Getting all your dirt from the amp....

Niallseroreilly

I have owned a Mesa Boogie Mark V-25 for about a year now, love the amp, brilliant cleans and lovely dirt sounds.

I have a few drives on my board at the minute, zenkkudo, klon, plextortion

but to be honest I feel like I can get close to those sounds with the amp.

Just wondered has anyone ditched the pedals and just went with amp sounds?

Jalapeno

"Just amp" usually involves trouser flapping volumes, more so the bit'o'hair type tones.

But you're correct, can be done.

simonk

I could easily get away with my MkV25 and a Suhr Koko or Dual Boost for the majority of the stuff we play. I keep another couple of drives on the board for variation really.

Teetonetal

Yeah all my dirt is amp only.

guitarfishbay

Most harder rock/metal players rely on the amp for gain tones.  

Using pedals for gain tones seems to be more of a blues thing.  

And a forum thing to an extent!

digitalscream

Niallseroreilly said:

Just wondered has anyone ditched the pedals and just went with amp sounds?

That's exactly how I used to do it - however, I've gone the other way. Why? Because I got tired of being limited in what I can do by my amp requirements. The reality is that my board is kinda half an amp in that it has a solid state version of a Fender Twin preamp on it, and then a Bogner Ecstasy Red (which is also a sorta-kinda preamp) providing the dirt.

It feels a lot more flexible than the amp approach to me.

Sassafras

I prefer a clean amp and a few carefully chosen drive boxes and an AMT F1.
I just feel it offers me a lot more choice and versatility than amp drive which I've never really liked that much.

Danny1969

I've never really used pedals and don't own any, always used amp dirt be it Marshall or Blackstar. Over the last year though I've been playing Brit pop and soul \ funk with a borrowed Blues Deville and a tube screamer and it's nice. I get why people like the experience now 

They still haven't invented a pedal that sounds nice playing chords that contain more than root and fifths IMHO so for covering classic rock gigs doing hair metal I prefer amp dirt still 

nick79

I used to use pedals for my drive sounds but now i've got a Mini Rectifier i've pretty much taken all my drive pedals off my board. The only one left is my Guvnor 2, and that's only because i need clean (amp), light drive (Guvnor) and high gain (amp). 
The time's i gig and don't need a clean i set channel 1 to pushed and that gives me classic rock heaven.

peteri

For my whole playing 'career' until tail end of last year (30 odd years) I've been dirt from the amp.

Last year on a whim I tried the other way (pedals) and I love it, more flexible and less wires, means I have one wire into an amp, not the 'boost pedal -> amp -> delay pedal -> amp' chain.

And there are some lovely amps without loops

dindude

I gave up on amp dirt a good few years ago. Got tired of the mega clean / mega dirt that most still seem to chuck out, I think it's a very dated (I.e 80's) approach. Struggled to find a dirt channel that wasn't out and out compressed preamp gain, and too much of it.

I love dirt boxes into a cleanish amp, there seems to be a common anchor point to the sound this way, rather than two disparate sounds, despite how many different gain stages you chuck at it.

EricTheWeary

I don't use anything all that distorted so I've gone back to the amp ( and my needs aren't terribly specific). To some extent pedals are good at chopping your signal, particularly TS type ones, so you can cut through the mix which is really useful if you're playing through a 4x12 but if, like me, you are using a relatively low powered 1x12 combo you can end up with a really strangulated lead tone.
I still have an OD on the board though which is a slightly annoying use of space but I play as much through other people's amps as my own so having a familiar pedal is a big help then. 

octatonic

I use whatever I need for the gig.

One of my rigs is just amp gain- high gain style amp.
Another one is a cleanish amp with some pedals.
A third is just a pedalboard designed to work with a variety of amps.
They all do different jobs.

BintyTwanger77

I only have a Tumnus for a boost, get my gain from the Mesa Rectoverb. Tremendous amp. Is it the Mk V 25 head that you've got?

Haych

My amp (Super Reverb) doesn't really do dirt so I'm using a couple of floor warts for that.

I will at some point buy a much dirtier amp for some higher gain tones, just waiting on a Laney GH50L coming up for sale close enough to me that it's worth buying.

ICBM

Danny1969 said:

They still haven't invented a pedal that sounds nice playing chords that contain more than root and fifths IMHO so for covering classic rock gigs doing hair metal I prefer amp dirt still 

Interesting observation, and I think I would agree with it up to a point. That's probably one of the reasons I still tend to prefer valve amp dirt up to crunch-rhythm gain levels. (Cranked Marshall 2203 roughly.)

That said, I find the opposite for higher gain - valve distortion tends to be too smooth and muddy, or oddly smooth and harsh - I prefer solid-state for the clearer more 'harmonic-y' sound it has. So a solid-state pedal into a low to medium-gain valve amp is the best of both worlds for me.

DartmoorHedgehog

I almost never use pedals for dirt, always favoured a two-channel amp (currently Rocker 30) and used the amp's own drive.  I say "almost never" because I've recently added a fuzz pedal to my board and do occasionally use it, but rarely.

But I don't use high-gain sounds and the band I'm in hardly play any covers, so I'm not trying to match any particular sound.  If I was playing in a function band (or a session musician or something) I'd probably feel more inclined to use various different drive pedals into a clean amp.

Niallseroreilly

BintyTwanger77 said:

I only have a Tumnus for a boost, get my gain from the Mesa Rectoverb. Tremendous amp. Is it the Mk V 25 head that you've got?

Yeah got the head with the thiele cab, truly brilliant amp. 

The EQ is great, it feels like you can dial in any sound.

JezWynd

Danny1969 said:

They still haven't invented a pedal that sounds nice playing chords that contain more than root and fifths IMHO so for covering classic rock gigs doing hair metal I prefer amp dirt still 

Have you tried the Boss DA-2 or any of the other recent Boss pedals that use 'multi dimensional processing'? They have a rep as keeping the strings defined even with heavy distortion.

TTBZ

I've always used amp gain since getting my Laney but have a few pedals from before which I've started messing about with again. I always have a love/hate thing with the Laney, mostly hate these days I think! My bands recording in a couple months and will probably use the amp slightly gritty and get the rest from a Rat as it's such a classic sound, hard to go wrong! 

My thing with pedals is I almost never play clean so it feels wrong to use a pedal for all of it somehow. Probably more just me being snobby and thinking I need to do it "properly" though.

clarkefan

I spent years using dirt pedals but always wanted to try "proper" power amp distortion (thank you Eddie) but of course that was impossible.

Then I got my head around attenuators and I am sold.  My DSL on the red channel (yep not as gainy as it's made out to be) kicked with an SD-1, very very enjoyable. Dirt pedals sound flat to me now, like the difference between being at a gig then hearing a recording of it later.