Solid State Amps with Overdrive/Distortion?

[agedhorse]

For what it’s worth, I like how Mesa blends in a little dirt if you turn the gain up past a certain point on the D800+. Surprised me the first time I heard it. Thought it was coming from elsewhere in the chain.

This happens in two places, the input stage has tube gain emulation and the output has power tube emulation circuitry associated. Just another way to get a little closer to that kind of flavor and texture. The WD-800 has a different take on this, a bit more organic as well as being able to get more of it.

Hope this helps.

 

[rodl2005]

I'm even more of a thickie than most who've answered.... but...
I've listened to recordings all my life, from when my music loving Dad, played his 45s and then I was able to buy em. Those recordings often had a slightly, sometimes fairly, distorted bass sound.
I use all tube amps 90% of the time. Maybe it's coz of the music I was brought up with, I dunno, but even with my SS and Class D amps, a ill use a tiny bit of DRIVE, rather than distortion, to flavour my signal.
With my tube amps, I consider that I'm mostly running them CLEAN , but I'm sure there's some drive in there somewhere.
Aguilar TH500 and Berg BAmp are my class D amps, and they both allow me to dial in a TINY bit of 'fur'.

 

[agedhorse]

Drive generally is a mild form of distortion.

The distortion that you hear on vinyl is usually the stylus mis-tracking the large groove modulation or damage to the groove walls from previous mis-tracking.

 

[johnpbass]

100% accurate, except the dying breed part Plenty of bass players out there still don't want distortion, just like plenty of guitar players who don't, although that's becoming a rarity more and more. And bass players are embracing distortion like never before, and that is exactly why you're seeing it more and more on amps.

A studio "trick" I've seen used on many occasions is recording a clean bass signal and then using a second track with a boatload of distortion, blending in just a hint of the distorted track with the clean track. It really adds a lot to how the bass sits in the mix, IMO.

 

[Arthur U. Poon]

I'm even more of a thickie than most who've answered.... but...
I've listened to recordings all my life, from when my music loving Dad, played his 45s and then I was able to buy em. Those recordings often had a slightly, sometimes fairly, distorted bass sound.
I use all tube amps 90% of the time. Maybe it's coz of the music I was brought up with, I dunno, but even with my SS and Class D amps, a ill use a tiny bit of DRIVE, rather than distortion, to flavour my signal.
With my tube amps, I consider that I'm mostly running them CLEAN , but I'm sure there's some drive in there somewhere.
Aguilar TH500 and Berg BAmp are my class D amps, and they both allow me to dial in a TINY bit of 'fur'.

100%. I was very surprised when I heard James Jamerson's isolated bass tone on the Motown songs that he played on. It has quite a bit of overdrive, but when you hear the recording with the rest of the instruments playing, the "fur" in his tone almost disappears. IMO/IME a slight bit of overdrive is also incredibly handy in a live mix. For me, it makes my sound more audible without being too loud.


I agree with you, Rod on the TH500. I own one, and IMO it's eq and drive sections are capable of producing some very nice sounding drive. For a solid state amp, it does a pretty good job of emulating a tube sound, not 100%, but it's close.

I haven't owned a tube amp in many years, (but once I get my wife's blessing) I will. And when I did own one, I found a little bit of overdrive from a tube amp is pure magic.

I'm getting some nice tube-like overdrive from my GED-2112 preamp. The controls on it's "Drive" channel can dial in a very overdriven sound. It's "Deep" channel also sounds tube-like. Pretty close for a 100% solid state preamp, IMO.

Tech 21 unveiled a new Geddy Lee "YYZ" pedal at NAMM 2019, and from the few clips I listened to, it's overdriven sound is also quite tube-like to my ears.

 

[Arthur U. Poon]

Exactly. It just so happens I like my 20+ lb amp with a largish power transformer better than I like a similar 5lb Class D amp I own.

Is the difference just due to the transformer? Doubtful, but one amp I just overall prefer over the other so I use it. It's just as simple as that. Nothing inherently better or worse with either platform IMO.

To my ears my Crest CA9 sounds different to my Aguilar TH500, regardless of the preamp I use, even though the CA9 puts out about the same wattage into an 8 ohm load that my TH500 puts into a 4 ohm load. To my ears, my CA9 feels like it has more headroom on tap.

 

[Kro]

A studio "trick" I've seen used on many occasions is recording a clean bass signal and then using a second track with a boatload of distortion, blending in just a hint of the distorted track with the clean track. It really adds a lot to how the bass sits in the mix, IMO.

I know that's a relatively standard trick, but from my own experience, I've personally found the difference between just adding distortion to a clean signal and blending in a distorted signal on top of a clean signal be fairly negligible.

In fact, again IME, there are potential benefits to not blending.

 

[johnpbass]

I know that's a relatively standard trick, but from my own experience, I've personally found the difference between just adding distortion to a clean signal and blending in a distorted signal on top of a clean signal be fairly negligible.

In fact, again IME, there are potential benefits to not blending.

IME, I think it's more of the engineer's preference on which approach to take. Having the second track would seem to give you more flexibility.
EDIT: Just to add, the amount of distortion I'm talking about on the second track is a completely overdriven signal, not just a little added drive. It's the kind of distortion that would be unusable on it's own.

 

[Munjibunga]

Bracing myself for hate mail and trying to be diplomatic here. It's not you, it's me I'm sure.

I hate to bring up the topic because some amp makers that I truly have a massive amount of respect for have made the choice to include some kind of distortion/overdrive feature on their products. It's probably just me, but this somehow seems wrong for a bass amp.

An OD channel on a tube amp seems proper because it's real. And a solid state OD pedal is ok because it's an outboard effect. But manufacturing "fake" distortion on a SS amp bothers me enough that it automatically disqualifies an amplifier from my consideration (including some great ones). Anyone else feel this way?

Gain, volume and as much EQ flexibility as can fit on the front panel is what I want. Only. HPF/LPF is ok to me because it's a form of EQ. Compression I'm a little on the fence about but generally prefer to see that as an outboard thing.

I am genuinely curious if I'm a freak on this topic and hope I'm not offending anyone.

Have you tried any of the amps of which you speak? I have one of them and never use the distortion which kind of renders the issue moot for me. But it's there for any of the cats who like that sort of thing.

 

[basscooker]

Personal opinions and preferences upcoming:


I make a distinction between the terms overdrive and distortion, although technically they describe the same thing. Kinda like the difference between a sun-shower and a thunderstorm. Technically they are both precipitation, but definitely not the same thing.

I like an amp that overdrives pleasantly or gets a bit hairy when the gain gets higher. To my experience none of the amps I have used that have dedicated circuits for OD or Dist sound pleasing to me. It seems these tend to "start" too broken up for my taste, and just get more and more distorted.

All that said, my preferred tones usually are clean, or even a teeny bit honky with a little hair (ala "holy diver"), so OD or Dist isn't really very high on my "must do" list when I shop amps. Having a sexy high-gain fur coat is a plus, but if it is achieved only via a second channel it doesnt matter to me how nice the fur is. I prefer set and forget. I dont even want a pedal in front of me, honestly. I prefer to find the sweet spot on the gain dial where my right hand technique gives me "blat" when I want it.

 

[rodl2005]

Drive generally is a mild form of distortion.

The distortion that you hear on vinyl is usually the stylus mis-tracking the large groove modulation or damage to the groove walls from previous mis-tracking.

Gotcha, the bass drive that I actually noticed, APART from those old 45s was online from isolated tracks of Led Zep, Motown, and my own CD s of the Stones, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Son House, even SOME of my favorite 70s and 80s funk, bass tracks aren't real clean, if able to listen isolated

 

[JimmyM]

Gotcha, the bass drive that I actually noticed, APART from those old 45s was online from isolated tracks of Led Zep, Motown, and my own CD s of the Stones, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Son House, even SOME of my favorite 70s and 80s funk, bass tracks aren't real clean, if able to listen isolated

My experience as well.

 

[agedhorse]

Gotcha, the bass drive that I actually noticed, APART from those old 45s was online from isolated tracks of Led Zep, Motown, and my own CD s of the Stones, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Son House, even SOME of my favorite 70s and 80s funk, bass tracks aren't real clean, if able to listen isolated

This may very well be true, and this is why I don't worry about a purest complaining that I don't rate amps at .01% or .1% or even 1% distortion, as that's very rarely how an amp is ever used. Most players don't find such low distortion levels very pleasing either, sterile and lifeless is one description that comes to mind. Incorporating texture into a circuit is essential to making it "real-world player friendly".

Many tube preamps are 3% before ever including the power amp.

 

[Doner Designs]

Have you tried any of the amps of which you speak? I have one of them and never use the distortion which kind of renders the issue moot for me. But it's there for any of the cats who like that sort of thing.

I’m not interested in even trying an amp with what I consider onboard effects but am glad others are not bothered by it and respect both the makers and the products.

It’s a bit like the fact that I love manual shift cars but ever since I bought an automatic sedan with paddle shifters I have been trying to figure out how to remove the friggin paddles from the steering column because I think they are silly and they get in the way of how I like to hold the wheel when relaxing. If I could get the equivalent car without the paddles I would have paid an extra $1000 to not have them.

Was curious to learn other perspectives and freely admit to being a goof.

 

[Munjibunga]

I’m not interested in even trying an amp with what I consider onboard effects but am glad others are not bothered by it and respect both the makers and the products.

It’s a bit like the fact that I love manual shift cars but ever since I bought an automatic sedan with paddle shifters I have been trying to figure out how to remove the friggin paddles from the steering column because I think they are silly and they get in the way of how I like to hold the wheel when relaxing. If I could get the equivalent car without the paddles I would have paid an extra $1000 to not have them.

Was curious to learn other perspectives and freely admit to being a goof.

I bought the amp for its native sound and don't care about the effects - having freedom of choice, I choose not to use them. Very simple. People who have tested and used the effects like them, and the designer has refined them several times based on feedback from users, some here on TalkBass.