Amp dirt

hotpickups

everyone seems to go for a pedal to get their amp dirt but one can get a great amp dirt from the amp without talking the roof off on some amps IMO. Does anyone here use their amp's dirty channel and not use pedals to get it?

IvisonGuitars

Yup.

DartmoorHedgehog

I do (Orange Rocker 30).  I use a couple of pedals but no dirt pedals.  I think it's considered a bit odd though, and I can certainly see the benefit of using pedal dirt in shared-amp situations.

hotpickups

That's two who agree with me so why are dirt pedal so damn popular ? I'm not talking distortion/ high gain stuff but ods and boosters etc

nick79

Yep. Mesa Mini Rectifier. Channel 1 pushed for Plexi style dirt, and channel 2 for the heavy stuff. 
Took all my drive pedals off the board when i got this amp, just don't need them

hotpickups

nick79 said:

Yep. Mesa Mini Rectifier. Channel 1 pushed for Plexi style dirt, and channel 2 for the heavy stuff. 
Took all my drive pedals off the board when i got this amp, just don't need them

This is my thinking. My J20 breaks up nicely fairly early on and my Dualist is cleaner for longer but can switch to the dirtier side of things which sounds better than any dirt pedal I've tried. Albeit my fuzz pedal is diffetent in that context and will be keeping that

guitarfishbay

It's really genre specific this.

You'll find most higher gain guitarists get the majority of their gain sound from the amp, and only tend to use a pedal to boost or shape the crunch of the amp (e.g. cutting bass on the way in to make for a tighter sound)

Danny1969

I've used amp dirt only for 30 years, ever since I got my first Marshall. For classic rock amp dirt from Marshall \ Blackstar is ideal. Recently though for other types of music I've preferred Fenders and pedals

I do believe there is a clarity to valve amp dirt on full chords that basically turn to mush with diode clipping pedals but some styles of music don't need those full chords 

Maynehead

I've ALWAYS got my distortion from the amp.

The way I see it, if I've paid hundreds or thousands of pounds for a top of the range amp, there's no point in getting a major part of my tone from a cheap pedal. It would just be a very expensive way of amplifying a signal generated from a few cheap transistors.

Might sound a bit elitist but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

hotpickups

I totally get what you guys are saying. It just amazes why dirt pedals are so sought after by so many ;(

TTBZ

Yeah, I just don't "get" proper clean sounds at all and never use them. Always just sounds bland and boring without a bit of grit.

Current amp is a mini jubilee, I stay on the lead channel set to my main heavy rhythm sound and roll off the guitar volume for dirty cleans. I do use a tubescreamer for lead boosts though.

Danny1969

Maynehead said:

I've ALWAYS got my distortion from the amp.

The way I see it, if I've paid hundreds or thousands of pounds for a top of the range amp, there's no point in getting a major part of my tone from a cheap pedal. It would just be a very expensive way of amplifying a signal generated from a few cheap transistors.

Might sound a bit elitist but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

That's the way I've always seen it but I have to admit you can get some great tones from cheap ish pedals and expensive valve amps, thinking John Mayer, Brad Paisley, SRV etc rather than classic rock or metal 

dindude

Think of it as transistors slamming the front end of your amp rather than you amplifying a transistor and it makes sense.

I've said it before but transistors slamming the front end of a valve amp into sweet sustain predates amp pre-amp gain by many years and is where a lot of the early classic guitar tones come from (I.e fuzz into Marshall).

bbill335

My favourite amp gain comes from a Hudson Broadcast 

professorben

Both. 
Amp gain for the meat of the sound, a TS type pedal pushing that for tightness and saturation. 

HAL9000

Just the amp for me too. I tend to set my guitar volume around the 6 or 7 mark, then set the amp at 'just starting to get a bit gritty'. Then I control things using the guitar's volume control.

Lestratcaster

Amps for me as well. 6505+ user so it's known for the red channel! I do use an OD on top though to tighten up the sound and push it but they work together rather than the main sound coming from the pedal. Have always preferred amp distortion and 2 channel amps so I can press one button for each. A pedal would do the same but I like to set up my "clean" with a bit of breakup if I dig in.

RiftAmps

I run two amps, one clean and one dirty. I use an ABY to switch between the two, but I also use an OD pedal with the clean amp to get a second dirty sound. 

professorben

Lestratcaster said:

Amps for me as well. 6505+ user so it's known for the red channel! I do use an OD on top though to tighten up the sound and push it but they work together rather than the main sound coming from the pedal. Have always preferred amp distortion and 2 channel amps so I can press one button for each. A pedal would do the same but I like to set up my "clean" with a bit of breakup if I dig in.

Which OD do you use??

Im using a Dark Matter set clean and the low end trimmed back, but I've been thinking about a TS. 

sgosden

guitarfishbay said:

It's really genre specific this.

You'll find most higher gain guitarists get the majority of their gain sound from the amp, and only tend to use a pedal to boost or shape the crunch of the amp (e.g. cutting bass on the way in to make for a tighter sound)

spot on.

Lestratcaster

professorben said:

Lestratcaster said:

Amps for me as well. 6505+ user so it's known for the red channel! I do use an OD on top though to tighten up the sound and push it but they work together rather than the main sound coming from the pedal. Have always preferred amp distortion and 2 channel amps so I can press one button for each. A pedal would do the same but I like to set up my "clean" with a bit of breakup if I dig in.

Which OD do you use??

Im using a Dark Matter set clean and the low end trimmed back, but I've been thinking about a TS. 

Going between a Mason OD808 and an Ibanez TS9. Currently prefer the TS9 as it's a bit tighter and ballsier but both are good.