So I seem to have rediscovered the love for my Epiphone SG and my little Vox VT15. Had a great week of playing for the first time in ages.
So instead of looking to buy a new guitar or amp I'm looking for a nice Drive pedal that will give me that bluesy crunch and after looking around I came across the Blackstar LT Drive
The sound samples sound good, it looks like it's well built and most importantly of all isn't super expensive. I was tempted by the new Vox Flat4 Drive pedal until I saw the price, it's really hard to justify £100+ for just one pedal!
Has anyone used these, played with one in a store or have any opinions on them, before I commit to the purchase? My nearest Guitar store is in Brum and that means a train journey and a whole day out of my very precious weekend so testing it myself will be problematic.
Cheers
Bob
Comments
I have a Fulldrive II and a Bad Monkey, but if it's of any interest from what I've heard I really like the Drive and have been thinking of putting together a 'quick' board and this is my probable drive.
Thought that might be of interest for a frame of reference for me. Personally I'd buy mail order, less hassle to return than the cost of the train journey and time.
Only heard the you tube clips but the drive seems pick of the bunch to me and sounds like a good option for what you decsribe.
Also echo the thoughts of buying online. If you don't like it, return it, and you lose the cost of return postage only. Still cheaper and less hastle than the train.
http://www.valvetronix.net/valvetronix/rock-blues-overdrive/rock-blues-overdrive/details_1058.html
I personally don't think you need a valve practice amp, your VT15 should do the job, enabling you to practice, nicely.
I eventually got tired with fiddling wth knobs and for a long time i set it to manual and used the fender clean amp model and it served me for a clean or slight amount of gain tone which i then put pedals on.
I'd say play with the modeller. The ac30 or the 70s UK model are both good at that blues crunch, just keep tweaking that website has useful start points for sounds, but don't be afraid to deviate.
Pedals that give great blues sounds are normally running into a valve amp, and you hear a combination of the solid state pedal and the valve crunch. The amp you have should emulate both fairly well
You should have no trouble. They're great sounding amps, I still miss my old one. Try the UK 70s model
Shouldn't be too hard to get a decent bluesy drive type of tone out of a valvetronix, if anything they tend to excel at the lower gain tones. I don't have one myself but I have a little mini 3 and you can easily get bluesy drive sounds without pedals. Off the top of my head, try either the Fender blackface setting (it's called "Black 2x12" on mine, I'm assuming it's something similar on yours), the Vox AC30 setting ("AC30TB" on mine) or the dumble setting ("BTQ clean"). And basically just don't set the gain control too high, modellers tend to have more gain than the original amps would have had. Neck pickup (especially if your guitar is a strat) will help, too, as will adding some reverb (your amp should have built-in reverb).
That's what I normally do for those bluesy-type tones.