Mesa amps and overdrives

timmysoft

I'm finding my stiletto ace isn't all that keen on my regular overdrives for boosting the crunch channel into high gain metallic goodness. With other amps I'd never had much of a problem but the Mesa so far has hated everything apart from my OCD clone (EHX ODglove). Anyone else have any suggestions, budget not an issue!

ICBM

Boss SD-1 if you haven't tried that already.

timmysoft

ICBM;1000892" said:

Boss SD-1 if you haven't tried that already.

Tried both my sd1 and the ds2, neither really played all that well, I'm thinking maybe the od3 might be a better choice?

guitarfishbay

I think @Cirrus has a Stiletto Ace

ICBM

timmysoft said:

Tried both my sd1 and the ds2, neither really played all that well, I'm thinking maybe the od3 might be a better choice?

Don't know - I find the OD-3 a bit bland and meh, and if anything better into a clean amp. The SD-1 is brilliant into a Trem-o-verb, so I thought it might be with the Stiletto too… obviously not.

What was it that didn't sound right with the SD-1?

Cirrus

I do indeed! I'd probably say that the Stiletto is cut for a very different cloth than your rectifiers and Mark series amps...

With many amps I've owned, I've done the traditional thing of getting a bit of gain from the amp and pushing it to where I actually want it to be with a selection of pedals at my feet. With the Stiletto Ace (one of the worst named amps in the universe, I think) I set it to exactly where I want it to be, and the pedals are just for a little flavour on the gain channel and to do their own thing on the clean channel.

The overall voicing is so dependent on the gain knob's position that you just can't boost it from low gain to heavy at the input - it just doesn't cooperate. but IMO it has more than enough gain, tightness and midrange cut on tap that it doesn't *need* a boost like some amps.

I've got an SD-1 for more compression/sustain, and a Rat which gives a rougher, raunchier edge. I think because the low end is so tight and it has an upper midrange grind it's worth trying a few different speakers - I settled on some g12-65s that fell into my life.

randella

SD-1 works a treat with my Mini Recto, gain low, tone low-ish, level cranked. Sounds great on clean/pushed and od/vintage.

timmysoft

I ended up going for the OCD v1.7 and the Xotic doubler. Sounds huge and exactly what I was after tone wise.