High gain amps and drive pedals.

Dexter Inferno

Dexter Inferno

Serious error
Think I'm noticing a theme. I've had a couple of high gain heads, most notably the Victory V30 and now the 6505MH. Common with them is they hate drive pedals in front (unless it's a tube screamer type pedal). I remember having the OCD pedal. It would sound absolutely awful into the Victory amp, but glorious going into an AC30. With the 6505 I currently have I can understand it though, as that doesn't really have a clean sound. Meanwhile all my drive pedals sound great going into the Marshall Origin head - but that one doesn't have the high gain thing going on. The crunch and lead channels on the 6505 are amazing but sometimes I want other drives (less/different colour, that sort of thing). Or a good clean sometimes but that doesn't really exist on the 6505.
I suppose you can't really have an amp that does all of these things well. At least I haven't come across one yet that's sensibly priced.

Suppose this is one of those things that modelling is better at. But sorry, I'm not going back there anytime soon. :tongue:
Once you get used to a screaming tube amp again, there's just no going back.
 
If you have an effects loop you could try another pedal preamp or low gain OD in the loop and just bypass the amps preamp tubes and tone stack. But switching it in and out without unplugging from the loop and back into the front might be difficult, idk thats above my pay grade.
Another solution is just run 2 amps with an A/B switcher.
 
Have you tried the Soldano Astro? I love mine… across all four gain modes (colors)… and it takes drive pedals really well. :baimun:
 
You only mentioned OCD and TS. What other dirt pedals have you tried? Have you tried a DOD250 type circuit? Have you tried a vacuum tube based OD? What about boost pedals for tone shaping?
 
Pine Apple Slim said:
If you have an effects loop you could try another pedal preamp or low gain OD in the loop and just bypass the amps preamp tubes and tone stack. But switching it in and out without unplugging from the loop and back into the front might be difficult, idk thats above my pay grade.
Another solution is just run 2 amps with an A/B switcher.
Click to expand...

If you want to go this route, I still love my ISP Theta. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...stortion-pedal-with-decimator-noise-reduction

What's weird is it also has a great clean.
 
REVV fanboi alert.

I see a lot of examples of drives into the REVV high gain amps/channels and it mostly has to do with changing the voice rather than piling on gain. There is gain added in most use cases, but just a little more. The high-gain aficionados tend to look for ways to tighten things up so it chugs better. That’s what I observe the folks at REVV and many of their artists doing.
They’ll even stack their G series pedals onto the high-gain channel, and those pedals are pretty much the amp channels in pedal form.
It’s not really taking the place of the channel, it’s more of a way to change the voice at the stomp of a switch, and a little bit more.
 
what are you trying to gain :rimshot with the pedals? Get something in between the amps clean and gain channels or alter the high gain channel? I've done both over the years and didn't really have too many issues once you figure out what pedals work for your use case and the limit of how much is too much.
 
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