chose to squeeze as much midrange out of the signal path as he could with the AB763 circuit (the circuit that underlies the BF Deluxe, Pro, Bandmaster, Super, and Twin amps). The problem with the AB763 circuit is that bass and treble are boosted and midrange is cut. That change was done intentionally to keep the amp clean, as most of a guitar's signal is in the midrange band. The way that the tonestack is inserted into the AB763 preamp also kills gain and dynamics. Driving a tonestack from the anode of a gain stage places a heavy load on the stage. Amps like the 5F6-A Bassman and its derivatives drive the tone stack using a stage configured as a cathode follower. A cathode follower has a gain that barely approaches 1, but it presents a low-impedance current source to the tone stack. The result is that it buffers the upstream gain stages from the loading effects of tone stack.

Snipping the bright cap on a BF Deluxe is big improvement, but what works better on a Deluxe Reverb or Princeton Reverb is increasing the value of the midrange resistor to 10K (or higher). If I recall correctly, R9 is the midrange resistor on the normal channel and R21 is the midrange resistor on a the vibrato channel on a DRRI. Another mod is reducing the value of the tone stack slope resistor to 56K (or even 33K if one is brave). It is 100K in stock form. Once again, if my mind is not completely shot, the slope resistor is R6 on the normal channel and R10 on the vibrato channel. The number one reason why Tube Screamer-derived pedals work so well on BF amps is because their equalization curve has a big midrange hump, which effectively counteracts the scoop that Leo and company introduced in the BF preamp. The reason why pedals that sound good with a Marshall sound like crushed glass with a BF Fender is because they do not have a midrange hump and highs are emphasized with the stock BF preamp.
 
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I like to do a bit of both, with a bit of crunch in the amp and a bit of a push from a pedal. I often find pedals on their own flat and boring - unless I'm going for an at the edge of breakup sound and only getting some mild overdrive from the pedal
 
By the way, I have several high-end dirt pedals. I buy dirt pedals believing that I am missing out, but I always end up being disappointed. A big problem with pedals is that amount of voltage swing that is available between clean and hitting the positive rail. With a 9-volt pedal, one has a maximum of +/- 4.5 volts of voltage swing because a pedal is usually biased at voltage supply / 2. Eighteen volt pedals are a step in the right direction, but the approach is still lacking when it comes to dynamic range because a signal can only be so large going into the first gain stage of an amp.
 
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I keep looking, but I have yet to discover anything I like better than Mesa's MK series overdrive sounds.

Except this one silver face bassman I had in the 90s that had to get ear-splittingly loud, but sounded nice at that point.

I have a handful of drive pedals, but they never get used.
 
My main amp for 25 years was a Mesa MKII , I got new in 82.
I always could get a great clean tone OR a great dirty tone , it is also earsplitting loud.
That said it had 1 or 2 good sounds but if you added pedals you palet became almost endless.
I used pedals to shape tones to add spice, I even started a pedal company so I could tune pedals to my tastes.
Even now I have yet to find an amp that can't benefit from a well made pedal from time to time.
My latest amps ( Mesa MKV , PRS H , Orange Dark Terror ) don't always "need" pedals ( except delay and reverb ) but having a different tone or creating a different tone with my toe is important to me.

The MKII

IMG_1567 by

This board was my board right when I made my first pedal ( and before I modded it to be two levels )

Untitled-2 by

M
y main board when I made all my own pedals ( 9 channels or drive plus the amp :) )
https://www.flickr.com/photos/152274366@N08/
IMG_1568 by


My current board for the MKV , I use the pedals to change the gain channels more than drive the clean channel.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/152274366@N08/
IMG_5687 by


Board 2 I use with mu PRS H and Orange , its so much fun to drive the orange with a Fuzz pedal on top of the gain already at the amp then play the vol knob of the Silver Sky :) ( or other )
https://www.flickr.com/photos/152274366@N08/
IMG_5689 by
 
When I want that lip smackin creamy distortion, I use my Peavy valveking with the gain almost dimed running through a Marshall 212 cab. It sounds great on its own but I I will kick in the sd-1 just enough to make it perfect(for me) I guess that's another way to look at it. I have a radial engineering amp splitter so for clean I just switch to either a mess or music man
 
If an amp is not capable of going from clean to lead tone with just a twist of the volume knob, it does not come home with me. I personally do not get blackface clean amp plus dirt pedals thing. I have auditioned a lot of dirt pedals and they never feel or sound as good as even a well-designed solid-state amp like the Tech 21 Trademark 60. Heck, I only use the drive channel on that amp. The volume and tone knobs on a guitar are powerful tools.

My issue with the first part of the quote, meaning as it applies too me, is this. Why should I settle for anything less than the type and EQ of cleans I want? Why should I settle for anything less than exactly the gain tones I want? A two channel amp gives me the ability to choose an amp with the cleans I want and the gain tones I want. Even on an amp as great as the Archon, I can get MANY different tones from each channel, but you must change the knobs to get them. I can adjust the level of gain on each. Adjust the EQ of each, etc. No amp could give me the cleans I want and the gains I want AND the ability to change both, when the only way to get from one to the other, is the volume knob.

Second, if I found one amp that really cleaned up great and worked perfectly for this thing with one guitar, as soon as I change guitars, the quest starts all over again. When I switch from the NF3 to the C24, I know I need to turn presence and treble up, mids and bass down to get similar tones to what I just had. I can control the degree of each on each channel.

And, PRS guitars are far better than most at cleaning up with the guitar volume. They know the formula to make this work and it's something PRS guitars have always been great at. But what about a strat? I've never had a strat that didn't lose sparkle when rolling off the volume. With a two channel amp, that's an easy fix.

OD/Distortion pedals only enhance everything I've said above. If I want a dumble type tone, or even just a smooth fat OD while my amps OD channel is dialed to higher gain tones, I just put the right pedal in front of the clean channel.

I'd love to find a amp and guitar that did this well. But at best it would be a compromise from what I have now. And IMO, ONLY with pedals could I even think about it. But while I'd gladly have an amp or two that did that, like a HX/DA or Blistertone or MDT, I would not be happy with that as my only amp, or with all my amps being like that. I play anything from clean to metal and need to cover all those tones.

I've also had a Trademark 10 and played a 30. While "good" I'd never even think about comparing their tone to some of my good tube amps with pedals. I have some pedals that with my C50 or Archon or 2 channel H easily sounded better than many good tube amps. And it's not an uneducated or untrained ear, it's just that there are some really good pedals out there that with a great clean channel sound VERY good.

Lastly, I've never been able to do any real nice cleans to nice gains with a volume knob, unless the amp was pretty loud and the tubes were working. That's not always easy or sometimes doable in many circumstances now days. I can't take a 30 watt HX/DA to most any place I play and turn it up half way to get great clean and gain tones.

So yeah, I'd have one single channel amp to do this with, but it could never be my "only" setup or all my amps be this type.
 
I'm a clean amp and pedal guy.
(except when I had that DR 103...)

I think the trick is different pedals for different guitars.
I built a number of small pedal boards instead of one the size of a PRS case.
Each one has a tuner, dirt(s), modulation, delay and reverb but different ones.
When I go out the front door the type of guitar I take determines the pedalboard.

It works for me.
I like the way it sounds.
People like the way I sound.
(or so I'm told...)
 
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My issue with the first part of the quote, meaning as it applies too me, is this. Why should I settle for anything less than the type and EQ of cleans I want? Why should I settle for anything less than exactly the gain tones I want? A two channel amp gives me the ability to choose an amp with the cleans I want and the gain tones I want. Even on an amp as great as the Archon, I can get MANY different tones from each channel, but you must change the knobs to get them. I can adjust the level of gain on each. Adjust the EQ of each, etc. No amp could give me the cleans I want and the gains I want AND the ability to change both, when the only way to get from one to the other, is the volume knob.

The problem with channel switchers is that they are compromise amps. Things have to be done to keep the amp stable with high gain that kill sparkle when playing on the clean channel. An effects loop is also a compromise. I am fortunate enough to have no need for a pristine tone. I have always preferred a clean with a little harmonic content. That is easily done with the volume control on a mid to upper-mid gain amp.

And, PRS guitars are far better than most at cleaning up with the guitar volume. They know the formula to make this work and it's something PRS guitars have always been great at. But what about a strat? I've never had a strat that didn't lose sparkle when rolling off the volume.

if that happens with a Strat, pull the pick guard and check to see if a bypass cap has been installed on the guitar. A lot of guitarists mistakingly refer to this cap as a treble bleed cap, but it actually a bypass cap that allows frequencies above the RC cutoff frequency to bypass the attenuating effects of the volume pot.

I've also had a Trademark 10 and played a 30. While "good" I'd never even think about comparing their tone to some of my good tube amps with pedals. I have some pedals that with my C50 or Archon or 2 channel H easily sounded.

I also had a Trademark 30, which is just a Trademark 10 with a larger power amp stage. Those amps are just a Sans Amp married to a power amp. The Trademark 60 is a very different design. It is basically a solid-state emulation of a Mark II series Boogie. This video is one of the best demonstrations of Trademark 60 on YouTube.


The reason why I keep my Trademark 60 is that it will do that tone at normal conversation sound pressure level. The only tube amp that came close to this amp at low volumes is an original Mesa Studio .22 that I purchased in 1987 and stupidly sold in 1994 fearing that tube technology was seeing its sunset due to the last surviving American tube plant shutting down. Younger guitarists do not realize that tubes almost disappeared and they would have had it not been for the fall of the Berlin Wall opening up Soviet tube plants to the West. The closing of the last American tube plant is why Paul and Eric Pritchard chose to use solid-state technology in the first PRS amp.
 
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The problem with channel switchers is that they are compromise amps. Things have to be done to keep the amp stable with high gain that kill sparkle when playing on the clean channel. An effects loop is also a compromise. I am fortunate enough to have no need for a pristine tone. I have always preferred a clean with a little harmonic content. That is easily done with the volume control on a mid to upper-mid gain amp.

As I always say, "perspective is 90% of reality." While I'm fairly up on how amps work, I consider neither two channel nor an effects loop to be a compromise. No single channel amp can give me both clean tones and the gain tones of an Archon, Uberschall, 101B, etc. etc. And my delay and verb work better in the loop than out front when using gain. So, this is not high end stereo and circuit purity is not always the end goal. Thus, not a compromise, too me.

There are some single channel amps I'd love to own. I'm SURE I'd love the HX/DA, MDT and Blistertone. I'm sure there are some Dr. Z's I'd love, and others. But I would never be OK with that as my only amp. It would work for something things for me, but definitely not all.

I continue to be amazed that the range of tones my Archon has. Two nights ago, I wanted to go 100% blues tone on both channels. I took the presence and treble down, mids up, bright off, triode mode or pentode, dialed up big fat smooth mid gain tones with the NF3. Switched to to the clean channel with the Zen or Gain Changer and could duplicate either tone with the amps gain channel. So I can have clean, open cruch with the Amp 11, and fat smooth singing gain with the OD channel.

The next night, the mids were down and I was ripping hard rock tones with no pedals. The night before that, I was ripping higher gain metal tones. You can't do all that with one amp and the guitars volume knob. But it's pretty easy with the Archon. Truth is, don't even need the pedals to get the different tones. They just make more available at one time without stopping to move the amp knobs. That amp with a more neutral speaker like the EM12, can do just about ANYTHING you could ever want, and sound fantastic doing it. Will it 100% match an old tweed into a Jensen? Or a Marshall into a 1960A with greenbacks? Of course not, because the speakers contribute so heavily to the final tone. But it can come close, and can do many tones neither of those other setups can come close too.

IF you're a guy who can live in one tonal range and one gain range, then a single channel amp can work for you. I've told stories about my friend with the Les Paul, Strat and JCM800 half stack before. He has one OD pedal and a wah. Same stuff he gigged with 35 years ago and he has been quoted as saying "why would I ever need anything else?" He has a strat, Les Paul, and a single channel Marshall, and TOO HIM, that's all the tones you ever need. I get it. It's not for me.
 
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Nice to see someone else still using the Nova System. I actually like the overdrive and distortion in there as well and use this in front of a cleanish amp. I also gave a TC Spark as a boost in front of it if I need it. The only thing I do not like about the Nova System is the boost...
 
As I always say, "perspective is 90% of reality." While I'm fairly up on how amps work, I consider neither two channel nor an effects loop to be a compromise. No single channel amp can give me both clean tones and the gain tones of an Archon, Uberschall, 101B, etc. etc. And my delay and verb work better in the loop than out front when using gain. So, this is not high end stereo and circuit purity is not always the end goal. Thus, not a compromise, too me.

Believe it or not, a designer has to make trade-offs when designing a multi-channel amp. If they do not bother you, then they are not compromises. For example, Mesa Marks past the Mark I lack the sparkle of the AB763 blackface circuit from which they are derived, something that a lot of Fender purists point out on a regular basis. That loss of some the high sparkle was a design compromise to keep the amp stable under high-gain situations. Without the cap that shunts high-end harmonics to the positive rail, a lot of the early Mark series Boogies will break into uncontrolled oscillation. Controlling oscillation under high-gain use is challenge when designing any high-gain tube circuit due to the voltages inside of a tube amp (capacitive coupling becomes a problem). The one amp that I kept from my amp building days broke into oscillation when I first brought it up to operating voltage on my homebrewed metered variac because I routed a ground wire a little close to the twisted pair that I used to wire up the post-phase inverter tone control and that pair was tightly wound; therefore, crosstalk should have been minimal. If anyone ever wondered why the LARMAR PPIMV kits come with shielded wire, here is your answer. The shield on the wire reduces the possibility of the post-phase inverter signals coupling with other parts of the circuit.

One thing that I would like to make clear is that I am not against multi-channel amps (although, I usually stick to dirt channel and my volume control). I just do not get the clean amp plus dirt pedal thing (i.e., the pedal platform amp). There is a local guitarist named Mike McHenry (he is on the Knaggs website) who uses a blackface Bassman head that has been fitted into a 1x12 cabinet and a slew of pedals. He is an exceptionally gifted musician, but his driven tone has that classic being on the edge of crushed glass sound that is so characteristic of using a blackface Fender with any dirt pedal that lacks the midrange hump of the Tube Screamer. It has become less sharp since he moved to using a Knaggs Severn from the Strat he has owned since he was young, but it is still a sound that needs a the sharp edges rounded off.

In the end, I have reached an age where all of my influences have faded into the background and I have my own sound. I play mostly blues and blues-rock (which includes hard rock) with a jazz accent. I am not the best, nor am I the worse. I am just trying to be the best guitarist that I can be. :)
 
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Believe it or not, a designer has to make trade-offs when designing a multi-channel amp. If they do not bother you, then they are not compromises. For example, Mesa Marks past the Mark I lack the sparkle of the AB763 blackface circuit from which they are derived, something that a lot of Fender purists point out on a regular basis. That loss of some the high sparkle was a design compromise to keep the amp stable under high-gain situations. Without the cap that shunts high-end harmonics to the positive rail, a lot of the early Mark series Boogies will break into uncontrolled oscillation. Controlling oscillation under high-gain use is challenge when designing any high-gain tube circuit due to the voltages inside of a tube amp (capacitive coupling becomes a problem). The one amp that I kept from my amp building days broke into oscillation when I first brought it up to operating voltage on my homebrewed metered variac because I routed a ground wire a little close to the twisted pair that I used to wire up the post-phase inverter tone control and that pair was tightly wound; therefore, crosstalk should have been minimal. If anyone ever wondered why the LARMAR PPIMV kits come with shielded wire, here is your answer. The shield on the wire reduces the possibility of the post-phase inverter signals coupling with other parts of the circuit.

Yes, I'm aware of all of that. In fact, when I traced a high gain Mesa circuit years ago it had multiple stages were some treble was shaved off. Made it very easy to understand how a Mark V tone is nothing but mids, unless you put that 750 hz slider someone near the bottom of it's range.

And, I wasn't implying that here were no trade-offs on two channel amps. Truth is, IMO, I think there are tradeoffs on every amp design. If there weren't there would truly be that one amp that could do "everything." Right? LOL So it's choosing what WE WANT from an amp, that decides which "tradeoffs" we're willing to accept. Heck the second best amp I've ever heard was a Bogner and it was 3 channels, (all different) and they all sounded fantastic. I've said here before, how great would a 3 channel Archon be if the second channel was the HX/DA. But I realize that you can't really do that in any easy fashion because there are way too many things that are different between the two amps, to just drop an HX/DA circuit board in there, add a 3 channel switch and it's magically done. That don't work. :) (If it did, I'd pay them to build me one!)
 
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