Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

T

thrashmonkey

New member
I've been gassing for a Black Arts Toneworks Pharaoh and LSTR for quite some time and came across the Sarcophagus which is both pedals in one. It's not something I need and moneys tight, but after being approved for the "Bill me later" option on ebay/paypal, I rather impulsively jumped on it. The only potential problem is my amp. I have a vox ad15 and I'm worried the two won't get along. I know that hybrid's/modelers are probably not the best choice. I plan on running it into one of the clean models. Has anyone had any luck using pedals with the Vox AD's? It was an impulse buy and I know I should have been more focused on buying/saving for a new low watt tube amp, been wanting a blackstar for a while, but the mixture of late night meds and a current obsession with fuzz got the best of me.
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

Thanks. I had been looking at the Tech 21 power engine and the oxford pedal. My living situation limits me as far as playing very loud though. Would that setup be at all practical for someone playing at bedroom level using the level control on the power engine and Oxford to keep the volume low with the fuzz?
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

yes, as long as you realize that the tone is not going to be interactive fuzzpedal/tubeamp sort of thing, I am pretty stoked on it tho ;) I like my rat pedal through it a bit more so far. sounds better than the axefx2 attempt at fuzz that I saw on youtube but I have high hopes for axefx3 in 10 years prolly will buy it, I gotta save up for the better technology

a tube amp:
even at 1/4 watt is going to be louder than someone yelling or superbowl party TV volumes... could attenuate and put it in an iso box and gramma blanket, but it will still vibrate and sound neutered. definitely not the end all be all hard rock sound.
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

I will try to see how well the fuzz does with my current set up and just not have my expectations too high. If it's not working out at least I'll have the pedal, which I believe was a limited run, and then start looking for a better setup.
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

everdrone;3267101 a tube amp: even at 1/4 watt is going to be louder than someone yelling or superbowl party TV volumes... could attenuate and put it in an iso box and gramma blanket said:
False... my 5w Marshall is conversation level until about 3 or 4... and it eats pedals for breakfast in that context because its clean and fat until 6 or 7....

Throw a Box of Rock or similarly amplike dirt pedal aaand you rock :smokin:
Click to expand...
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

Empty Pockets said:
False... my 5w Marshall is conversation level until about 3 or 4... and it eats pedals for breakfast in that context because its clean and fat until 6 or 7....

Throw a Box of Rock or similarly amplike dirt pedal aaand you rock :smokin:
Click to expand...

I have a epiphone valve junior combo with an 8" speaker and run pedals through it. you just cannot get a good cranked sound in my opinion; you do not get speaker distortion and it gets too loud way too fast - it is easily 100dba. I am glad it works for ur needz tho, I want that marshall jcm-1 pretty bad still, I confess:biglaugh:
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

I am also considering the Class 5, but because of my situation I'm hoping the pedal works well enough with the Vox even if it's hybrid modeler. The Orange Micro terror looks tempting also, but I'd be in the same situation basically since it's also a hybrid. I've been wanted a Pharaoh or LSTR for awhile now and probably jumped the gun, but I'll just have to see how it goes I guess.
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

ya, I just tried my valve junior again hoping for a eureka moment, with all my pedals of rat/pharaoh/tech 21 and it does not sound good at all!! sounds waaayy too loud for my apartment and sounds like a super clean setting on a solid state amp with a static sounding pedal. best pedal is tech 21, but it does not hold a candle to anything really through the valve junior.

however, the direct in with tech21 oxford and any pedal sounds great (save cranked tube amps) and I am enjoying it right nowz :)
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

Well mixed results with the Sarcophagus and Vox AD. After some tweaking I can get some decent results using the LSTR side of the pedal into the blackface model on manual mode, but the Pharaoh doesn't seem to get along with the amp at all. I have to crank the amps volume to get much of anything out of it. Is it possible to run the guitar > pedal> apogee jam>macbook pro using Garageband? I'm going to have to start saving for an amp worthy of the pedal. I know its ass backwards, buying the pedal then hunting for an amp, but I guess for a late night impulse buy it could have been worse.
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

Thanks. What are the concerns with running the pedal into the apogee/computer? I have a cheap tascam interface, would that be a safer bet? or some think running pedals into interface/input a bad idea in general? I'd rather use the apogee since the sound quality is much better.
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

Just tried it and it seemed to work fine, but now I'm a bit worried about the Pharaoh side of the pedal. Same results as when ran into the amp. The LSTR works just fine, but when I switch over to the Pharaoh, or start with it, there is a massive volume drop. You have to crank the garageband amp model and turn up the macbook volume and pedal volume to hear anything. The bypassed volume is fine also. Does not seem right to me. I know the LSTR has much more gain on tap, but this pretty drastic. I'm new to pedals so excuse any ignorance on my part regarding whats going on.
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

people tweak for many years to get the right mix, the dudes on the andy sneap forum were just trying to help me and they directed me to plugins as opposed to mixing my pedals with plugins, as there are weird high transient frequencies that happen cause it was just not meant to be. I found it was still fun and useable though :)

now that I have my tech 21 I don't have the weird high transient frequency issues as much tho

not sure what the issue is with your pedals? definitely is an awesome fuzz pedal, very big one too ;) lots of knobs, I wonder if there is some type of gain staging in the sarcophagus pedal controls and switches. Like I posted earlier, I am getting somewhat descent/successful results with the pharaoh and you said you can make it work through a regular amp so maybe just tweak till you eliminate an external factor?

good luck, happy fuzzing out :)
 
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Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

I contacted Mark who builds the pedals. Great guy! After some suggestions and trying to overcome the probably, the conclusion is that something is probably wrong with the pedal. He is having me send it directly back to him, as opposed to the ebay seller, and will fix or replace the pedal at no cost to me. I'm excited to get the pedal back and the LSTR side was great! The few hours I got to spend noodling around with some sludgey riffage was great.
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

cool guy, he is an active member on stonerrocklives.com forum, glad yall seem to have figured it out :)
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

Sarcophagus is back and working and I picked up a Tech 21 Blonde pedal. The fuzz through the vox just wasn't working out, but now through the Blonde into the Computer it is much better and the Blonde pedal by itself is great. Eventually like to pick up a power engine. I still get some weird high freq noises, but with a bit of tweaking they aren't too annoying. I have an old portastudio that I'm going to run the pedals through and see how that works out
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

ok, I see you have made a few other threads about this and I responded with more insights stating I am digging my tech 21 still but dont like the pharaoh through it. the pharaoh is an absolutely AWESOME pedal, and my clip above clearly does not do it anything close to justice, I tried eqing it and stuff but ya its ok to jam pharaoh to tech 21 maybe for solos but just not as good as the real thing and does not come close ;) :

 
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Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

Yeah I really need to invest in an amp. Still want to pick up a cheap keyboard amp to use with Tech 21 Blonde, but also looking into some low watt tube amps. I'm going to try and get out and with my guitar and pedals and try them out before making a decision. The backstair 5 watt and Laney Cub 12 are the two I'm most interested in at the moment. I'd like to have use the Tech 21 Blonde for my blues/rock set up and a low watt tube amp with the pharaoh/LSTR for my heavier needs. I don't have a lot to spend and volume is, unfortunately, something I need to keep low enough not to drive the neighbors and/or family members crazy.
 
Re: Fuzz pedal and Vox AD15

ya I was just jamming on my epiphone valve junior combo using my pharaoh. It sounded marginally acceptable, but EXTEMELY LOWD ;) evn on like .2 on a scale of 0 to 10 volume level for my quiet apartment. cant even crank it, so its not all that. also combos and not pushing air is gonna sound like just that! definitely not the end all be all heavy rock tone. my recabinet IRs are waaayyy better than the valve junior combo.

I wonder what kemper would sound like using a fuzzz
 
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