Love your amp(s) overdriven tone?

[6thplanet]

I'm seeing two camps to this thread.
Ones who make music and ones who cover music.

I'm in the making side of it, and OD is a definite part of my tone. Obviously the project/band can dictate a bit.

As for the ones covering, I can see how true to the music you want to be would dictate the want/need for OD.

 

[coy garcia]

I prefer my small tube amps gain for a bit of grit...more for rock, less for blues however...when I want some real grind I like the tone of my simple boss blues driver pedal that seems to respond well to the amount of attack you play with.

 

[fourstringburn]

A heavily overdrive tone isn't something I use much but it can be fun for soloing or just goofing around.

I use 2 Ampeg SVP preamps, the SVP Pro and the BSP model. The BSP has an extreme but awesome sounding OD.

However, I always found the OD tone lacks the body of a clean tone so I combine it using both preamps into a line mixer and adjust the desired amount of clean low end to the signal before it goes to the power amp. Together this combination makes for a brutal OD tone that's fun to play!

While there are pedals that can combine the clean and OD and my SVP BSP can too, I found it somewhat organic sounding with the few pedals I once tried and the SVP BSP clean side isn't as good sounding to me as the SVP-PRO preamp.

I do like the sound of the YYZ pedal from the videos I've seen and would like to try one just for kicks.

 

[coreyfyfe]

I mostly preferred to have a clean/ish basic sound then add drive on top so I go pedals, even when using my tube amps.

One of my bands is not at all about subtlety and I end up using compression and overdrive as always on effects. I could go with amp distortion at that point, and have for some recordings, but I’ve also set up the rest of my pedalboard to be downstream of compression/distortion so it didn’t make sense to have a dirty amp tone at the end all the time.

So it’s not a sound I use all the time, but I have been very happy with the distortion from a few of my amps. In particular my Science Mother and a recently departed verellen meatsmoke.

 

[Peter - Oregon]

Some upper wattage Fender Rumble amps have a "vintage" push button that's kind of cool.

Right. I have a Rumble 100.

 

[john hennessy]

I like my GK 400RB-I’s overdrive, but it’s more practical for me to just bring a pedal and class D head (sometimes not even that too) to a gig rather than a 15 pound amp.

 

[Low End Scum]

I used to be a leadsled tube amp hauler. Enough nights nearly tripping down uneven stairs hauling a Fender Bassman 300 Pro changed that. For tube breakup though, I loved that head and it's built in compressor as well as ability to mix the dirty and clean channel was AWESOME. If the weight isn't an issue, that's what I'd go back to if I was going for tube grit. Prolly just with an attenuator cause it'd blow up some speakers without a second thought.

These days I use the first version of the Darkglass RB900 with built in Vintage Microtubes and B3k circuits for grit. Microtubes for older school rockbands, B3k for punk or more modern stuff. I like to dial in a little hair/grit for some warmth. Then if it really calls for it I have a Bass big muff or a blueberry bass overdrive to push into distortion/fuzz territories.

 

[JFlo]

Like most things, it depends. Much amp drive is volume dependent so highly variable. The best tone I ever achieved was with my V-4BH master maxed, gain at 3 o'clock into my custom cab with 4 eminence S2012s. More commonly I'll gig with a higher powered amp set clean and use pedals. And I love to have various shades of dirt on my board. My current favorites are the Darkglass b7k ultra (very flexible, even with low gain sounds) and the Idiotbox deluxe blower box. A lot of tube preamps get too mushy in the lows when pushed so I would say my preference is to get a good base tone from the amp then dial in dirt with pedals.

 

[Standalone]

This vintage Sunn 200s goes from a big, round supportive tone to in-your-face fuzz lava just from responding to my touch.
There is no other way to do distortion AFAIC.
View attachment 5287603

And of course Bag Ends sound GREAT

 

[Standalone]

The first bass distortion tone I heard that I actually liked was out of a GK Backline combo, and it was so good it made me get the Backline 600 head, which I still keep around for testing and casual playing. The distortion channel can get really aggressive while staying smooth, and it keeps the low end oomph really nicely.

But my main amp now is the Genz Benz Streamliner, and that has a very different sounding but completely delightful breakup sound from the tube preamp. Tubes are kind of my thing.

I have a GK 112 combo with that distortion channel. I've never used that channel live -- but I really like it. My SRC6 Baritone sounds awesome through it!

 

[shirojiro]

I used to be obsessed with power and clean tones, but as time as passed, I'm more into using some distortion.

I started with a Sansamp BDDI, but also realized that the GK 400RB and 800RB had a great overdriven tone.
I even like the overdrive I can get out of my little MB150s combbo.

I used to think that the older SS heads all had fizzy, unusable overdrive tones, but I've recently acquired a Peavey Standard 260H series amp and a Yamaha B100 III amp, and they both sound great when driven into overdrive. They both have their own sound, as do the GK amps, but they're all totally usable, and sound surprisingly good.

I don't get to use amps that much anymore as most of our rehearsals are via headphones, but when I get to crank it up, I really enjoy the amplifier's sound as they push a little.

 

[Peter - Oregon]

For I number of years I played guitar in bands and my wife played bass through my vintage V-4b.

She would run a big muff, which can sound interesting: at some setting with the filter control dialed back it almost makes the bass sound smoother when on.

I also engineered a parallel drive scheme where her signal split after the bass and one channel went to my modified rangemaster clone for dirt and into the second input on the amp. When she activated this loop she would still have the main path keeping all the lows then an added “crunch” channel. Worked really well.

running tubes hard but within design parameters doesn’t use them significantly faster than “normal” use. At least in the amps I have used for a long time.

Interesting post. Thanks for the info about the tubes at the end.

 

[DaveParker39]

My Fender Rumble has a footswitchable OD I set at noon for both controls and switch on for songs that tend to need to be a little bit dirty. While there are pedals with more tweakability/flexibility none really sounded better, per se.

 

[DBA23]

I’m happy with the OD on my GK Fusion 210 combo

 

[MarshallAC50Stack]

I know there are a lot of threads on here about overdrive and distortion pedals. I am curious regarding people that are happy with the overdrive they get from their amp(s). Do you have a favorite pedal that gives you just a bit extra, and the tone that's yours, or do you love the amps tone just the way it is?

When I was rocking out in the late seventies/early eighties I loved the sound of my Jazz Bass with round wounds and a plectrum through a cranked Vox AC50. It was like a bass Stratocaster!

 

[JimmyM]

I'm seeing two camps to this thread.
Ones who make music and ones who cover music.

I'm in the making side of it, and OD is a definite part of my tone. Obviously the project/band can dictate a bit.

As for the ones covering, I can see how true to the music you want to be would dictate the want/need for OD.

That really doesn’t have anything to do with anything, this whole business of making music vs covering music.

 

[DJ Bebop]

I know there are a lot of threads on here about overdrive and distortion pedals. I am curious regarding people that are happy with the overdrive they get from their amp(s). Do you have a favorite pedal that gives you just a bit extra, and the tone that's yours, or do you love the amp tone just the way it is?

I do like what my amp does on its own, WD 800. I'm not big into overdrive or distortion. I am exploring it more because of the head offering that capability. I do have some pedals that can do crazy distortion and I use them for a minute to be silly but not my thing in general.

 

[Wisebass]

Hi Peter

I am curious regarding people that are happy with the overdrive they get from their amp(s)

I am happy!

do you love the amps tone just the way it is?

Yep!

Do you have a favorite pedal

Nope!

But I have a Hughes & Kettner "bassmaster" that can do some nice overdrive & grind.


That said:

Most of my sounds (yes I have more than loud and louder ) are clean.

Usually I play fretless gigs that stay civilized.

But in a power rock trio situation I love to have some good grind.


greetings

Wise(b)ass

 

[MarshallAC50Stack]

That really doesn’t have anything to do with anything, this whole business of making music vs covering music.

You still have to build your tone. And who said "originals" aren't just a rewrite of someone else's tunes, whether we realize it or not.

 

[themickster]

I know there are a lot of threads on here about overdrive and distortion pedals. I am curious regarding people that are happy with the overdrive they get from their amp(s). Do you have a favorite pedal that gives you just a bit extra, and the tone that's yours, or do you love the amps tone just the way it is?

I play live through whatever backline or FOH there is and have only needed my own backline a few times in since the spring. Recording is different. I DI onto two tracks. One is left alone, whilst the other gets a VST model of my Blackstar Super Fly with the bass and mids at 0, and the treble on 10. The gain is somewhere on full, for OD.