Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

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Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by Shimmer »

I read (somewhere...?) that a lot of distortion pedals (DS1, Rat et) sound best when in front of a slightly overdriven amp, and can be terrible in front of a really clean amp. And they recommended if using a really clean up to pair one up with a bit of an OD pedal.
What are people's experience with this? Truth? Nonsense? Somewhere in between?

[Context - I have the Vox MV50 Clean and aside from my home-made fuzz, wanted to get something more distortion-y, like a Rat/PepersRAD ].
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by jeremyb »

I find many distortion pedals can sound a bit thin unless you're going into a dirty amp, the DS1 is designed to be used with an already dirty amp, however.. some pedals like the dirty little secret run at 18V sounds awesome into a clean amp, used to run one into my old ZT Club and it sounded awesome!
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by Conway »

Not my experience. I run every amp I've had pretty clean - current Princeton is pristinely clean - and have no problems with higher gain pedals.
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by KNNZ »

I find the driver plays a role too. I have a v30 cab now and it sounds great with high gain pedals, my Fender DRRI with janzen sounded awesome with high gain pedals too but when I had the Princeton with Gold Celestion it sounded horrible with high gain pedals

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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by Conway »

Conway wrote:Not my experience. I run every amp I've had pretty clean - current Princeton is pristinely clean - and have no problems with higher gain pedals.
Of course, these are tube amps, not SS, and I'm not sure what those little Vox microtubes are like.
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by Single coil »

“It depends”
But it is a common result. Adding an eq pedal (and using it correctly) can make the shitness go away.
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by Conway »

KNNZ wrote:I find the driver plays a role too. I have a v30 cab now and it sounds great with high gain pedals, my Fender DRRI with janzen sounded awesome with high gain pedals too but when I had the Princeton with Gold Celestion it sounded horrible with high gain pedals
Yes, I had that amp too. A Celestion Gold just does not belong with Fender Blackface IMO.
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by Conway »

Conway wrote:
KNNZ wrote:I find the driver plays a role too. I have a v30 cab now and it sounds great with high gain pedals, my Fender DRRI with janzen sounded awesome with high gain pedals too but when I had the Princeton with Gold Celestion it sounded horrible with high gain pedals
Yes, I had that amp too. A Celestion Gold just does not belong with Fender Blackface IMO.
I was talking to Bender yesterday - he now has that amp. The first thing he did was swap the speaker out.
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by telefiend »

I guess it depends what your ears hear, and what they like. Do what sounds good :thumbup:

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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by Olderama »

A Friedman Beod pedal with the trim pot adjusted sounds sweet on a clean amp
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by AiRdAd »

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned above, but you can use a distortion pedal 1) to drive a tube amp into distortion or 2) to give you the distorted sound into a clean amp A pedal that is really good for adding colour to a tube amp or driving it, may not sound good into a clean amp trying give you the distorted sound - and vise versa. plus - there will be whole lot of pedals that will do be in the middle.

If you are using a clean amp, maybe it's better to be looking for something along the lines of one that gives you the distorted sound that you're after?
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by calling card »

It's just diodes clipping. Nothing wrong, if you like how it sounds.
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by mugamee »

Depends actually...some pedals/ amps pair well while others don't-- and the quest for the perfect match up is what makes it fun.
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by Delayman »

When I had a JC120, which is known for 'crispness' I had an always-on hotcake last in the chain to soften things up a bit. Some distortion pedals do weird things to the high frequencies (listen to them direct into a desk/stereo!) , I reckon some amps just filter that out better than others. That may be why singlecoil's eq suggestion works too.
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Re: Distortion pedals for clean amp - no good?

Post by MrDINO »

Some tube amps in my experience take pedals well ( as previously mentioned) and others not so well. Most boogies I’ve owned worked best with the onboard channel swapping rather than using pedals. My fav amps ( at present) are single channel, slightly pushed the rest with either a booster or drive/fuzz. We all like different sounds and it does take a while Imho to get a sound you can smile at.

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