I’m in the middle of playing at a conference and we have switched to Yamaha TH100HD heads going direct into FOH with in ears. It sounds pretty good actually and the sound guy is loving it, however I’m finding some pedals just don’t work (higher gain OD pedals especially) and I’ve got my compressor running very high to try and emulate some of the feel/sag of a real amp which it doesn’t do well.
Has anyone had this issue with other digital rigs?
It’s extremely forward sounding with very little squish under the fingers, so this sounds great for low chords as it gives a piano like feel, but venturing above the 12th fret on a Tele on the bridge pickup is not particularly nice, it doesn’t compress/dip around the note when you hit it hard.
Is this normal digital amp stuff or specific to this Yamaha rig?
Is there a foundation pedal/preamp pedal that I can use to give me something closer to the feel?
It looks like we will be using these for the foreseeable future so this isn’t a bag digital thread, it’s a “I need to find a good solution to this issue and hopefully you can help”
Re: Drive pedals into digital amp?
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 6:33 pm
by jeremyb
What sort of sound are you after? I've found pedals like the catalinbread DLS at 18V sound glorious into a SS amp!
Re: Drive pedals into digital amp?
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 6:42 pm
by Reg18
jeremyb wrote:What sort of sound are you after? I've found pedals like the catalinbread DLS at 18V sound glorious into a SS amp!
Well I guess there are 2 seperate issues, I’m actually happy with my 2 low gain pedals it’s my lead tone/higher gain sound I’m struggling with. It’s like your hearing the actual clipping nature of the pedal as apposed to it blending with your amp. Like running a Tube Screaner into a spanky clean amp sounds rubbish to me, run it low gain into a driven amp and it sounds great.
This digital rig sort of acts like the spanky clean amp
But even when you turn up the gain.
Second issue Is the feel/squish under the fingers which doesn’t work for me. I’m wondering if I need a compressor with more control/tone shaping features.
Re: Drive pedals into digital amp?
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 6:56 pm
by Cdog
Never played the Yamahas, but my experience with older Line6 stuff was they took pedals pretty well and compressed kinda like a tube amp etc. Perhaps you could try stack your overdrives to get less headroom? Sometime I use a barber overdrive clone set at low gain just to add a bit of hair, and it seems to compress well when you run a hot Klone or Tubescreamer into it. Good luck, sux not being able to control your dynamics properly
Re: Drive pedals into digital amp?
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 7:04 pm
by Delayman
When I had a jc120 I found it quite helpful to have a hot cake always on at the end of any other pedals. Seemed to soften it a bit. Maybe one of your low pedals last?
You’ll need to make sure that you drives are not boosting the channel volume too much, as there’s likely to be very unpleasant clipping about be the threshold, rather than a graceful descent into warm overdrive you are used to. I’d try getting the drive you need from the Yamaha emulation, not from a pedal.
Re: Drive pedals into digital amp?
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:14 pm
by Reg18
olegmcnoleg wrote:You’ll need to make sure that you drives are not boosting the channel volume too much, as there’s likely to be very unpleasant clipping about be the threshold, rather than a graceful descent into warm overdrive you are used to. I’d try getting the drive you need from the Yamaha emulation, not from a pedal.
When you say use the Yamaha Emulation, do you mean just channel switching for dirty or something else?
Re: Drive pedals into digital amp?
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:18 pm
by olegmcnoleg
Reg18 wrote:
olegmcnoleg wrote:You’ll need to make sure that you drives are not boosting the channel volume too much, as there’s likely to be very unpleasant clipping about be the threshold, rather than a graceful descent into warm overdrive you are used to. I’d try getting the drive you need from the Yamaha emulation, not from a pedal.
When you say use the Yamaha Emulation, do you mean just channel switching for dirty or something else?
Use a different channel/preset for it, that models more overdrive.
Re: Drive pedals into digital amp?
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 7:44 pm
by Reg18
olegmcnoleg wrote:
Reg18 wrote:
olegmcnoleg wrote:You’ll need to make sure that you drives are not boosting the channel volume too much, as there’s likely to be very unpleasant clipping about be the threshold, rather than a graceful descent into warm overdrive you are used to. I’d try getting the drive you need from the Yamaha emulation, not from a pedal.
When you say use the Yamaha Emulation, do you mean just channel switching for dirty or something else?
Use a different channel/preset for it, that models more overdrive.
I haven’t played to much with the other channels apart from ‘Clean’ however we are going stereo using both channels so it would have to be mono to have channel switching as far as I know?
We found the fullest clean sound was achieved by gain on around half and the volume on full with the ‘master volume’ setting the overall volume.
I wonder if having the ‘volume’ (not the ‘master volume’) on full, effects the way higher gain overdrives react.
I’m a little confused by why there would be 2 volumes and a gain control in the first place?
Just realised I hadn’t actually responded to this, I’ve been looking into these as well. You can in fact load any third party IR directly into the Yamaha amp so wouldn’t be needed for that.
I would be interested in getting a load box and one of these to run my 5e3 direct though. Finding a decent cheap load box is the bit that is hard.
Just realised I hadn’t actually responded to this, I’ve been looking into these as well. You can in fact load any third party IR directly into the Yamaha amp so wouldn’t be needed for that.
I would be interested in getting a load box and one of these to run my 5e3 direct though. Finding a decent cheap load box is the bit that is hard.
Must you use the Yamaha amp? With the Radar, you can just use your full pedalboard and your high gain pedal/s will sound glorious with this direct in to the system
Just realised I hadn’t actually responded to this, I’ve been looking into these as well. You can in fact load any third party IR directly into the Yamaha amp so wouldn’t be needed for that.
I would be interested in getting a load box and one of these to run my 5e3 direct though. Finding a decent cheap load box is the bit that is hard.
Must you use the Yamaha amp? With the Radar, you can just use your full pedalboard and your high gain pedal/s will sound glorious with this direct in to the system
Hadn’t considered that, isn’t it just a cab simulator though? I thought you would need some sort of amp/amp modeler going into it first?
Re: Drive pedals into digital amp?
Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 10:22 pm
by KNNZ
It's more than that mate! check this video out
you can use the poweramp and even choose the type of tubes within etc etc
Re: Drive pedals into digital amp?
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 5:15 am
by Lawrence
Reg18 wrote:
I haven’t played to much with the other channels apart from ‘Clean’ however we are going stereo using both channels so it would have to be mono to have channel switching as far as I know?
We found the fullest clean sound was achieved by gain on around half and the volume on full with the ‘master volume’ setting the overall volume.
I wonder if having the ‘volume’ (not the ‘master volume’) on full, effects the way higher gain overdrives react.
I’m a little confused by why there would be 2 volumes and a gain control in the first place?
The gain is the input level...how much the pre-amp is driven
the first volume is the "master volume " ... how hard the power amp is driven
the second volume is how loud it is.
