Question about pedal platform amps

[Life Eats Life]

It really depends on what tonal qualities you’re looking for and what pedals.

Different amps respond to different pedals in very different ways.

I used to gravitate to Vox when I did this because the clean tones had so much more depth and character, and they added more of a flavor to drive pedals. Fender amps were always too clean, flat, and “polite” for me.

But I’ve heard guys say Vox amps are terrible with pedals and guys who say Fender are the ultimate pedal amps.

Some pedal makers also voice their pedals with a specific amp in mind, so you’ll find pedals designed to work best with a Fender, or a Vox, or a Marshall

A big component of it is feel.
The amp has to have the ‘vibe of feel’
you’re seeking firsthand,
-followed by what the pedals in use ’feels’ combined with the firsthand feel.
Pedal amps capitalize on pedals for particular overdrives & distortions as well as modulation.
-right in the front end.

 

[Life Eats Life]

The trouble with high gain tones in pedal platforms (in my opinion), is usually related to the fact that usually an open back combo is being used as a pedal platform, and that typically falls short for tight high gain sounds. That said, it may not be a problem if just playing at home. I've always found that an open back clean amp with a high gain pedal can sound good at lower volumes, but it gets worse the louder you go and always has kind of fallen short once at volumes to compete with a drummer. YMMV

Dude those Amptweaker boosts will shut that cab closed with bottom end beaming brutality.
Gargantuan punch in the grunts..

 

[Byrdman]

My DSL100H takes pedals well on either the clean or crunch channel, the red seems to like a clean boost the best. I'm using a SD-1 with gain at 9 o'clock or less. Plus it will have enough balls for a monster drummer if needed. These are selling for around $500 so that's a bonus too.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Dude those Amptweaker boosts will shut that cab closed with bottom end beaming brutality.
Gargantuan punch in the grunts..

I have ALWAYS wanted to try an Amptweaker pedal or 3

 

[0XI0]

"pedal platform"

tried a packrat at guitar center through their demo setup powered with voodoo labs power and gamma 50 amps, sounded insane buried in a chain of 20 bypassed pedals into a solid state 'blue' clean channel. got it home powered by a ripcord into THR and katana gen 3 and it sounded like mud butt into DSP. (returned the packrat and katana 50 gen 3 for a gamma 25)


almost ~$600 better off and only updates the gamma will ever receive is stickers. gamma brand is acoustic control corp (from paleolithic age)

all analog solid state. and the speaker they use sounds really really good streaming bluetooth through it?!?! better than THR30 (just mono, and LOUD af)

 

[James Freeman]

My current clean pedal platform amp is a 1987x plexi jumped between the low inputs (2) and Normal 1 as the main input, with a volume box in the fx loop.
Best cleans ever.

 

[Byrdman]

My current clean pedal platform amp is a 1987x plexi jumped between the low inputs (2) and Normal 1 as the main input, with a volume box in the fx loop.
Best cleans ever.

What volume box are you using? The NMV issue kept me away from an SV20H when I decided to order an SC20H, but if the SC doesnt make me feel it down in my loins, it's going back and I'm going to try the SV20H next. If that SC20H does it, I will still probably pick one an SV eventually but may take a while.

 

[James Freeman]

What volume box are you using?

It's a 25k Log pot with two jacks in a stompbox aluminum enclosure, I built several of these, super useful, I use these with all my tube amps.
Friedman is nuts for not including a good fx loop on his new 'Vintage' series.

 

[Byrdman]

It's a 25k Log pot with two jacks in a stompbox aluminum enclosure, I built several of these, super useful, I use these with all my tube amps.
Friedman is nuts for not including a good fx loop on his new 'Vintage' series.

Does it work will with MV maps too? If so, I'm going to build one of these. Even though my DSL100H has MV's on each channel, I love the sound better with volume up and gain down vs volume down and gain up as I have it now in my living room .

 

[Jarick]

For me I really like a pedal platform amp that has a tiny bit of breakup. That compressed the input and seems to help drive pedals melt into it. But not so much that it sounds like a mess with delays. I found that very clean amps don't work as well with overdrives. Just my opinion.

I don't have a lot of amps, but I really like the Blackstar Amped 1 to run pedals into. It has some options for different voicing/power tubes and scales from 1W to 100W. Honestly I like the sound of it better for cleanish tones than my Orange Rocker 15 tube amp.

I had a couple Katanas and didn't like them with pedals. Not bad but not great.

Also the last few days I've been playing with a Quad Cortex capture of my Friedman IR-X, on the clean channel set just to break up a tiny bit. Works awesome with all kinds of OD pedals in front. Sounds pretty much the same as my actual IR-X running into the Amped 1 (flat EQ as a power amp).

So if I were looking at a pedal platform amp it would probably be something that can get a little Plexi-ish at low volumes. No idea what that would actually be though.

 

[James Freeman]

Does it work will with MV amps too?

Yes, I put one in every amp with a loop I have.
6505, JCM800, 1987x, Jubilee, Bandit, etc. makes the amps so much more volume friendly; with MV amps you can get to down to very quiet volumes and still retain tone.
Tip: Use the +4dBV setting on the FX loop, it has quieter noise floor because the recovery stage doesn't boost as much as the -10dBV setting, the passive pot doesn't care how hot the signal is.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Yes, I put one in every amp with a loop I have.
6505, JCM800, 1987x, Jubilee, Bandit, etc. makes the amps so much more volume friendly; with MV amps you can get to down to very quiet volumes and still retain tone.
Tip: Use the +4dBV setting on the FX loop, it has quieter noise floor because the recovery stage doesn't boost as much as the -10dBV setting, the passive pot doesn't care how hot the signal is.

I would not want to sully any of these giants' clean tones (air quotes where necessary) and use all pedal based distortion for dirt though. That would be a shame!

 

[James Freeman]

I jump my 4-holer for cleans thusly;
9:00 on Treble, 12:00 on the Normal, adjust overall volume with the volume box in the loop.



The 1.5ft ernieball patch cables are very convenient to put effects on the top of the amp.


EDIT:
The reason I jump Low to Low and Input into the Normal channel is because the Treble channel gets -12dB cut which allows me to turn up the Treble volume above 0.001 and balance the cleans just right.

 

[dk_ace]

I jump my 4-holer for cleans thusly;
9:00 on Treble, 12:00 on the Normal, adjust overall volume with the volume box in the loop.

View attachment 24883

The 1.5ft ernieball patch cables are very convenient to put effects on the top of the amp.
View attachment 24882

EDIT:
The reason I jump Low to Low and Input into the Normal channel is because the Treble channel gets -12dB cut which allows me to turn up the Treble volume above 0.001 and balance the cleans just right.

View attachment 24884

Is this essentially a PPIMV? I’m not familiar with where the effects loop sits in the 1987x circuit.

D

 

[dk_ace]

For those who like a little compression and grit from a pedal platform amp but need the amp to work at a variety of volume levels, here’s a trick I used to use. David Barber is where I first heard about it.

Set your clean amp at a lower volume than where you need it, take a completely clean, uncolored boost and bring the level up until it clips the front end of your amp. Now you’re overdriving the first gain stage of the amp which is generally going to be more attainable than cranking the amp to distortion.

Barber advised backing the boost down to just below the point of clipping the amp as a means of getting the best signal to noise ratio and what many consider to be a better feel from the amp, but you could also use it to get an overdriven sound from the amp at lower volume and make a consistent starting point for your pedalboard at various amp volumes.

D

 

[Achilles]

a completely clean, uncolored boost

Any recommendations?
Xotic RC Boost?

 

[Life Eats Life]

I have ALWAYS wanted to try an Amptweaker pedal or 3

Dude, their pretty gnarly.
Def takes over your base tone, so remember that.
But if that’s what heads are after, it’s there for the tweakin’.

 

[Achilles]

Dude, their pretty gnarly.

Got a freaking HOT output signal that's for sure! Master never getting much past 1 type HOT.
At least the one unit I tried.

 

[dk_ace]

Any recommendations?
Xotic RC Boost?

Barber launch pad is what I used to use, it was great. I’m sure there are others too.

D

 

[BahamaDada]

Had a short stint now with a cheapo low wattage (below 20w) tube amp to see if it fits my needs.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No, it did not.

Ordered a cheap "FRFR" now to see if it fits my needs. If it fits the plan is to look closer for a more expensive "FRFR".