Solid state amps and pedals

[boratto]

Hi guys, let´s start a list? I notice not all pedals sounds good through SS amps. Many sounds harsh, or lost in the mix, in a live situation. The best swiss knifes i´ve found for the situation is:
1. Sonic Titan
2. LovePedal Purple Plexi800
...

And for you guys, what works the best?

[Frank_NH]

My main gigging amp is a Roland BC-60 ("Blues Cube") solid state amp.  It has a wonderful, warm tube-like sound, but it IS solid state.  The best DIY overdrives  (as I mentioned in another thread) for me are the Zendrive and Clark Gainster.

I also have a 18W tube amp (also DIY ) and have played through a friend's 5W tube amp.  What I notice with those is that they respond better to lower-medium gain overdrives - too much signal and they can get "flubby".  The 5W amp is especially sensitive since it is being run on the edge of breakup.  In addition, the tube amps tend to color the basic sound of the guitar/pedal, so it makes sense that certain pedals will work better with tube amps versus solid state.  Of course, the more clean headroom you have, the more the pedals will sound like they would through a good solid state amp.  

But, as with everything DIY - experiment!  One of the thrills of building DIY effects is hearing the sound for the first time, and if it's good you know it right away!  

[boratto]

i will get some of your favorites for my next builds. For tube amps i love Doomidrive and Crimson Drive. But, sometimes i play live in small places with SS. In that case, LM386 pedals responds well.

[Heath]

boratto wrote

For tube amps i love Doomidrive and Crimson Drive.

Hell, yeah, I LOVE the Crimson Drive.  In my top 10 favorite pedals ever.

[Frank_NH]

Some additional comments...

I did a quick internet search on this topic, and some pedals that seem to be favored for S.S. amps are (in no particular order):

* Fulltone OCD
* MI Audio Crunchbox
* Barber Burn Unit, LTD, Double Drive...(heck any Barber pedal!)
* Way Huge Red Llama
* Blackstone Appliances MOSFET OD

Of course, this list could be expanded 10 fold, which just goes to show that the choice is mainly personal preference based on the style of music you play...

Some other thoughts I had...

* The pedals which are supposed to be "an amp in a box" - for example ROG Thor, Azabache, Brittania, etc. - should work great as overdrives with S.S. amps since they have been designed emulate specific amp styles and really only need clean amplification to sound good.  In fact, some of the sound samples at the ROG site don't even use an amp but instead were recorded using amp/cab emulation.

* I saw many people online mention using real tube-based pedals (such as the Butler Tube Driver) with S.S. amps.  This is not unlike the modern hybrid amps which use a tube-based preamp and solid state power amp.  I would like to build a tube pedal at some point and there are a few layouts here to consider.

[IvIark]

Possibly my favourite high gain distortion pedal ever is the Zoom HL-01.  It's not brootahl high gain, more compressed sustaining high gain that is great for lead.  It sounded absolutely fantastic with the two solid state amps I have had in recent years, a Peavey Bandit 112 that I've owned since around 1991 ish and still have, and a Marshall AVT150 which I no longer own.  But It sounds like a bag of shite with my most used amp now which is an Engl Thunder, it's a buzzy mess and sounds just like a can of angry bees, so I think it's one of those that doesn't work well with at least some tube amps.  But it really is amazing with those SS amps and highly recommended to try if they like that kind of tone, and if you can find one.

God knows why Zoom discontinued their analog line.

[negativefx]

Zoom is focusing on their next-gen line based around their own designed-in-house DSP chips.  I think the analog lines are too expensive for larger companies to support given the component costs, sourcing complexitites, and the amount of engineering that has to go into working with the constraints of analog circuitry.  Boss has done pretty much the same thing with their new 'x' line of pedals.  If you think about the direction the manufacturing industry is headed - or already gone, really - it makes financial sense for them to abandon analog.  More business for the boutique industry I guess.

Not to mention the engineering skillset required for them to work on a software-based DSP platform vs analog.  It's just massively easier for them to hire DSP programmers - a skill generally available in entry level engineers - than it is for analog audio circuit designers which tend to be a bit difficult to find.  At the end of the day, 80% or more of their market doesn't care if it's digital or analog, nor do they know the difference.  How many new players have you seen with a cheapo Zoom multi-effect?  How many with a Klon? ;)  Go where the money is... and the market seems to tell them that the sweet spot is sub-$100 swiss army knives rather than $250 handwired masterpieces.

FWIW, I work for a supply chain software company and Harman (Dunlop, MXR, etc.) is one of my customers.  Got a pretty sweet deal on a new Bass Whammy and some of the Hardline pedals!  :)

[Jopn]

I've had really good success tossing a Black '65 clone in front of a clean solid state amp.  When set at lower volume settings the Black '65 will eat up any of my boosts intended to overdrive a tube preamp and output low enough to keep the solid state amp from clipping.

Many solid state amps do clip very nicely however, and you can hand pick effects that play well with those amps.  In fact, if solid state clipping always sucked as a rule, we'd probably have 500 fewer layouts on this site!

[Frank_NH]

Speaking of Zoom's analog pedals...I have a PD-01 power drive.  Like you said IvIark, it's works well with solid state amps, and it's capable of some nice overdrive sounds, although I've used it mostly as a boost.

Here's the whole family...

[Ross]

So my only guitar amp right now is my 200W Gallien-Krueger bass stack. The clean sounds are fantastic. To my ears, it's like a really good Fender Twin, with more control over the EQ.  That being said, it does not take most high gain dirt pedals well. However, it works extremely well with JFET-based stuff. One little experiment I have been working on is a single JFET gain stage, based off the input stage of a Plexi. There's not a whole lot of gain, but it really does make the solid state amp respond more like a tube stack. Haven't experimented too much with LM386-based stuff, but I probably need to.

[IvIark]

Yes I've got a PD01 too Frank, and I've always been really impressed by both that and the HL01.  I know the reasons behind it and that Zoom wanted to concentrate on DSP, but it's a shame when something disappears that a lot of people still thinks sounds great years later, long after many Zoom DSP effects have been put in a cupboard and forgotten.

I just found my eBay receipt for it in my Hotmail account (I never delete anything like this) and it was February 2006 I bought it for £39

[Frank_NH]

Yes, prices for the Zoom analog line have steadily increased.  I was lucky to get my PD-01 about two years ago for $80 in great shape (even had the original box!).

[rocket88]

crazy, i just check those out and i was very impressed from what i heard on youtube, i didn't know zoom made anything that good. for some reason i never liked anything i've played or heard before that was made by them.

btw, one pedal i think plays really well with a solid state amp is the big muff, and its decedents (pharaoh, swollen pickle, hoof, etc). i think they sound as good as they do with a tube amp. also, the barbarshop, throbak overdrive, rat, and a lot of the wampler pedals too.

[inefficiency]

Bit late to the party, but here goes;

I used to own a 1979 Roland Jazz Chorus. The cleans were awesome and the real stereo chorus was too. The reverb was a bit temperamental, but good enough.

I always thought it would be a good foundation to lay some pedals on, as it is totally clean and doesn't really do dirt. A nice blank canvas for all my dirt-boxes.

I was wrong.

The only pedals it ever seemed to get a convincing tone with were Boss pedals, which I'm not really a fan of for the most part. All other pedals I put into it just sounded really weird and not how they're meant to, whilst the Boss ones always did what they said on the box and sounded how they were meant to, whether that's your thing or not.

[dbat69]

Ohh I'm in awe now.  I've wanted a Jazz Chorus for ages.

I love the clean sound and my Roland Cube has a reasonable simulation - but.... is it the same???

Why do I want one? On hearing the 'Get Nervous' album by Pat Benatar when it came out (many years ago ), I loved the sound of the guitars.  I recall reading that Neil Geraldo used a Jazz Chorus for that album.  The sounds he got are just gorgeous, even the distorted ones.  Not that I will ever reach his ability (which has a lot to do with it), the sounds he got were so lush and spacious.

Do you recall if the JC produced the lush sound (perhaps with an SD1 or OD1)?

[inefficiency]

Yeah, the clean is godly. The chorus on mine was quite subtle (the way I like it) - the newer ones are a bit more wild with the depth and speed.

It had built in distortion, but it sounded like garbage. However, if you switched it on and left the gain at 0 it actually changed the tone to be slightly warmer. Nice little trick.

I used a SD-1 a couple of times with it and it was pretty nice. I really dig the way lipstick-style pickups sound through it. The other guy in my band at the time had one too and he used a Danelectro of some sort. Mega cheap guitars, but nothing else seems to get the same sound as them. It's really unique to my ears and sounds great through the amp with a mild drive.

That amp is actually for sale in my local music store at the minute. I traded it in a while ago for something gainy.