Pedals to make your clean sound better?

Rockstar216

Rockstar216

New member
I know their are tons of pedals out there to drive your amp, and modulate the sound all kinda of ways but are their any pedals that are aimed towards making your clean sound better? I guess a compression pedal could count even though it takes away the dynamics and maybe a clean boost pedal but are there any more?
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

check the love pedal super 6 vids out, wouldn't mind one my self. Just make everything sound better
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

Define "better."

Frankly I think the best advice I ever got was to buy an amp that has a great core clean tone and add pedals from there. I turn all my pedals off and I sound awesome... then every pedal I add sounds pretty good too.
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

I don't think a clean boost would count as they're designed to overload the input of the amp. I remember reading about Aural Exciters like the BBE - mainly for studios though. Reverb maybe ? I guess the only real solution is a better amp.
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

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Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

I'm oldschool and believe that all sounds are built on a clean foundation, so it's all about getting the most suitable amp to begin with (and i'm speaking about the clean sounds). I don't hear many amps now that have great clean tones, they're all heavily orientated towards dirt now, usually compromising the cleans into colourless, sterile, harsh, flat, lifeless areas.

A good guitar into a good amp is a thing of beauty, and doesn't really need anything else. A little reverb can be nice for home playing, and the old Fender amps have the characterful cleans with reverb and tremolo available. Voxes have a wondefully rich sound, filled with colour and character. These are the benchmarks that are overlooked now as the predominance of dirt has compromised the foundations of good sound. The old amps simply sound good without any extra help. Most modern amps are beyond help in the clean department and should be burned, all they do is make ugly noise.

(and no, i'm not a vintage amp snob .... old amps were normal amps when i started, and despite having investigated new technologies over the decades, i still prefer the basic tones of those old amps. Heck, even the latest modelling junk still attempts to emulate the simple old non-master volume amps, so obviously those tones have something going for them).
 
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Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

Empty Pockets said:
Define "better."

Frankly I think the best advice I ever got was to buy an amp that has a great core clean tone and add pedals from there. I turn all my pedals off and I sound awesome... then every pedal I add sounds pretty good too.
Click to expand...

I agree with you which is why I would never buy a super high gain amp. The way I see it is you can either focus on a great clean or great dirt. Very few amps have both but it depends on the application of it and the type of clean you want. Some people like Squeaky sterile cleans while some may like a clean with more character. But I just was wondering are their any pedals that might enhance a clean sound? Personally I dont like pedal I plug and play and work my vol and tone knobs some may say its a old school way but I like that control. Only pedal I use it the one that came with my Blackstar 40watt combo for channel switching and alot of times Ill keep my dirt on and roll back the vol for my clean so I get a lil bit of a shimmer more lively clean. If I need a loud but mostly clean sound ill switch to the clean channel. The only few high gain amps that I think that have a good clean are the Messa Mark series, EVH 5150, Bogner Shiva, the Blackstar Series One stuff and the Landry 100 from Landry amplification
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

Don't forget that you couldn't give Fender Twins away at some points in guitar history. Most of the sounds we love come from making amps sound like they were never designed to sound. The American blues players in the fifties cranked their Fenders into submission and in the UK we had Dave Davies sticking razor blades through his speaker cones and EC refusing to turn his Marshall down in Tom Dowd's studio. AC30s don't stay that clean after about halfway either.
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

Rockstar216 said:
I agree with you which is why I would never buy a super high gain amp. The way I see it is you can either focus on a great clean or great dirt. Very few amps have both but it depends on the application of it and the type of clean you want. Some people like Squeaky sterile cleans while some may like a clean with more character. But I just was wondering are their any pedals that might enhance a clean sound? Personally I dont like pedal I plug and play and work my vol and tone knobs some may say its a old school way but I like that control. Only pedal I use it the one that came with my Blackstar 40watt combo for channel switching and alot of times Ill keep my dirt on and roll back the vol for my clean so I get a lil bit of a shimmer more lively clean. If I need a loud but mostly clean sound ill switch to the clean channel. The only few high gain amps that I think that have a good clean are the Messa Mark series, EVH 5150, Bogner Shiva, the Blackstar Series One stuff and the Landry 100 from Landry amplification
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You still never said what you mean by "better" or what you mean by "enhance the clean sound."

If you can't even describe what you want to change about your sound, your amp probably has to go...haha!

and the HT-40 IS a super hi-gain amp :smokin: I don't put the gain past noon on those amps, and that's if I'm gunning for HEAVY...
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

The Sansamp Character series pedals can really inject some life into your clean tone. The Fulltone OCD can bring some clarity to your sound if you use it as an always-on pedal. Then there's the BBE Sonic Stomp. I haven't tried it and I don't really understand how it works, but it's supposed to rearrange the frequiencies in yuor signal in such a way that they all come out of your speaker and hit your ear at the same time, which makes things sound nicer.

And then you can always put a tiny bit of chorus or reverb on your cleans to make them sound a bit nicer.
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

Empty Pockets said:
You still never said what you mean by "better" or what you mean by "enhance the clean sound."

If you can't even describe what you want to change about your sound, your amp probably has to go...haha!

and the HT-40 IS a super hi-gain amp :smokin: I don't put the gain past noon on those amps, and that's if I'm gunning for HEAVY...
Click to expand...

Yea it has ALOT of gain on tap I usually turn it up till on the verge of feed back but enough to make the note sustain a lil longer and make it musical and controllable. But I guess for me better would be adding a lil dirt to make it more chimey or reverb or delay to get a bigger, wetter sound. If you own a BlkStar then you know the clean doesnt have a standard EQ set up just a tone knob so maybe an EQ in the loop or front but overall im fine with my clean on my amp I usually keep the switch out to get a some what fender type of tone or push it in to get a crunchy, scratchy vox like tone.
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

Rockstar216 said:
Yea it has ALOT of gain on tap I usually turn it up till on the verge of feed back but enough to make the note sustain a lil longer and make it musical and controllable. But I guess for me better would be adding a lil dirt to make it more chimey or reverb or delay to get a bigger, wetter sound. If you own a BlkStar then you know the clean doesnt have a standard EQ set up just a tone knob so maybe an EQ in the loop or front but overall im fine with my clean on my amp I usually keep the switch out to get a some what fender type of tone or push it in to get a crunchy, scratchy vox like tone.
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Man I know this is a guitar forum and not an English class but we gota get some punctuation in there and break up some of those run-on sentences. Maybe some indentation. That mess is hard to read :smokin:

Yeah I am familiar with the amp and clean is not the focus of it... Delay and reverb pedals exist, as do EQ pedals... "a lil dirt to make it more chimey" = some kind of low-gain overdrive or distortion. Somebody suggested a little chorus, phaser sounds good clean or distorted...

So um yeah. There are tons of pedals that can change your clean sound. That's kind of what pedals do, y'know? :smokin:
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

Empty Pockets said:
Man I know this is a guitar forum and not an English class but we gota get some punctuation in there and break up some of those run-on sentences. Maybe some indentation. That mess is hard to read :smokin:

Yeah I am familiar with the amp and clean is not the focus of it... Delay and reverb pedals exist, as do EQ pedals... "a lil dirt to make it more chimey" = some kind of low-gain overdrive or distortion. Somebody suggested a little chorus, phaser sounds good clean or distorted...

So um yeah. There are tons of pedals that can change your clean sound. That's kind of what pedals do, y'know? :smokin:
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I guess I was asking the wrong question or just don't know how to word it or maybe I haven't thought about it all the way.
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

Try a nice buffer between the guitar and amp. Sometimes there is an impedence mismatch to the front of the amp that many aren't aware of. I've got an AMZ Mosfet Boost (DIY circuit) that I'll sometimes use with the level all the way down essentially making it a buffer. Cleans sound more crisp and alive with it.
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

You wanna improve your clean sound? Practice more. Practice on your clean channel. Learn to milk it for all its silky, crystalline, angelic smoothness. Learn to control your touch so you can get the strings to do exactly the dynamic things that you want them to.

Not everything can be solved with a pedal or piece of equipment!
 
Pedals to make your clean sound better?

ErikH said:
Try a nice buffer between the guitar and amp. Sometimes there is an impedence mismatch to the front of the amp that many aren't aware of. I've got an AMZ Mosfet Boost (DIY circuit) that I'll sometimes use with the level all the way down essentially making it a buffer. Cleans sound more crisp and alive with it.
Click to expand...

This is a very good point. I put some Boss pedals on my pedalboard, which have good buffers when turned off, and the clean tones sounded a lot chimier
 
Re: Pedals to make your clean sound better?

CTN said:
You wanna improve your clean sound? Practice more. Practice on your clean channel. Learn to milk it for all its silky, crystalline, angelic smoothness. Learn to control your touch so you can get the strings to do exactly the dynamic things that you want them to.

Not everything can be solved with a pedal or piece of equipment!
Click to expand...

BIG TIME. I play mostly clean as of late August last year. Always played with clean sounds, never neglected them but always liked dirt.... then I was poor and stuck with a cheap twin reverb clone and no pedals for some time... and I found my voice through the clean sounds of that amp. Now own a twin reverb and love it. Still play mostly clean, trying to work out some good dirty sounds... :) the big thing with cleans is touch...
 
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