Stacking drives

[DrewJD82]

The last couple days have been spent in noodle town trying out different drives in front of the Electra Dyne. Once I landed on a combination of the Tchula and a Zendrive on the Blue channel, I think I found my favorite modded Marshall tone.

I already have the Tchula on when the video starts, it's transparent but gives a big volume boost, it really is like steroids. The Blue channel is set to maybe a pinch more than AC/DC crunch, but not by much. What trips me out the most is how low output these pickups are and how full they sound. The pedals aren't adding a whole lot of dirt, the Zen is at unity gain with the Drive at 10 o'clock.



If I were doing classic rock/hard rock this would most certainly be my main dirt source. There's a ton of room to play in there with all the knobs, other times I've tried doing this things got too 'loaded down' to manage and there was like 1-2 "right" settings.

Anyone else stack drives as a regular thing? @TubeStack, I know you're a Blue channel guy with the ED, what are you hitting it with?

 

[KingsXJJ]

The last couple days have been spent in noodle town trying out different drives in front of the Electra Dyne. Once I landed on a combination of the Tchula and a Zendrive on the Blue channel, I think I found my favorite modded Marshall tone.

I already have the Tchula on when the video starts, it's transparent but gives a big volume boost, it really is like steroids. The Blue channel is set to maybe a pinch more than AC/DC crunch, but not by much. What trips me out the most is how low output these pickups are and how full they sound. The pedals aren't adding a whole lot of dirt, the Zen is at unity gain with the Drive at 10 o'clock.



If I were doing classic rock/hard rock this would most certainly be my main dirt source. There's a ton of room to play in there with all the knobs, other times I've tried doing this things got too 'loaded down' to manage and there was like 1-2 "right" settings.

Anyone else stack drives as a regular thing?

I love stacking drives as much as the next fella’. Until I don’t need to. Popular demon that I love…. The Neunaber Neutron. Puts a lot to shame on basic tone. Then add in a ton of cool features like gate, comp, speaker sim, etc.

 

[FuzzyAce]

@DrewJD82 -- That's a chunky tone with good clarity.
I do like stacking too, some of the best tones come from that. Rat/TS, OD-3/TS. These combos can get a bit mushy if not dialed in just right so it's a balancing act with certain amps. I like to run drives into a TS, seems most people do it the other way around though. It works well if you have a bright amp, run the TS as a boost with 0 drive max volume, tone to taste. Then run a higher gain pedal into it -- like a BK tube driver or miab style.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Sounds awesome

Never really put a lot of effort in to stacking drives. Usually sounds like mush in my brief ventures

 

[Sleezy E]

was that a pick flick at the end?

legend™

 

[norminal]

Sounds chonky!

 

[dronerstone]

I love running low-gain fuzz in parallel (via Boss LS-2) and stacking it into a Sunn or Ampeg style overdrive. Pretty much my secret sauce when pedalboard real estate permits.

PS: I've been planning to get one of the SA drives at some point, but it's not a necessity and my wallet has other hobbies, it seems...

 

[Stone]

was that a pick flick at the end?

legend™

100% legend™ but i call it the pick toss

 

[Stone]

What trips me out the most is how low output these pickups are and how full they sound.

Recently been playing with my Revstar II and the newly installed Somewhat Low output AlNiCo IV pickup and its amazing
im truly starting to think dont really need high gain pickups

 

[DrewJD82]

Sounds awesome

Never really put a lot of effort in to stacking drives. Usually sounds like mush in my brief ventures

That's pretty much always been my results as well. It's certainly at the detriment or splendor of everything involved in the chain, one thing doing too much will send it all to hell, but when everything is working together and playing nice there's some great stuff in there.

was that a pick flick at the end?

legend™

Hahahah right before I made that clip I made a video and flicked the pick directly at the camera, but I forgot to record the audio!

Recently been playing with my Revstar II and the newly installed Somewhat Low output AlNiCo IV pickup and its amazing
im truly starting to think dont really need high gain pickups

The older I get, the more I appreciate lower output pickups. There's a lot more room to play around in when the guitar isn't slamming the input entirely on it's own.

 

[JiveTurkey]

This sounds fantastic. I usually stack a single drive on top of a driven amp as I can never get a combo my ears consistently like from stacking pedals together? This combo you are doing with the ElectraDyne is

 

[SillyOctpuss]

I like to use a klone after another drive pedal as an upper mid focused boost to push the amp a bit more. A Klone after a fuzz face into a Marshall is one of my favourite sounds.

 

[la szum]

I like to use a klone after another drive pedal as an upper mid focused boost to push the amp a bit more. A Klone after a fuzz face into a Marshall is one of my favourite sounds.

Nice! The always on Klon/Klone thing is something everyone who runs
pedals into a tube amp should experience. It can be that stunning and
addictive.

 

[la szum]

Love me some pedal action to shimmering tubes!!

Tchula was a primary drive pedal for me for a long time. Leave it on,
roll volume down for cleans, slam the front of it with something else
(in my case an Handwired Kanji) and call it a day. That Tchular is one
of the great foundational ODs that is worthy of people giving it a
run. Once you understand the nature of the volume boost and how it
interacts with the front end of your amp you end up with a ton of
versatility at your fingertips.

Great tones and playing, Drew!

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Love me some pedal action to shimmering tubes!!

Tchula was a primary drive pedal for me for a long time. Leave it on,
roll volume down for cleans, slam the front of it with something else
(in my case an Handwired Kanji) and call it a day. That Tchular is one
of the great foundational ODs that is worthy of people giving it a
run. Once you understand the nature of the volume boost and how it
interacts with the front end of your amp you end up with a ton of
versatility at your fingertips.

Great tones and playing, Drew!

I love the Tchula too, it works just like a fuzz face except the FF doesn't like drives in front. I've got some transistors ready to build a Thorpy Tacit Blue clone but haven't gotten round to building it yet. It has a transformer as its first stage so you can run buffers or drive pedals into it and it'll work just fine. I'm looking forward to trying a rangemaster or Klone into it.

 

[DrewJD82]

Love me some pedal action to shimmering tubes!!

Tchula was a primary drive pedal for me for a long time. Leave it on,
roll volume down for cleans, slam the front of it with something else
(in my case an Handwired Kanji) and call it a day. That Tchular is one
of the great foundational ODs that is worthy of people giving it a
run. Once you understand the nature of the volume boost and how it
interacts with the front end of your amp you end up with a ton of
versatility at your fingertips.

Great tones and playing, Drew!

Yeah, I really need to get my hands on some other Tchula versions. If the germanium has any kind of magic like the Dover GE, I want it!

What cracks me up about it is how it seemingly doesn’t do a whole lot, while simulataneously doing a whole lot.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Yeah, I really need to get my hands on some other Tchula versions. If the germanium has any kind of magic like the Dover GE, I want it!

What cracks me up about it is how it seemingly doesn’t do a whole lot, while simulataneously doing a whole lot.

It's basically two electra distortion circuits stacked together. The electra is as simple as it gets but when it's biased properly just sounds magic. It's pretty mind boggling just how many pedals Sean at lovepedal has made from the electra circuit.

 

[James Freeman]

Anyone else stack drives as a regular thing?

Yup.
SD-1 into BD-2, huge range of gain between these two, from transparent overdrive to tight high gain.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Speaking of BD-2 (which is also nice stacked with a TS), has anyone tried the Keeley Mk3 Driver (formerly Muse Driver) yet? It has some interesting options that might be a cool one to get.

 

[Iron1]

This or GTFO.