Stacking gain

[misterwhizzy]

This may be the secret to getting the tone I want. Two Tubescreamer-type pedals sounds horrible to me, but mix in something out of that mold, and we get saturated, crunchy, gainy goodness. Loving it.

[JeffB]

Re: Stacking gain

Back in the 80s I did this for awhile.

Fave combos- ts-10 driving a rat, and ts-10 driving a Boss heavy metal.

[TimmyPage]

Re: Stacking gain

I kind of have three pedals which affect my levels of gain, running into a really clean amp.

Seymour Duncan Vise Grip --> Boss BD-2w --> Walrus Audio Voyager

When I play clean the Vise Grip is on almost all the time. When I'm playing dirty the Voyager is on almost all the time. On both, I use the Blues Driver as a 'more' switch. The clean boost of the Vise Grip pushes the Boss into a really slick, chimey feeling gain. The middy thickness of the Voyager is really filled out and thickened up by the BD-2. I don't really like having all three on at once, or using the Vise Grip and the Voyager at the same time, both setups get really noisy and don't add that much to the overall tone.

[Matt42]

Re: Stacking gain

I'm always stacking gain. Currently it's a J Rockett Archer into an EHX Crayon. At some point there will be a KoT added to the mix as well. Two OD's, set differently, and with different tonal characteristics, stack wonderfully together.

[ThisDyingSoul76]

Re: Stacking gain

I like taking a bright pedal and pairing it with a darker pedal. For example a Visual Sound Open Road with a Boss Turbo Overdrive.

The Open Road stacked with a Son of Hyde with both gains set around 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock works really well for a high gain crunch. Boosting it with a Tubescreamer style pedal yields a great metal lead tone.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Stacking gain

I looove stacking gain pedals into an amp on the edge of breakup. I currently stack 3 gain pedals: z.vex SHO, strymon DECO, and Bogner Uberschall, before going into the front of the amp.

[stratguy23]

Re: Stacking gain

I've never used more than gain pedal at a time, but am curious about stacking pedals. What's the risk of increased noise with this approach vs. just turning up gain on amp?

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Stacking gain

Oh, it definitely adds more noise. But this is rock n roll, not surgery. Noise is fine.

[Shooter.556]

Re: Stacking gain

I currently stack a Should Black box which is a copy of a Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal and a Chicago Stompworks Green Thing which is an 808.
It's blues rock heaven thru my Stratocaster.

[ThisDyingSoul76]

Re: Stacking gain

The noise floor increase depends on the pedals, and how much gain you are using in each pedal. I typically use less gain than I would normally use on an individual pedal. It's the way that certain pedals work within different areas of the frequency spectrum or just add different textures that really makes stacking fun for me. I could get the level of gain I use when stacking by just turning up the gain of a single pedal, but I would not get the same tone.

[ThisDyingSoul76]

Re: Stacking gain

Lately, I've been experimenting with a Timmy. Love how it sounds when used as a boost or combined with a tubescreamer. I've got so many combinations to go through

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Stacking gain

Back in the old days when I had to use a more fluid boxy sound, I used either some old Ibanez/Boss compressor, one SD-1/TS-9 set for just alittle dirt, then into my old old SD-9 Sonic Distortion, also not all that much dirt dialed in.
Erased that annoying stiff feel pedals has in their nature, but this was in the late 80's early 90's