It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
I use a klon with a modern high end amp that sounds fantastic on it's own, however I've used the klon in two different ways with it.
1.) as an overdrive, which basically allows me to keep my amp super clean how I like it and then push the amp + adding gain with the klon as an overdive pedal. I stopped using it this way as I found better more versatile ways of using it
2.) as a boost + less drive, I love the way the amp sounds on it's own and add other pedals like a tube screamer, a blues breaker a zen, etc to it using the klon as a boost + a little bit of gain gives it a superb low gain driven blues sound on it's own, or drives the selected sound (eg: tubescreamer + klon) to a really good little boost and little gain boost without actually changing the sound to the eay, but giving you a little bit of room to hide a mistake and stand out in the mix.
I've tried it with some other amps too of lesser quality and got good results, where I didn't get any benefit was from brittle / harsh sounding amps or the more "rockier" sounds.
I don't think it's "old" or "second rate" amps it works with, but I think it works better with certain voiced amps and style of playing than others.
"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
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Now I'm even happier with it and the klone stays on always. To me its like fairy dust and I say that not because of all the hype but because I like it so much. I've built around 35 raved about highend circuits in my quest for tone and 3 remain on my board. (The klone, a boiling point clone and a Plexitone clone that runs on 9v normal power but is internally boosted to 12v. Covers all I need).
https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/57776/handsomerik/p1
I'd say it's even overtaken the liquid sunshine for my main affections as a low-gain OD
My Sunking klone is set to add a small bit of grit and slightly crisp up the sound - so not only a fat clean boost is possible
Being purist about getting all the OD from the amp was the dogma I was brought up with in the 80s/90s, it was probably an over-reaction to some of the nasty OD pedals in circulation back then.
Now I know from my own experiments that the best modern pedals are so refined that they can offer far more variation, and of course you can have more than one in the same rig.
Contrary to popular belief, some valve amp OD is not very attractive, most single ended amps sound rough, various amps with poor design Phase inverters sound rough, and many amps lose some of their subtle & desirable characteristics when run flat out.
Hence using top-notch pedals to build on the amp's sound can give the best of both worlds, e.g. the crispness and character of a tweed twin, but being able to add the smoothness and fullness of a HoneyBee or a Zendrive, whereas turning up a Tweed twin just gets flubby for me, and the Jensens in mine break up in a nasty way
It might just be the case that in your current set up with the presets you've got, it's too close to other sounds.
With a Valvestate AVT150 set clean it did a pretty decent job as an all-round drive pedal. It shined with my Carlsbro 50 Top head/Orange PPC212 rig - the 50 Top is a super clean, super loud non-master volume monster and the pedal was great as an always-on to give a subtle breakup rather than the cleaner-than-clean base tone of the amp.
I'm using into a Genz Benz Black Pearl 30-212 now (think Vox/Matchless) which has a nice natural 'on the edge' tone anyway so the pedal is my main drive sound for chunkier rhythms or solos. Great articulate tone, doesn't drown out your playing dynamics (not that my playing could ever be called dynamic!).
So, the short answer is that its pretty workable into anything but it all depends on how your rig sounds to start with!