Tell us if you have used an amp that doesnt take pedals well.

[Horse]

Guys,

I posted a comment on the 'Pedals- DOs AND DONTs' thread which i thought needed its own thread for discussion.

Its not a widely talked about topic but there are some amps out there that do not take pedals well. Most of you have probably never encountered the issue but some of us have and its a bummer!

I never thought of this when i bought my Orange TT 3 years ago, i mean, most of us wouldnt! Its a great little amp with cool tone but it goes into complete confusion when you pump pedals into the front end. Now, this is MY experiance, we all hear slightly differently and we all have different levels of tolerance so experiances differ.

I was very surprised, but on further investigation i found others had had this same problem with the amp. Whether down to the interactions of that circuit with the tubes and speaker i dont know but its there and has really made the amp unusable for me with effects. Confused, intermodulation artifacts abound. Trying the same effects with a Vox and Marshall resulted in no problems at all.

I thought it would be helpful if you give your experiances of any amps you have had the same problem with, so that the issue is more known and can forewarn people.

I have learnt to demo amps using pedals/multieffects, I think its an important point to note.

[Tonemonkey]

I didn't think my BJr took pedals (Fuzzhead, BD2ph, TS9 etc) very well, got all too messy and undefined, so I moved it on. Many here love the BJr and would no doubt disagree. All power to them.

Bottom line - Tone and Taste are űber subjective.

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by Tonemonkey

I didn't think my BJr took pedals (Fuzzhead, BD2ph, TS9 etc) very well, got all too messy and undefined, so I moved it on. Many here love the BJr and would no doubt disagree. All power to them.

Bottom line - Tone and Taste are űber subjective.

Personally I don't think any amp takes pedals well. Pedals are noisy and a general discomfort for me. I don't use em. Well sometimes I'll use a wah but again it is noisy.

[Walker]

Originally Posted by Tonemonkey

I didn't think my BJr took pedals (Fuzzhead, BD2ph, TS9 etc) very well, got all too messy and undefined, so I moved it on. Many here love the BJr and would no doubt disagree. All power to them.

Bottom line - Tone and Taste are űber subjective.

+1 I never thought my Blues Jr took pedals well either.

[middy]

My Blues Jr. takes pedals very well.

I've never had any luck with solid state amps taking overdrive/distortion/fuzz pedals.

[tombstone blues]

My Blues Jr. also sounds fine with pedals.Damn, I love that little amp!
I agree with Edwin,in general pedals are noisy and the older I get the more I avoid them. Or maybe it's,the "better" I get...who knows!
I had an old Silvertone 1484 that sounded amazing on it's own but really seems to suck with pedals.But that thing sounded so good turned up that you'd be nuts to try to put some crappy little box in front of it anyway.

+1 "Bottom line - Tone and Taste are űber subjective."

[jimmynumber9]

My tiny terror takes pedals quite well. Although I did cut down my pedals a ton from when I had my twin (I just use an od, fuzz and delay right now).

[BootRoots]

my 80s SuperChamp isn't too fond of pedals.

[Big_Bend]

I had a Matchless Lightning for awhile.. sounded awesome stand alone, but did not like pedals at all. Being in a cover band I needed more flexability so now I play thru a Super Reverb RI and a Deluxe Reverb RI, which both love pedals.

I think in general if an amp has nice clean headroom it will take pedals well, but if its got lots of built in distortion, it won't. YMMV tho.

[DGW11]

Traynor YCS50...great amp,,untill you step on somthing

[RubyRae]

I think in general modeling amps tend to not sound that great with certain pedals...but I still manage to make most work.

My Princeton has been a great foundation to build my sound with all my pedals, but one thing I have noticed is that my cry baby just does NOT sound good at all with this amp...so strange and I still can not wrap my head around it. I used to use my wah a lot, but the older I get the less I like it. Which is actually fine with me, cause I have been wanting a good envelope filter for a long time now, and will be getting one as soo as my funds allow it...classic mxr and I will be set.

anyone else have trouble with wah pedals and any other fender amps? My old hrdx sounded great with it...

[greggorypeccary]

Originally Posted by Big_Bend

I think in general if an amp has nice clean headroom it will take pedals well, but if its got lots of built in distortion, it won't. YMMV tho.

True.

OD pedals are designed to put a higher gain signal to the input of the amp thus overdriving the first preamp tube. If your amp is already on the way to being maxed out then it probably won't sound good. Then again, if you've got the amp maxed out you really don't need an overdrive pedal do you?
OD pedals always sound best on a clean or just about starting to break up amp.

As for solid state or modeling amps, the same applies - there's no tube to send a hotter signal to, so it'll probably end up sounding fizzy.

[Horse]

I totally agree in that if an amp doesnt have lots of clean headroom its not really inclined toward pedals.

It depends on the application, if you like to play prog and ambient then pedals are part of the deal. Im going to let the Orange and get something like a HRDX.

[Tonemonkey]

Originally Posted by Big_Bend

I had a Matchless Lightning for awhile.. sounded awesome stand alone, but did not like pedals at all. Being in a cover band I needed more flexability so now I play thru a Super Reverb RI and a Deluxe Reverb RI, which both love pedals.

I think in general if an amp has nice clean headroom it will take pedals well, but if its got lots of built in distortion, it won't. YMMV tho.

This is that subjective bit....isn't it?

I agree the Lightning sounds amazing cranked and sub-cranked, and is v flexible with an excellent MV.
But, I think it rules with good ODs, flavouring / driving/ boosting it. I suppose I never max an OD pedal into it, but find it takes stacked ODs very well. My stacking flavours are Fuzzhead or BD2ph or TS9 flexi with the Zendrive.
I guess I see the flexibility argument, but as my sound goes from driven cleans through to classic rock, I guess I just need to colour great sounds coming out of the 210s.
The Lightning loves a ZD.