distortion from a Tube or From a box

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gerardotejada

New member
I have litle time ( some one is chasing me) but I have a question for you, after discusing it with my cousin, we come to the conclusion that if you are using a tube amp and geting the distortion from a box you have to be sick, better buy a roland.....

I have no timej to explain , i read yoiui later


COPY PASTING THE WHOLE CONCEPTS:

the main diference (to my ears) of a tube amp and a SS is the cuality of distortion, the distortion coming from a tube is more warm and musical, there are little SS that sound as good. The other diferences doesnt come from if is a tube ammp or a solid state, it relates with the model an the brand.

so many people (too many people) worship the tubes, that does not mean that they belive that a tube is making you a better guitarist, but they found their sound unique. As I said the huge difference is the overdrive/distortion, If you are not using It you are wasting your time and money, you can have a similar sound with a SS and enjoy the ventages of a SS.

If you are getting the distortion from a box thats one big reason to cuestion the reason of atube amp. I am agree that the reaction of a tube amp to a pedal can be diferent (with some pedals there is just a subtle difference and others seems to have been built to work with tubes) but that is not enough
reason to have a tube amp.

To conclude I say again that the diference in clean chanel (the chanel you are using if you are getting the distortion from a box and not just using it for a boost) does not depends is is a tube amp or a SS, depends on the model.
 
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Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

The dozens of legendary guitarists who have recorded hundreds of classic songs with pedals in front of tube amps disagree with you.
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

ratherdashing said:
The dozens of legendary guitarists who have recorded hundreds of classic songs with pedals in front of tube amps disagree with you.
Click to expand...

+1, and if we look into the way that amps and pedals are designed, the tubes themselves aren't the most important thing. Tubes don't have magic pixie dust in them. The pre-clipping and post-clipping EQ are the most important aspects, and these things can be manipulated easily in both amps and in pedals. There are different approaches for each, but the end result can be equally good.

And it's true that there are some pedals that sound even better than great tube amps. But the most important thing is the player, who needs to have an ear for dialing everything in. If the player doesn't have an ear for it, then they should stick with an expensive tube amp and hope they can get a tone that's half-way decent. ;)
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

ratherdashing said:
The dozens of legendary guitarists who have recorded hundreds of classic songs with pedals in front of tube amps disagree with you.
Click to expand...

+ 1

I'm not sure i'm getting the OP's point.

Is he saying distortion pedals should only be used with SS amps and not tube amps? And anyone who uses a dist box in front of a tube amp is "sick"?

---> that whole way of thinking is lame in itself.
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

hanumanlangur said:
And it's true that there are some pedals that sound even better than great tube amps.
Click to expand...

id love to hear one of those. really.

pedals have their place for sure with tube or ss amps. personally ive never heard a pedal sound as good as a great amp at the sweet spot but its not always practical due to volume and/or size/weight contraints. if i could have a super reverb for clean sounds, a deluxe reverb for medium dirty tones and a hot rodded marshall for distorted tones i wouldnt ever need a dirt pedal but thats not practical in 99.9% of the situations people are in.
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

gerardotejada said:
I have litle time ( some one is chasing me) but I have a question for you, after discusing it with my cousin, we come to the conclusion that if you are using a tube amp and geting the distortion from a box you have to be sick, better buy a roland.....

I have no timej to explain , i read yoiui later
Click to expand...

Mix up some jell-o, and schmear it all over the floor.

That's what Bill Cosby used to do when the Chicken Heart was chasing him.
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

hanumanlangur said:
+1, and if we look into the way that amps and pedals are designed, the tubes themselves aren't the most important thing. Tubes don't have magic pixie dust in them. The pre-clipping and post-clipping EQ are the most important aspects, and these things can be manipulated easily in both amps and in pedals. There are different approaches for each, but the end result can be equally good.

And it's true that there are some pedals that sound even better than great tube amps. But the most important thing is the player, who needs to have an ear for dialing everything in. If the player doesn't have an ear for it, then they should stick with an expensive tube amp and hope they can get a tone that's half-way decent. ;)
Click to expand...

This is the big "depends on the context" thing...

If you're looking for a pedal that sounds nice and does what it does and does a good to great facsimile of an overdrive... they're around.

If you're looking for a pedal that sounds, responds and feels like an amp breaking up... I don't think you're going to find that. True, tubes don't have magic pixie dust- but no one (that I know of) has replicated the sound, response and feel of the power section of an amp responding to your dynamics.

Again, it's not that you can't get a nice sounding rig out of an amp with a pedal- it just won't sound, respond or feel like an amp pushing the power section.

It's one thing to be able to replicate the sound of a MV Marshall with the pre on 10 and the Master on 2. It's entirely another thing to replicate with the pre on 4 and the Master on 9.
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

... I play mostly hard rock that necessitates having oodles of creamy, crunchy tube overdrive available through the amp, so I don't really get the whole clean amp + overdrive/distortion box thingy. To my ears, that setup sounds phony and unmusical... witness the many boo-teek overdrive/dist. pedals on YouTube that are demo'd through a clean amplifier - yecch. To me, an overdrive/distortion pedal should be used to augment a tube amp's own drive; that way, the real tube drive rounds off the FET-sounding edges and masks the phony distortion tone of the pedal...

And yes... I love SRV... but I could never stand that Tube Screamer-through-clean-amp sound he got... :eyecrazy:
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

I prefer a straight in rig, but I have often used OD pedals in front of tube amps that could not get quite the amount of break up that I wanted. It can sound mighty fine, if done right!

OTOH, I have used many of these same pedals into various SS amps. It never seems to come off as well, although I have found some usable sounds. Certainly others may find that it does the trick for them perfectly well.

I guess that it is a personal preference thing. IMHO, sticking an OD or distortion box in front of a tube amp can sound great. Maybe it is something about that signal hitting tubes, not sure of the physics of it all...
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

it's really easy to get into the world of "well, it's made of this & so it sounds good/bad" but more often than not, the real pros are just using whatever they like the sound of, plain and simple.
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

well, although there's really no right or wrong answer, I personally think the sound of my guitar signal being amplified to the point it causes the tubes to overdrive sounds better than clipping my guitar signal and then amplifying it through a clean channel. There's good and bad distortion sounds from both tube amps and dirt boxes, but I find my favourite distortion to be tube distortion
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

I see what you mean, but not every one has a tube amp that they can crank up to 11 whenever they want to get dirty, and not everyone with 2 or more channel amps can find the exact tones they want from the amp alone. I generally use my amp's dirty channel, but i have been kicking on my Bad Monkey in front of my clean channel every now and then and been pretty impressed.
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

ratherdashing said:
The dozens of legendary guitarists who have recorded hundreds of classic songs with pedals in front of tube amps disagree with you.
Click to expand...

+3 or 4 or whatever...

The fact that a SS pedal in front of a tube amp sounds different than the same pedal in front of a solid state amp proves the point. If you don't like Fuzz Face into Marshall or Rangemaster into... any tube amp then you've got a tin ear. :p

Methinks that THIS is the case though...

troll.gif
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

So given you have pedals this appears to be a new revelation. I have gone through several variations of thinking here over the years. How long you boys been playing?
 
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Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

I really don't think that guitarists with great tone who used whatever gear is a valid argument anywhere. People are free to think whatever they want without having to be regulated by those who made it.

I play whatever sounds good. My Laney TT50 has three channels (clean, crunch, heavy) but I still use the Crunchbox as my metal channel in a box quite often, and I use the HDB and Blues Pro daily instead of the second drive channel.
 
Re: distortion from a Tube or From a box

Oh look! Someone is totally flipping wrong!

My Rat and Marshall JMP might have something to add to the conversation. By add to, I mean obliterate.
 
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