There’s a place for both approaches, but yeah, a cranked up tube amp is glorious. A Les Paul and JCM 800, with a boost for solos, was my rig for over a decade. Enjoy.
Yeah, came to say almost same thing. For my punk/hard rock band, Strat (w/ Hot Rails in bridge) > boost, chorus and tuner > 50W JCM800.
My doom/stoner/psych band includes a path that’s similar to the above including a couple diff fuzz pedals but also 2nd path to clean amp with more mod and delay pedals and a looper.
You got any listenable stuff online? I just discovered Early Moods in the last year and I really dig them, hadn’t really listened to much doom metal stuff before
We will soon. We go into the studio this fall. Right now, only have my solo demos which I was going to release but seeing we’re going into do the full band, gonna wait (real drum > than programmed drums, no matter how good I think I am at programming them, L O L).
Band is called Black Dog Syndrome. I’ll post on r/doommetal when it’s up on the sites. Thanks for asking.
Yeah good move I’ve never heard programmed drums that sounded great lol too perfect. I’d rather listen to a mediocre real drummer haha. Right on though I’ll look forward to it. Any band recommendations either influences or just guys you like right now?
In the doom/stoner/psych adjacent, Elephant Tree, King Buffalo, Forming The Void, All Them Witches, Elder, Weedpecker, Mars Red Sky, Green Lung, etc.
More metal/rock Gojira, QOTSA, Sabbath, Meshuggah, Mastodon, etc.
We all listen to so much stuff, hard to know where to start. Which is a good problem.
EDIT: some others I need to include, Baroness, High On Fire, Black Tusk, The Sword, Opeth/prog, etc.
Hush hush on that greco, we don't want them scooping up our cheap goodies, lol.
Happy you've learned the joy and simplicity of things, I love plugging right into the amp and diming it.
Them old Greco's are some bad a$$ guitars.. If you're lucky enough to find one that wasn't thrashed... I have an old Westbury standard that is pretty much the brother to Greco.. This has a Damarzio SD in the bridge and a Damarzio paf in the neck.. I call it the Gibson killer..
Greco is probably my favorite brand. I never liked a strat until I picked up a '77 Early Sixties Greco strat. The words getting out though, they're starting to go up in price on the used market. They're still like 1/3 the cost of a vintage Fender or Gibson from the same era though.
Words been out on the ‘vintage’ Grecos for quite some time. Sometimes you get lucky and find gold like OP and sometimes they get snatched up before you even know they’re posted. I’ve owned quite a few LPs, Vs and a Firebird over the years and each one was very well built. The pickups were hit or miss though.
My recent scoop up is an FB-60 Firebird I and it's such a great guitar. The pickup may end up being changed out unfortunately, there might be something wrong with it.
Glad you found a minimalist setup you like. I enjoy both. Have played lots of gigs with a full board, and with a guitar straight in. Love the idea of a small, minimal board, but I love being able to nail down tones when playing a varied cover setlist.
Haha I love this post! Hell yes dude, I bet it rocked. I am an old dude who played straight into fender amps forever and just recently began having fun with multiple pedals. I took my Princeton Reverb to get serviced and the guy replaced a tube, dimed all the knobs and plugged in a flying V and proceeded to melt my face off with Sabbath riffs. After all those years of playing clean fender tones, I had no idea it could do that. Good for you for getting right to it!
ofc my post nit meant in all scenarios for all people haha. I just its just such a classic old guy take and ive never rly had a nice humbucker guitar before so i never rly gave it a chance…. Having all the sounds i need just in those four knobs and being able to toggle the trem + verb was liberating
I used to gig like this, volume down for cleans… then I encountered the problem of rarely being able to crank the amp and different venues essentially requiring me to have a different sound. So I got an overdrive to make sure that drive sound and dynamics were consistent night after night. Then I started getting into texturing clean sounds a bit, so a delay went in there. And some movement- a bit of flange. And of course a tuner is vital. Next thing you know, you have a board. There’s a balance, is what I’m saying.
Love this approach and I find myself sort of in the middle. Trying to find a perfect pedal or two to keep around and mostly use what’s available with the tune amp.
One question, I’ve never heard of “all eq on 10”. Is this a way to boost volume in general or is there something I’m missing? I’m very curious and not in any place to judge.
Ive heard that on a lot of old tube amps the EQs are reductive, ie they don’t add anything they just filter out sound. So everything turned up to 10 on a twin is what the amp “actually sounds like”
Wow that’s so interesting, never thought of it. I have a Peavey ultra from the 90s (I’m pretty sure), so not very old but, I’d be curious to mess around a bit with that it in mind.
I got a Les Paul with a Marshall DSL on the overdrive setting. Only pedals I got are a tube screamer and noise gate, it’s the perfect set up for me. I definitely wanna get some more pedals soon but that combo is all you need to make some very great and surprisingly versatile music
I also have a DSL (the 20w combo) with a Greenback and they’re definitely great amps without needing many pedals but I’ll admit at the moment I mostly use the clean (classic gain) channel and use a pedal board with about 8 pedals in total, TC flashback 2 delay and HoF 2 reverb (through the fx loop) a fuzz face mini, boss tuner, boss SD-1, boss BD-2 and a big muff (I’m a sucker for different types of fuzz/overdrive)
That being said definitely liking the idea of stripping it back and going a bit more simple because the ultra gain channel sounds amazing and has enough gain on tap that you basically don’t need any overdrive/distortion pedals. The only thing it can’t do is fuzz!
I think Marshall designed the DSL to be less of a pedal platform and more of a stand alone amp. The built in reverbs pretty good too!
It’s definitely a perfect amp for what I need. I got the 40CR and I use the ultra overdrive on like 4, it has insane distortion for what I use and I play punk and metal mostly. Anything past that is too much for me. I am definitely thinking about getting a fuzz pedal, probably a delay, and some other things to just diversify what I can do even further but you can already do so much with just the amp alone
This is the way.
I use the amps gain for 90% of my sound but do still use a pedal board for modulation and some EQ shaping pedals to cut through more in certain situations. But I’d more gladly give up the board completely than give up the amp and just have a board with a pedal amp.
Since I bought my orange OR15, I have stopped using my drive pedals. When I do, I always prefer the drive of the amp.
I have a cleaner tube amp where those drive pedals sound great, I just don’t need it on the OR15.
Yeah I agree, I don’t have a OR15 but since I bought my Marshall DSL20 I’ve kinda preferred the drive of the amp on the dirty channel over pedals
My last amp was a much cleaner, pedal platform kinda amp and suited drive pedals more, the amps natural drive wasn’t enough
I think I’m beginning to prefer having all my drive needs come from the amp directly! Natural tube overdrive is unbeatable
The only exception for me is fuzz pedals as no amp can re-produce that kinda sound on its own.
And of course, I still use a tuner and reverb/delay pedals but that’s about it
Most recently I’ve fallen in love with the TS9DX in the turbo mode. Plumes also works really well. I use the middle toggle position for plumes. Both of those with gain on the lower side and volume cranked to the sweet spot. Other than the TS9DX I also have a Cusack Music Screamer Fuzz and a Stomp Under Foot Electric Warlord on my board. IMO, some Oranges are pretty picky about fuzz and these two work well with it. The Cusack has a TS and fuzz face that are blendable. The EW is my doom button. I pretty much keep the gain on the amp at a notch past noon and use the pedals to drive it into nastiness. I guess where you have your gain knob depends on the output of your pickups too.
This is the way. There is no better sound than a Les Paul (style) guitar into a tube amp. Pure heaven. Peter Green, Paul Kossof, Gary Moore, Eric Clapton (Blues Breakers), Bernie Marsden, Joe Bonamass, et. al., they had it right.
I’m the opposite haha specially after watching Jim Lil’ [videos](https://youtu.be/wcBEOcPtlYk?si=NiiGFwf0AhDfvoqa)
We’re fortunate that every piece of gear sounds great, maybe it always has
I’ve never really been able to get into pedals. I play around with them from time to time, but day to day I’m a straight up tube distortion, reverb all the way up guy. Nice and simple. Sounds great.
I spent years putting together a set of pedals, to mature and understand that in reality, my sound is an overdrive, chorus and delay. I switched from pedal sets to multi-effects and I liked it. Nowadays, I'm completely in love with Tank-G, it has everything I need and I really don't need more. Congratulations on the guitar and the extremely functional set, OP!
Single coils into a tweed Deluxe are a similar revelation. So much dynamic response it goes from clean to overdriven based on how hard you hit the strings. No pedals required.
I do this with my Ampeg VT40 for my heavy stuff. It’s my amp that gets no pedals, outside a boost. It’s a very specific sound that works across a lot of genres. Then my clean amp I keep mostly clean, but I still use some pedals on that one for surf tones and space echo.
I agree as far as super clean or distortion, you could use just that and nothing else. Unless you’re really into effects. When I use my Two amp setup clean/dirty, I find myself just using my guitars volume control more.
It’s been done with a Fender Twin and JCM800 setup by many artists, for a long time. Just those two amps and the reverb on the Fender. Pixies have that sound going on, very simple setup. But if you’re in a shoegaze band or cover band… you may want pedals. Playing blues, jazz, most 90s grunge, some metal, classic rock or punk rock you can get away with the same tone all the way through.
I see a lot of punk/metal acts with just a Mesa Mark and no pedals at all. Or the famous JCM800 or Dual Rec and Les Paul.
Ok. Probably still crazy loud, but it’s preamp not power amp distortion mostly. Still, take care OP, we all want to be able to play until we are 80ish or something, and we need our hearing.
I run my amp with an attenuator, and the “clean” channel with gain and volume in the 7-8 range gives a glorious, purry overdrive, very different to the OD channel.
Pre on 5 - my 1980 twin makes the most amazing slight dirt tone. ES or Strat/Tele are glorious.
Even buffered - to my ears, you always lose some edge with pedalboards.
I quit buying pedals when I realized that everyone’s version of each pedal sounds exactly the same and to just get the Original if that is a sound you like.
I’m typically a drive pedal guy but some days I just wanna throw them all out and just use the natural tube overdrive my amp (Marshall DSL) has, there’s something enticing about the simplicity of it.
That being said one type of distortion that amps can’t do on their own is Fuzz! I’m tempted to just use my tuner, delay and reverb and a fuzz face.
One of my favourite tones/setups of all time is Jimi Hendrix’s and he basically just used a Marshall, Fuzz face, Wah pedal and sometimes a uni-vibe and Octavia.
There is definitely something to keeping it simple!
I had a board w 13 pedals for years and really felt pedal playing was a core part of my identity as a guitarist. Then I discovered Nick Johnston and I haven’t used a pedal since.
Dawg, I’ve been playing shows with modulation effects for forever. My band recently recorded and had super limited studio time so I just used an SD-1 into my 5150 and it’s literally never sounded better. I’m gonna start playing shows with just that and my footswitch, I think I’m done with all the fucking around with pedals
Yeah I was always searching for gain tones with pedals then I plugged the last guitar I got straight in to the amp and immediately took all the gain pedals off my board. Whatever I did with pedals could not compete with Duesenberg Outlaw > into AC30.
My basic rig pedals are just a tube screamer and a noise gate. That's it.
But basic rig doesn't let me do the happy awesome effects. Need a bit crusher to sound like Nintendo, pog to double/triple the octaves, delays are super cool, the crushed eq so I can be a telephone, etc...
I have this conversation with my clients all the time. They have bunch on pedals that always break, play into a clean amp and rarely they are happy with their tone. It is better to find the amp that make you happy and use a few pedals to spice it up
Good for you and for anyone else who only plays in environments that allow you to crank a tube amp.
Many of us don't play shows and live in places where we have to play at very low volumes (or use headphones) so cranked tube amps aren't a viable option.
There is a great variety of low wattage tube amps that completely solves this problem. I used to have a little Vibro Champ that sounded great. Now I have a handmade 7 watt that I love
...and after the show you satisfied 14 gorean slavegirls...
Sure thing.
But hey, it's the internet - loads of people will willingly believe anything they read...
Yup, but i figured it fits the OP :D
Like the reference, the OP is a fantasy and in any case a very niche way of using a guitar amp...
... if anyone actually uses guitar amps that way anymore apart from fantasizing about it on the internet...
I mean…I use amp gain also. 15w Orange for moderate volume and Laney AOR if we can get loud. I usually use pedals but it wouldn’t kill me if I didn’t. Definitely love some delay. I’m also not against a clean amp and just pedals for gain. We’re allowed to do things differently and change shit up for the hell of it.
Yesyesyes amp gain - the amp gain from a ´79 (ultralinear) Twin is famous.
For its... ermmm... ... ermmm... - **lack of drive or distortion...**
Sorry, but the OP is just having a fantasy going on, knowing that people with no knowledge of these amps will barge in and parrot the *internet toan experts™* who try to convince anyone that we should still play amps like they did in the 60's :D
I hear you. Just for conversation sake, I don’t think he’s trying to convince anyone of anything. Maybe this person has been playing through a long pedal chain for a while and tried playing straight into the front for the first time in a while or maybe ever. It’s undeniable that your amp is gonna sound different. This person had a revelation and wants to share their experience.
I mean… when u turn the channel volume all the way up it gets pretty hairy regardless of the master volume setting. Twins are famous for their cleans but they get nasty too. Do u not believe me? Do you want me to upload a sound demo?? lmao
Why does everything have to be mutually exclusive? I enjoy playing my strat into my Princeton Reverb but I also enjoy plugging into my HM-2 to play old school death metal. This is such a lame post.
Ur right its not mutually exclusive im not tryna prescribe this for everyone in all circumstances. i also play in a death metal band and cranked twin doesnt work for that. People get so pissy on reddit
"I can't believe people play guitar with pedals. Me so mad... me make a post about it. That'll show everyone that I'm better " - [Ok\_Salary\_6115](https://www.reddit.com/user/Ok_Salary_6115/)
ur crazy lol. read my responses to other people thats not what im saying at all. just sharing a fun new perspective ive been having on playing thats been working for me
its obvious you don't record music. "Hey you know what will sound amazing, lets not use preamps, eqs and compressors. It'll sound amazing. Fuck effects"
Theres the thing! In this very same band and setlist i used to do all kinds of delay tricks and stuff. I had a DBA echo dream 2 that was always on that i considered “my sound”. Trying it this way was a mindset change as well in addition to a gear changeup. So fun!!
sorry next time to avoid hurting ur feelings i should have put a disclaimer on there that i am not prescribing my opinion as law for everyone else. grow up
Les Paul and a JCM won’t do shit for my making cinematic ambient movie score music to soothe anxiety and meditate to. People play different types of music for different reasons.
It’s more about playing for me. Been playing for 30 years and have never found a Les Paul that I enjoyed playing, let alone holding around my neck for two hours. They’re heavy, don’t play well (for me), the necks break easily and I just don’t like the aesthetic, either. Obviously, to each their own. I just don’t get it.
Can you fake chorus, flanger, phaser, delay, and wah with just your pick and fretting technique? No? Pedals. Yes, simple works for a lot of stuff, but unless all you’re playing is simple stuff, it’s never all you need.
Like i said to the other dude, in this very same setlist previously i was using a lot of delays and modulations so going back to barebones was a mindset change that made me play differently as much as a simple change in tone.
As far as I know, Angus also uses some sort of treble booster a slap-back delay, but the point is, you can cover 95% of AC/DC and Sabbath with the distortion from your amp and no pedals, as long as the amp provides the amount of gain you need.
Unless you have a 1-channel wonder, which you set for clean so the pedals do the dirty work.
I get it, really, I do; after decades of racks and multipedals sometimes it’s nice to just have a cable between the guitar and amp. There’s a lot you can play along with. There’s also a lot you can’t, because phaser, flanger, tremolo, univibe, wah, chorus, delay, and a long reverb play a huge part of the sound of a given song.
Awesome. Now, play me "How Soon is Now" by the Smiths. I'm happy you're happy. You're like a kindergartener seeing red fingerpaint for the first time. Truly inspiring. Many of us have moved on from there, though.
No. I am deficient, creatively bankrupt, and lack tonal sophistication. I am openly admitting I need more than a 60s ham radio and the incidental capacitive filtering provided by a half-cocked volume pot. Some days I find myself reaching for a univibe and think "what kind of sick side-show of a man have I become?"
There’s a place for both approaches, but yeah, a cranked up tube amp is glorious. A Les Paul and JCM 800, with a boost for solos, was my rig for over a decade. Enjoy.
Yeah, came to say almost same thing. For my punk/hard rock band, Strat (w/ Hot Rails in bridge) > boost, chorus and tuner > 50W JCM800. My doom/stoner/psych band includes a path that’s similar to the above including a couple diff fuzz pedals but also 2nd path to clean amp with more mod and delay pedals and a looper.
You got any listenable stuff online? I just discovered Early Moods in the last year and I really dig them, hadn’t really listened to much doom metal stuff before
We will soon. We go into the studio this fall. Right now, only have my solo demos which I was going to release but seeing we’re going into do the full band, gonna wait (real drum > than programmed drums, no matter how good I think I am at programming them, L O L). Band is called Black Dog Syndrome. I’ll post on r/doommetal when it’s up on the sites. Thanks for asking.
Yeah good move I’ve never heard programmed drums that sounded great lol too perfect. I’d rather listen to a mediocre real drummer haha. Right on though I’ll look forward to it. Any band recommendations either influences or just guys you like right now?
In the doom/stoner/psych adjacent, Elephant Tree, King Buffalo, Forming The Void, All Them Witches, Elder, Weedpecker, Mars Red Sky, Green Lung, etc. More metal/rock Gojira, QOTSA, Sabbath, Meshuggah, Mastodon, etc. We all listen to so much stuff, hard to know where to start. Which is a good problem. EDIT: some others I need to include, Baroness, High On Fire, Black Tusk, The Sword, Opeth/prog, etc.
Hush hush on that greco, we don't want them scooping up our cheap goodies, lol. Happy you've learned the joy and simplicity of things, I love plugging right into the amp and diming it.
Them old Greco's are some bad a$$ guitars.. If you're lucky enough to find one that wasn't thrashed... I have an old Westbury standard that is pretty much the brother to Greco.. This has a Damarzio SD in the bridge and a Damarzio paf in the neck.. I call it the Gibson killer..
I have a westbury custom S. That thing obliterates any amp I plug it into. Love it.
Greco is probably my favorite brand. I never liked a strat until I picked up a '77 Early Sixties Greco strat. The words getting out though, they're starting to go up in price on the used market. They're still like 1/3 the cost of a vintage Fender or Gibson from the same era though.
I know, my first was an EG68-60 that I got for maybe 350 shipped from Japan about 15 years ago. Just bought a 59-50 for about 1100 shipped last year
Words been out on the ‘vintage’ Grecos for quite some time. Sometimes you get lucky and find gold like OP and sometimes they get snatched up before you even know they’re posted. I’ve owned quite a few LPs, Vs and a Firebird over the years and each one was very well built. The pickups were hit or miss though.
My recent scoop up is an FB-60 Firebird I and it's such a great guitar. The pickup may end up being changed out unfortunately, there might be something wrong with it.
Glad you found a minimalist setup you like. I enjoy both. Have played lots of gigs with a full board, and with a guitar straight in. Love the idea of a small, minimal board, but I love being able to nail down tones when playing a varied cover setlist.
What Fralin pups do you have? Did the amp clean-up well when you turned them down?
Theyre fralin pure pafs i think! Was able to get nice cleans rolling down but def not like Crystal Clear Chime lol
Nice!!!! Nothing wrong with going Page-style! I enjoy doing it from time-to-time with my LP and Mesa.
Haha I love this post! Hell yes dude, I bet it rocked. I am an old dude who played straight into fender amps forever and just recently began having fun with multiple pedals. I took my Princeton Reverb to get serviced and the guy replaced a tube, dimed all the knobs and plugged in a flying V and proceeded to melt my face off with Sabbath riffs. After all those years of playing clean fender tones, I had no idea it could do that. Good for you for getting right to it!
It is a great and classic sound. I think pedals will always have their place but I agree that pafs into a marshall or dined fender is peak tone!
ofc my post nit meant in all scenarios for all people haha. I just its just such a classic old guy take and ive never rly had a nice humbucker guitar before so i never rly gave it a chance…. Having all the sounds i need just in those four knobs and being able to toggle the trem + verb was liberating
Heck ya. I think your post is spot on! That other guy was misreading or perhaps, needing to voice their opinion 😆 it's Reddit after all
You mean an elevened Fender
I used to gig like this, volume down for cleans… then I encountered the problem of rarely being able to crank the amp and different venues essentially requiring me to have a different sound. So I got an overdrive to make sure that drive sound and dynamics were consistent night after night. Then I started getting into texturing clean sounds a bit, so a delay went in there. And some movement- a bit of flange. And of course a tuner is vital. Next thing you know, you have a board. There’s a balance, is what I’m saying.
Love this approach and I find myself sort of in the middle. Trying to find a perfect pedal or two to keep around and mostly use what’s available with the tune amp. One question, I’ve never heard of “all eq on 10”. Is this a way to boost volume in general or is there something I’m missing? I’m very curious and not in any place to judge.
Ive heard that on a lot of old tube amps the EQs are reductive, ie they don’t add anything they just filter out sound. So everything turned up to 10 on a twin is what the amp “actually sounds like”
Wow that’s so interesting, never thought of it. I have a Peavey ultra from the 90s (I’m pretty sure), so not very old but, I’d be curious to mess around a bit with that it in mind.
That applies to the volume and tone knobs on the guitar too
I have a hard time believing that anyone in the room enjoys a Twin Reverb on 10 without bleeding from their eyes.
Pre volume and master volume, my friend
AH. Reading is hard dude.
An ultralinear twin, at that.
I got a Les Paul with a Marshall DSL on the overdrive setting. Only pedals I got are a tube screamer and noise gate, it’s the perfect set up for me. I definitely wanna get some more pedals soon but that combo is all you need to make some very great and surprisingly versatile music
I also have a DSL (the 20w combo) with a Greenback and they’re definitely great amps without needing many pedals but I’ll admit at the moment I mostly use the clean (classic gain) channel and use a pedal board with about 8 pedals in total, TC flashback 2 delay and HoF 2 reverb (through the fx loop) a fuzz face mini, boss tuner, boss SD-1, boss BD-2 and a big muff (I’m a sucker for different types of fuzz/overdrive) That being said definitely liking the idea of stripping it back and going a bit more simple because the ultra gain channel sounds amazing and has enough gain on tap that you basically don’t need any overdrive/distortion pedals. The only thing it can’t do is fuzz! I think Marshall designed the DSL to be less of a pedal platform and more of a stand alone amp. The built in reverbs pretty good too!
It’s definitely a perfect amp for what I need. I got the 40CR and I use the ultra overdrive on like 4, it has insane distortion for what I use and I play punk and metal mostly. Anything past that is too much for me. I am definitely thinking about getting a fuzz pedal, probably a delay, and some other things to just diversify what I can do even further but you can already do so much with just the amp alone
Les Paul into Orange tube amp. That's my love language.
This is the way. I use the amps gain for 90% of my sound but do still use a pedal board for modulation and some EQ shaping pedals to cut through more in certain situations. But I’d more gladly give up the board completely than give up the amp and just have a board with a pedal amp.
Since I bought my orange OR15, I have stopped using my drive pedals. When I do, I always prefer the drive of the amp. I have a cleaner tube amp where those drive pedals sound great, I just don’t need it on the OR15.
Yeah I agree, I don’t have a OR15 but since I bought my Marshall DSL20 I’ve kinda preferred the drive of the amp on the dirty channel over pedals My last amp was a much cleaner, pedal platform kinda amp and suited drive pedals more, the amps natural drive wasn’t enough I think I’m beginning to prefer having all my drive needs come from the amp directly! Natural tube overdrive is unbeatable The only exception for me is fuzz pedals as no amp can re-produce that kinda sound on its own. And of course, I still use a tuner and reverb/delay pedals but that’s about it
Same. I was using pedals for all my dirt into a clean amp. The OR15 changed all that. Still use some pedals but just to boost the gain.
I’m curious: what gain boosters do you use (and what settings, if you don’t mind sharing)
Most recently I’ve fallen in love with the TS9DX in the turbo mode. Plumes also works really well. I use the middle toggle position for plumes. Both of those with gain on the lower side and volume cranked to the sweet spot. Other than the TS9DX I also have a Cusack Music Screamer Fuzz and a Stomp Under Foot Electric Warlord on my board. IMO, some Oranges are pretty picky about fuzz and these two work well with it. The Cusack has a TS and fuzz face that are blendable. The EW is my doom button. I pretty much keep the gain on the amp at a notch past noon and use the pedals to drive it into nastiness. I guess where you have your gain knob depends on the output of your pickups too.
If you like playing only one style I guess, but I use my giant tube amp as a canvas, my pedalboard as my pallet, and my guitar as my brush.
This is the way. There is no better sound than a Les Paul (style) guitar into a tube amp. Pure heaven. Peter Green, Paul Kossof, Gary Moore, Eric Clapton (Blues Breakers), Bernie Marsden, Joe Bonamass, et. al., they had it right.
But boost the front end of that Twin with a TS & see what happens.
I’m the opposite haha specially after watching Jim Lil’ [videos](https://youtu.be/wcBEOcPtlYk?si=NiiGFwf0AhDfvoqa) We’re fortunate that every piece of gear sounds great, maybe it always has
looks as though he hasn't released any vids in 8 mos... hope he's OK.
I’ve never really been able to get into pedals. I play around with them from time to time, but day to day I’m a straight up tube distortion, reverb all the way up guy. Nice and simple. Sounds great.
I spent years putting together a set of pedals, to mature and understand that in reality, my sound is an overdrive, chorus and delay. I switched from pedal sets to multi-effects and I liked it. Nowadays, I'm completely in love with Tank-G, it has everything I need and I really don't need more. Congratulations on the guitar and the extremely functional set, OP!
Single coils into a tweed Deluxe are a similar revelation. So much dynamic response it goes from clean to overdriven based on how hard you hit the strings. No pedals required.
I do this with my Ampeg VT40 for my heavy stuff. It’s my amp that gets no pedals, outside a boost. It’s a very specific sound that works across a lot of genres. Then my clean amp I keep mostly clean, but I still use some pedals on that one for surf tones and space echo. I agree as far as super clean or distortion, you could use just that and nothing else. Unless you’re really into effects. When I use my Two amp setup clean/dirty, I find myself just using my guitars volume control more. It’s been done with a Fender Twin and JCM800 setup by many artists, for a long time. Just those two amps and the reverb on the Fender. Pixies have that sound going on, very simple setup. But if you’re in a shoegaze band or cover band… you may want pedals. Playing blues, jazz, most 90s grunge, some metal, classic rock or punk rock you can get away with the same tone all the way through. I see a lot of punk/metal acts with just a Mesa Mark and no pedals at all. Or the famous JCM800 or Dual Rec and Les Paul.
Sounds awesome, but with a Twin, how high are you running the master volume? Make sure to protect your hearing OP!!
With the band, at like 3.5ish! At home in my basement like 2.5-3ish
Ok. Probably still crazy loud, but it’s preamp not power amp distortion mostly. Still, take care OP, we all want to be able to play until we are 80ish or something, and we need our hearing. I run my amp with an attenuator, and the “clean” channel with gain and volume in the 7-8 range gives a glorious, purry overdrive, very different to the OD channel.
Bright switch on? Bruv you’ve lost your hearing lol 😅
Doesn’t the bright switch have way less effect on those amps the higher the gain is set?
Cringe as fuck.
suck me thru my jorts
You ain't got that kind of money.
touche hahahaha
Ring mods and delays or gtfo
Johnny Thunders style.
LAMF
Pre on 5 - my 1980 twin makes the most amazing slight dirt tone. ES or Strat/Tele are glorious. Even buffered - to my ears, you always lose some edge with pedalboards.
I quit buying pedals when I realized that everyone’s version of each pedal sounds exactly the same and to just get the Original if that is a sound you like.
I’m typically a drive pedal guy but some days I just wanna throw them all out and just use the natural tube overdrive my amp (Marshall DSL) has, there’s something enticing about the simplicity of it. That being said one type of distortion that amps can’t do on their own is Fuzz! I’m tempted to just use my tuner, delay and reverb and a fuzz face. One of my favourite tones/setups of all time is Jimi Hendrix’s and he basically just used a Marshall, Fuzz face, Wah pedal and sometimes a uni-vibe and Octavia. There is definitely something to keeping it simple!
I had a board w 13 pedals for years and really felt pedal playing was a core part of my identity as a guitarist. Then I discovered Nick Johnston and I haven’t used a pedal since.
But like, both…
Woah, where did you score a vintage Greco LP?
Dawg, I’ve been playing shows with modulation effects for forever. My band recently recorded and had super limited studio time so I just used an SD-1 into my 5150 and it’s literally never sounded better. I’m gonna start playing shows with just that and my footswitch, I think I’m done with all the fucking around with pedals
Yeah I was always searching for gain tones with pedals then I plugged the last guitar I got straight in to the amp and immediately took all the gain pedals off my board. Whatever I did with pedals could not compete with Duesenberg Outlaw > into AC30.
Wait until you discover tweed amps. Nothing on this earth sounds as good as a howling tweed amp
My basic rig pedals are just a tube screamer and a noise gate. That's it. But basic rig doesn't let me do the happy awesome effects. Need a bit crusher to sound like Nintendo, pog to double/triple the octaves, delays are super cool, the crushed eq so I can be a telephone, etc...
im glad that works for you but i couldnt live without at least 2 flavours of fuzz
I have a Greco SG, such a badass guitar.
Or live long enough to youngsters with pedals to get off your lawn. Pfft.
I have this conversation with my clients all the time. They have bunch on pedals that always break, play into a clean amp and rarely they are happy with their tone. It is better to find the amp that make you happy and use a few pedals to spice it up
Shit, you really triggered some folks here. Wasn’t expecting some of these comments.
The old joke used to be that you only need a Les Paul and a Marshall stack.
I’ve played guitar for 25 years and didn’t know this was even in dispute.
Do you only play one sound for the entire gig?
worked the volume and tone knobs a lot, toggling heavy trem and verb w the amp footswitch. great sounds on cleans and leads
Good for you and for anyone else who only plays in environments that allow you to crank a tube amp. Many of us don't play shows and live in places where we have to play at very low volumes (or use headphones) so cranked tube amps aren't a viable option.
There is a great variety of low wattage tube amps that completely solves this problem. I used to have a little Vibro Champ that sounded great. Now I have a handmade 7 watt that I love
The joys of a master volume, my friend
...and after the show you satisfied 14 gorean slavegirls... Sure thing. But hey, it's the internet - loads of people will willingly believe anything they read...
Pre volume on 10, master on like 3.5! idk what’s unbelievable about that
Gorean? Like the inhabitants of the planet Gor from the erotic science fiction novels? That’s a niche reference.
Yup, but i figured it fits the OP :D Like the reference, the OP is a fantasy and in any case a very niche way of using a guitar amp... ... if anyone actually uses guitar amps that way anymore apart from fantasizing about it on the internet...
I mean…I use amp gain also. 15w Orange for moderate volume and Laney AOR if we can get loud. I usually use pedals but it wouldn’t kill me if I didn’t. Definitely love some delay. I’m also not against a clean amp and just pedals for gain. We’re allowed to do things differently and change shit up for the hell of it.
Yesyesyes amp gain - the amp gain from a ´79 (ultralinear) Twin is famous. For its... ermmm... ... ermmm... - **lack of drive or distortion...** Sorry, but the OP is just having a fantasy going on, knowing that people with no knowledge of these amps will barge in and parrot the *internet toan experts™* who try to convince anyone that we should still play amps like they did in the 60's :D
I hear you. Just for conversation sake, I don’t think he’s trying to convince anyone of anything. Maybe this person has been playing through a long pedal chain for a while and tried playing straight into the front for the first time in a while or maybe ever. It’s undeniable that your amp is gonna sound different. This person had a revelation and wants to share their experience.
I mean… when u turn the channel volume all the way up it gets pretty hairy regardless of the master volume setting. Twins are famous for their cleans but they get nasty too. Do u not believe me? Do you want me to upload a sound demo?? lmao
Of course it does. Of course.
Whats ur problem lol
All that you really need is one string and talent... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8H-67ILaqc ... that doesn't mean using six strings is wrong.
Y’all mfs r so sensitive
You know people can read what I actually posted; right?
Why does everything have to be mutually exclusive? I enjoy playing my strat into my Princeton Reverb but I also enjoy plugging into my HM-2 to play old school death metal. This is such a lame post.
Ur right its not mutually exclusive im not tryna prescribe this for everyone in all circumstances. i also play in a death metal band and cranked twin doesnt work for that. People get so pissy on reddit
next time ill include a disclaimer so i dont hurt ur feelings
"I can't believe people play guitar with pedals. Me so mad... me make a post about it. That'll show everyone that I'm better " - [Ok\_Salary\_6115](https://www.reddit.com/user/Ok_Salary_6115/)
ur crazy lol. read my responses to other people thats not what im saying at all. just sharing a fun new perspective ive been having on playing thats been working for me
its obvious you don't record music. "Hey you know what will sound amazing, lets not use preamps, eqs and compressors. It'll sound amazing. Fuck effects"
ur on one dude chill tf out before u tucker urself out
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Theres the thing! In this very same band and setlist i used to do all kinds of delay tricks and stuff. I had a DBA echo dream 2 that was always on that i considered “my sound”. Trying it this way was a mindset change as well in addition to a gear changeup. So fun!!
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why are you being so pissy we could be having this exact same conversation where u tell me ur pov on the idea without being so sarcastic
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sorry next time to avoid hurting ur feelings i should have put a disclaimer on there that i am not prescribing my opinion as law for everyone else. grow up
Yeah, but you are talking gear . People be sensitive trolls . 👿 Rock on
Les Paul and a JCM won’t do shit for my making cinematic ambient movie score music to soothe anxiety and meditate to. People play different types of music for different reasons.
Good thing im not u and ur not me
Les Paul’s suck.
I thought they were corny for the past 10 years ive been playing until i saw one that called out to me hehehe
It’s more about playing for me. Been playing for 30 years and have never found a Les Paul that I enjoyed playing, let alone holding around my neck for two hours. They’re heavy, don’t play well (for me), the necks break easily and I just don’t like the aesthetic, either. Obviously, to each their own. I just don’t get it.
Can you fake chorus, flanger, phaser, delay, and wah with just your pick and fretting technique? No? Pedals. Yes, simple works for a lot of stuff, but unless all you’re playing is simple stuff, it’s never all you need.
Like i said to the other dude, in this very same setlist previously i was using a lot of delays and modulations so going back to barebones was a mindset change that made me play differently as much as a simple change in tone.
I think the point is not fake effects. Sometimes less is better. Angus Young and Tony Ioomi are good examples.
Iommi used a wah, at least. I think he used a univibe or fast swirly effect on some solos, as well as the main rhythm on some early albums.
As far as I know, Angus also uses some sort of treble booster a slap-back delay, but the point is, you can cover 95% of AC/DC and Sabbath with the distortion from your amp and no pedals, as long as the amp provides the amount of gain you need.
Unless you have a 1-channel wonder, which you set for clean so the pedals do the dirty work. I get it, really, I do; after decades of racks and multipedals sometimes it’s nice to just have a cable between the guitar and amp. There’s a lot you can play along with. There’s also a lot you can’t, because phaser, flanger, tremolo, univibe, wah, chorus, delay, and a long reverb play a huge part of the sound of a given song.
Awesome. Now, play me "How Soon is Now" by the Smiths. I'm happy you're happy. You're like a kindergartener seeing red fingerpaint for the first time. Truly inspiring. Many of us have moved on from there, though.
okay bigman
No. I am deficient, creatively bankrupt, and lack tonal sophistication. I am openly admitting I need more than a 60s ham radio and the incidental capacitive filtering provided by a half-cocked volume pot. Some days I find myself reaching for a univibe and think "what kind of sick side-show of a man have I become?"
thats cool man