Valve Amps With OD Pedals... Why?

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AlexCAlexC Frets: 2396
I'm looking at getting a new amp in the next couple of years...Vox, Blackstar, Victory maybe. I've never owned a valve amp, but have played through many over the years and there's no denying that they sound great cranked up. And this has got me to thinking - surely putting a circuit based dirt box in front of it slightly misses the point. Boosters, I get... Modulation I get. But if part of the appeal of a valve amp is 'that sound' why put an artificial sound in the chain?
Thoughts, please... Am I missing something? Or am I just misunderstanding how 'sound' works?
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Comments

  • munckeemunckee Frets: 12255
    i thought that was their purpose to push a break-up point valve amp to overdrive sounds?  Its how I use one mainly.
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  • MajorscaleMajorscale Frets: 1553
    Many valve amps need to be run fecking loud to hit the natural breakup stage, particularly if they are single channel types, so a pedal gets you the driven tones at lower volumes. Pedals also bring different tonality and EQ options... i.e. adding variety of tones to your rig.

    I will go further and say that I often prefer drive tones that I get from pedals, but it's taken a long search to find the pedals that best suit my rig!
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    If it sounds good, it is good.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • I have a Marshall JCM900, using both channels for crunch (as clean as a Les Paul into a Marshall will be) and distorted (70s classic rock). I've also got two Boss pedals (OD-2 and MT-2) with the level on MIN and volume on MAX. These take whatever sound/tone the amp puts out, only making it a bit louder and adding a slight flavour of the pedal. I use them for screaming rock solos - think Black Crowes Hard To Handle for the OD-2 and Gun's Word Up for the MT-2.
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  • martinwmartinw Frets: 2149
    tFB Trader
    Many people (I'm one of them) would say valve amps produce the nicest clean sounds, and make the best platform for whatever pedals you want to use.
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  • photekphotek Frets: 1462
    Versatility, simple as that. if you get a fender and want it to approximate a Marshall for certain tracks then buy a MIAB pedal. Also some lower gain drive pedals sound great into overdriven amps, TS / Boss SD1 into an overdriving Marshall is epic.
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    I have a Marshall JCM900, using both channels for crunch (as clean as a Les Paul into a Marshall will be) and distorted (70s classic rock). I've also got two Boss pedals (OD-2 and MT-2) with the level on MIN and volume on MAX.  
    That isn't perhaps the *best* example of a valve amp with pedals though, to be fair ;).

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • AlexCAlexC Frets: 2396
    martinw said:
    Many people (I'm one of them) would say valve amps produce the nicest clean sounds, and make the best platform for whatever pedals you want to use.
    That makes a lot of sense.
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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10357
    I never saw the point of using pedals with a valve amp myself until fairly recently ..... I had always used Marshalls and was quite happy with the basic Marshall dirt sound. Now I do a lot of gigs with an HRD and dirt pedals and it's a pretty good sound for certain things. For pure classic rock like Free, Thin Lizzy, early VH etc pure Marshall valve dirt is better but for a lot of other stuff some dirt pedals into a clean valve amp is a good combination. 

    I'm getting good results using a Soul Food into my HRD at the moment 
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • HattigolHattigol Frets: 8176
    AlexC said:
    I'm looking at getting a new amp in the next couple of years...Vox, Blackstar, Victory maybe. I've never owned a valve amp, but have played through many over the years and there's no denying that they sound great cranked up. And this has got me to thinking - surely putting a circuit based dirt box in front of it slightly misses the point. Boosters, I get... Modulation I get. But if part of the appeal of a valve amp is 'that sound' why put an artificial sound in the chain?
    Thoughts, please... Am I missing something? Or am I just misunderstanding how 'sound' works?
    You say you have never owned a valve amp. I strongly suspect that once you get one and realise just how b*****d loud you have to run them to get a good driven sound, you will find yourself answering your own question!

    "Anybody can play. The note is only 20%. The attitude of the motherf*cker who plays it is  80%" - Miles Davis
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    I actually like hybrid sounds best, for anything above about the amount of dirt you get from an overdriven non-MV amp - even if that's actually got using a master volume. I don't usually like boost pedals pushing an amp either, I prefer to add actual distortion with the pedal on top of the amp's overdrive, rather than turn the pedal volume up - to me, that gives a more responsive, more 'harmonic' type of sound with more edge and bite than you get with higher-gain valve amp distortion and without the odd saturation you often get when you push the amp too hard.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • ICBM said:
    That isn't perhaps the *best* example of a valve amp with pedals though, to be fair ;).
    While you may be right, they were two loose pedals I had when going for a covers audition, did exactly what I needed to play songs with other people and I never bothered doing it any different.

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  • ESBlondeESBlonde Frets: 3576
    Valve amps do sound great when cranked, but there is a whole golden range where the amp is hovering around the threashold of distortion. At this point your hands/pick playing style can let you dig in and blast a chord, play a clean line, then accent the next line or even play a line and accent certain notes or phrases with overdive at will. All controlled with your hands. Many (but not all) valve amps can do this and feel/sound natural, IMHO few solid state amps do it to the same musical standard and the vote is still to be counted on many of the digital devices.
    The down side is that having the preamp and power amp on that edge of the world tonal nirvana often means the rest of the band has to mix to your volume because you might be limited to fairly loud. But it is heaven to play that way when the chance presents itself.
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    I guess it depends what you like but there are a lot of ' classic' guitar tones with a little metal box of some description often in the mix - Stevie Ray Vaughan*, Black Sabbath for example - and even stuff like tape delay pre amps ( Ritchie Blackmore for example, I think some of the Thin Lizzy stuff too); the use of just guitar and amp is probably a bit over exaggerated if anything. 
    People use overdrives for clean sounds. Guitar + pedal + amp then turn down the guitar volume you shouldn't lose the top end you do with guitar + amp. 

    * From memory if you listen to something like The House is Rockin you can hear when the Tube Screamer comes on just to lift his tone for the solo. It's a quite a subtle use, the amp is still doing the hard work.
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    Guitar_Slinger said:
    ICBM said:

    That isn't perhaps the *best* example of a valve amp with pedals though, to be fair ;).
    While you may be right, they were two loose pedals I had when going for a covers audition, did exactly what I needed to play songs with other people and I never bothered doing it any different.
    I didn't mean that, I meant the amp :). Depending on the exact model, it's not strictly a valve amp...

    If it's the Dual Reverb model, it's essentially a hybrid amp with a couple of pedal circuits in the front end. (TS type on the rhythm channel, DS-1 type on the lead channel.) If it's the High-Gain model it still uses diode clipping, although it's mostly valve gain. If it's the SLX there are only three solid-state gain stages (FX loop send and return, master volume switching), none of which really affect the tone.

    None of this means they sound bad though - I actually prefer the sound of them to the following DSL series which *are* all-valve, at least in the direct signal path.

    If it sounds good, it is good.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • SporkySporky Frets: 27586
    Pedals are no less artificial than an amp. 
    "[Sporky] brings a certain vibe and dignity to the forum."
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  • AlexCAlexC Frets: 2396
    Sporky said:
    Pedals are no less artificial than an amp. 
    That’s some form of heresy, isn’t it! ;)
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  • AlexCAlexC Frets: 2396
    @Hattigol Good point... I’ve yet to play the O2. So pedals rather than neighbour complaints then? :)
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  • TTBZTTBZ Frets: 2873
    edited April 2018
    I tend to like the sound and feel of a boosted valve amp even if it has a lot of its own gain, just feels a bit better than going straight in to me.

    My amp at the minute is a Jubilee which I suppose basically has pedal-style diode clipping in the front end and it sounds great. I even boost that further with another overdrive which again I think works well. I sometimes wonder if I'd be just as happy with a loud clean SS amp and decent drive pedals but that feels a bit wrong! Then again I don't seem to like pedal distortion into a clean amp so I'd have to have an "edge of breakup" always on type pedal.
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  • timmysofttimmysoft Frets: 1962
    Diodes are sexy AF 
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