How To Get Better Guitar Tone: Using Distortion or Delay Pedals With a Distorted Amp
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- čas přidán 2. 12. 2014
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In this video, I discuss how to properly use a distortion pedal and a delay pedal with a guitar amp that has a distortion channel. I'll also go through what happens when you use it incorrectly. For a more detailed version of this video, make sure you join our newsletter at www.wamplerpedals.com/subscribe - you'll be sent a special link and login to a "members area" with many great "how to get better guitar tone" videos, and other videos to help you get the best tone you can get from your existing gear, as well as some exclusive lessons. - Hudba
You're the only pedal maker who's got the balls to constantly demo other brands for the sake of education. I salute you.
Thank you 😊
*****
The fact that you are using a TC Electronic Flashback AND saying on the camera that it's a great pedal just shows how classy you are. I will own some of your killer pieces of gear someday! Nice work on the video, glad I'm subscribed to this channel.
Thanks Robert Taylor I appreciate that :)
H
Robert Taylor That's one of the things I've liked so much about this channel. He's always made great pedals, but he's always been super cool about giving shout outs to other companies that make good pedals. So many other companies show demo videos using only their effects, but how many guitarists do you know that exclusively use one pedal brand for their whole board? Most guitarists don't use one guitar exclusively, let alone effects.
Pedal manufacturers, seem to be the only business where all the companies don't have competition but still make great gear, like in Rob Scallons biggest pedal board video, he had a bunch of pedal manufacturers helping out
I like the fact that you the creator/owner take the time to do these videos for us! And as someone else mentioned that you used the TC shows you aren't 100% biased towards your own product. Confidence in your own product yet giving an other make compliments is a good thing!
VERY useful video. I know a lot of these things may seem "elementary" to those of us who have played a log time, or spent most of our youth in a guitar store soaking up these things, but there are lots of people looking for this info, and it being so clearly explained by such a source is a very nice thing. Cheers!
I have a hot wired and a velvet and I love both pedals. Now i m trying to find my best tone with the velvet and my flashback together. thanks for making great pedals.
wow Brian! You are killer guitar player and awsome pedal builder, what an honest guy!!! love your stuff!!!!
This video pretty much just solved the problem I was having tonight with my delay pedal, much appreciated!!
That's why I use OD pedals on dirty channels. Turn the gain down on the amp and adjust the gain on the pedal to your liking. Find a happy medium between amp gain and pedal gain.
exactly what i do myself...
Good tip! I'll try that
jareyes2012 i know what you mean but i think his talking about Distortion e not overdrive pedal
Will try that to get a little more gain.
OD pedals typically sound best when put through at least a little dirt. Distortion pedals are a different beast and that’s what was demonstrated here.
Fuzz can sort of go either way but I tend to prefer the ones I’ve used with distortion after it.
Absolutely Perfect demonstration
I would hope that stacking serious gain pedal on top of (already) serious gain amp, and then further overloading all the signal into that amp with delays would intuitively be clear NOT to do for a decent sound. But... I guess not. Nice of you to really lay out the problem and solution out for the novice player. Thanks!
LOL the "don't do that" noise is hilarious !!!
Louder than a fierce drummer
Great tutorial perfect example the way the distortion was regenerating from the amp really makes sense to put on clean channel or an effects loop if you have to use amps distortion. Thanks for another great video. I've went full circle I used pedals and racks in 80s the sold it all for programmable floor processors. Now I'm building a pedalboard again lol. I sure wish still had my ts10 and maestro phaser. And my EQ pedals were great as well. I've been running gate-comp-overdrive-eq-trichorus-delay-reverb. Starting at chorus everything goes stereo into two clean amps
. Getting some really cool clean tones.
Very helpful advice. Thanks!
Love these videos Brian.
Thanks for having such a great channel !! Very ,very helpful .
Thanks!
This is excellent information and musicianship!
Fantastic...now i know why my delay pedal has jacks in front and not at the sides, so it can go into the loop! Explains why i could never get a crisp delay on my dirty channel.
Thanks for this excellent demo.....sorted!
Thanks for sharing pal. Some things a bit clearer now
Your playing style is amazing.
Very good advice and sound logic common sense. Nice video. 👍
After many years of trial and error with loads of different amps and pedals, I discovered the same thing. Now, One of my favorite set-ups is a Jazz Chorus amp (super clean) with a variety of overdrives in front of it. The overdrives can be stacked, If I want to get really crazy.
That’s a REALLY great solid state amp you have there👍
Brian is a class act and has many damn fine pedals.
I tried that: Blackstar HT Tube amp with Flashback Delay and HOF Reverb in the loop, and Sovereign in the front. The point of having distortion pedal with the tube amp is either boosting it on drive channel or changing type/tone of distortion by using it on clean channel. Sovereign tones were too similar to Blackstar's built-in dirty channel. I swapped pedal for MESA ThrottleBox and it gave me totally different tonal characteristics both as boost on LO and kick-ass drive on Hi setting.
I did not know that you could rock out like that Brian! I only knew you as the genious that made amazing pedals .... :O Well Done!
Mike Kerr Thanks Mike!
Thanx Brian, I wish I had this video when I was starting out, to figure the signal path of my signal! I hope some of the younger players watch this. It would save them a ton of time!
+Jimmie Marchisotto Thanks Jimmie!
Great info Brian!
Fantastic video. More like this!!
Great Video. Helps a lot to understand how to get a nice sound.
you save me thank you!!! now i know why my flashback delay 2 sounds like crap on distorction channel!!!
Hmm, I think it all depends on what you play, how you play it, and then how you set the pedals. Some delay before drive setups are freaking amazing.
Great - now I want a Sovereign distortion by Wampler pedals !
Tyler Hier Yes, depending on what tone you are going for.
Great vid!!!
2:38 , That's what i like , seriously , it reminds me to 1987 , when i started to play the guitar :)
General popular method is tuner,wah> dirt boxes>modulation>time effects
+JJWalker yup
Wampler Pedals the way i do it is comp+drive+drive+mod+delay+reverb
Delay in front of the dirty channel - Welcome to the jungle for days...
At 6:18 there is a small sample with distortion and short delay that gives a stadium like sound. Not complete repeat but just some nice slap back.
Appreciate this video using the delay with distortion, every does their delay pedal reviews clean for some reason.....
I always run my delay thru the effects loop, Could never get pedal to work, So i use a TC electronic Gmajor in the loop, Tons of presets, Have a Wampler Distortion pedal, Love it, Eddie Van Haleln in a box!!
I have seen best results with DriveDist pedals going in to the front end of an amp with a clean channel that was slightly dirty, or a dirty channel that can be made to sound slightly clean. Headroom can be an issue with some pedals so experiment with the options on your particular amp to squeeze the most out. Very glassy pristine clean channels tend to need more tweaking to get them to sound good with some dirt/filth pedals and can give the impression that a pedal is not good when it’s really just a mismatch with that particular channel or sometimes the whole amp!
I like the "Keith Richards Distortion" you used on the opening music of the video.
So, what's the best way to achieve that....?
Digging these new videos. Lets see you playing the guitar for the next one.... :) You guys at ***** rock!
Thanks :).. this helped.
Your Euphoria is the best overdrive I have ever had the pleasure of using and I don't see it coming off of my board any time soon. Got a Sovereign coming in on Tuesday. Expecing great first impressions!
***** Thanks!
Get tumnus with it. I use both. Either one is superb alone. When I stack them (euphoria then tumnus) it's insane.
gave this a like just for that blackstar tone. belted top-hat tip.
So to get rid of the hiss, make sure your amp's settings are as clean as possible? You say at end of vid put your delay through an fx loop? How? You already have 3 effects looped so what do you mean?
General rule of thumb...... Do not use a distortion pedal to boost your gain from the floor, always use an overdrive. Overdrive is less harsh. A tip that I share is to set your gain on your amp and overdrive pedal to about 8 out of 10 on the drive knob of both. This should hit the realms of hiss dependant on what amp you use. With the overdrive pedal on and the distorted channel of your amp on together drop the gain knob on your amp down slowly until the hiss goes to a more acceptable level or completely goes. Now there should be a gain difference or rhythm and lead tone at the stomp of your foot. Add tone from the overdrive if you want to lift the miss or set to middle or just below to near enough match your amp tone. Pedal should go in front of amp to work this way. As for delay, less comment on this from me. Effects chain all the time. Reason being is that a delay in front of any amp will delay the dry signal going in which is why it never works in front. Good video but slightly misleading as I thought it was about enhancing your drive tone using an overdrive. Good base as to not what to do though.
Brian, you are a great player with really great tone even WITHOUT your pedals. BTW, I've been using a Triple Recstortion (One button) pedal since you first released only 200 of them. and using it in front of a Fender Blues Jr. and i have had people ask me how I get my tone all the time. You don't make that pedal anymore so I say "I don't really know.." Hey if they want to know.. just look at the floor!!
Thanks Todd, the Triple Recstortion became the Triple Wreck, which is pedal we still build.
nice tone when distorted amp mix with distortion pedal
I wish you would have shown the clean Ch. sound before you hit the Sovereign pedal to show people the difference on how great it sounds. To me it's the best most natural distortion I've heard. I can't afford one right now, but I'd like to get four of them and have each at a different setting and that would be my main guitar sounds. It's the best distortion sound I've heard since I started playing guitar Mid-term 8th grade way back in 1975.Great job on a fantastic pedal.
Mr. Brian, please, what is the name the machine who appears in the first second of this video. I search for pedal printers and found nothing. Thank you.
It is ok to push a slightly over driven amp with an overdrive/ distortion. Just as I was about to bring up the effects loop and delays, you did .lol
Brian, I was all set to go buy the Angry Charlie from JHS. Thank god I didn't yet because now I'm definitely gonna get the Sovereign! I love this gain pedal, it's so thick and rich, it's gonna make my Clapton signature "Blackie" scream through my Fender and Marshall amps. I just started getting into your stuff, you consistently keep coming up with thick juicy pedals with such original tones. I would love your thoughts on the JHS Colour Box. I think it's pretty cool sounding though I've never played one.. Yet... But I'm just some shlub of a guitar player and would love to know what your sound tested ears think of it. Thank you for your time.
I understand this, but I'm still then puzzled.. as the OD channel goes to waste here then if you basically cannot add delay / distortion to it
si lo único que deseo es ecualizar. usaría el tone job o un mxr m 108 s?
what about splitting the wanted gain between a distortion pedal and the pre amp tubes? or mostly pre amp distortion and using the distortion pedal all the way down on its level kind of like a signal boost or tone shaper?
I have a 120w solid state crate amp and its heavy gain channel has a more bassy thick sound. More so than my Hughes and kettner running through a Mesa boogie 2x12. How do I replicate it?
I have been running My tuner + my wah + distortion (MXR Distortion +) to the front of Amp and loop my coloring pedals to Noiser reducer then to my delay and back. I have very specific settings on the distortion pedal and the gain on my dirty channel on amp.
Interesting how Ed Van Halen uses the echo in front, besides all the other pedals he used Pete thorne proves that in a video...
I personally have found throughout the many years of playing that it depends on the application...
But for the most part, a clean amp, and somewhat a correct order of pedals sound fantastic!
Especially "nowadays pedals" are very handy. But then again, sound is soooo very personal that one must follow what they think is best. As those years pass, when you find "your" sound you will know it :-)
I run analog delay in front of my amp all the time. I have digital delay in my loop. If you have the mix or level up too high it will sound bad going in front
Just bought your dual fusion, lets see how it plays with my 5153 50 watt head :)
Brain, how do you print your pedals? Is a printer what we look at the begining? Could you tell me the name, please. Thanks a lot.
Could you tell me what speaker you use? I want to get it for my Blackstar
Brian: Who made the version of Beast of Burden on the video; tone sounds sweet.
So on the floor a delay would best suit after a dist/OD pedal?
Where can I go to watch a video on how this stuff is hooked up?
This helps me a lot. Thanks so much. I am a drummer.
Hahahaha ! For this video, drummers not required !
I'm trying to find out how to get rid of the hiss. I use distortion when playing a solo with my Church Band and that loud hiss drives me nuts. Other than a Gate Pedal. What get rid of it?
I only have a distortion pedal and my amp generates an overdrive sound. is that okay
The distortion pedal on the hi gain channel does a good old TV white noise like the old days when the stations tuned out after the National anthem.
Brian, you could use the distortion pedal as clean boost for Leads turn the level down. This way od or dist pedal acts as a third gain on the amp, if it has two stages available.
Use the heaviest distortion from the tube amp. Mic the front and back and run that mic into a mixer to balance them both out. The run the outs of the mixer to the chorus pedal and into a 12 or 15 inch monitor. That will be heaven!
+380stroker You'll have phase problems doing it this way though unless you correct for it.
Nice explanation/demonstration and I have those exact shoes :)
Nathan Shafer That must mean you have good taste in shoes :D
***** That is true :) By the way I am loving my Ego Comp I just picked up. I plan to do a video demo/review soon.
Thanks Nathan Shafer !
Could you do a demo using two amps and a delay. Preferably using the second amp as the delay amp and the first amp no delay. I would love to see how the slap back would sound in that set up. Thanx.
+Jimmie Marchisotto Possibly so - let me see what I can come up with :)
Would you recommend a Paisley Drive on a clean channel?
Or just add an overdrive pedal to crank that distorted/overdriven channel. a boost might help as well. i had trouble with distortion pedal and clean channel, didn't really the tone back then. i tried overdriven channel with overdrive pedal upfront and it works for me somehow. matter of taste i guess.. yeah?
Wow. I think that's the first time I've heard a Blackstar on CZcams that didn't sound like a muddy, blanket-over-the-speaker mess. Maybe I'll have to re-evaluate my prejudices (dammit!).
About delays before distorting amps: Some of those tones on Van Halen's first album that so many of us geek out over were delays before a distorting amp. I personally wouldn't go that way, but it's something that CAN sound good if you take the time to find out how to do it right. I might (MIGHT!!!) be tempted to put a delay before distortion by using a short, almost slap-back, delay with only one repeat and a fairly low, almost unheard, level in order to add a kind of double-tracked-like thickening to crunching rhythm guitar sounds. That has worked for me before. It takes careful knob-twiddling, but it's entirely possible. Your mileage may vary depending on the components you're using--guitar, delay device, amp, any overdrives, etc. Usually I like to echo the distortion, though, not distort the echo...
just bought a tumnus deluxe for 199.00. nice bag included. sounds great. got rid of my soul food.
I have always found that using the delay after the dirt is better, because the repeats don't get dirtier each time: unless that is what you want of course.
For digital I go with the first. A carbon copy into a dirty amp is pretty magic though
Actually you do anything you Really want as far as Boosting with a Drive(which is essentially what he's doing).
To help with the noise and feedback, just get yourself a good buffer or noise suppression with a gate.
Better Connection Cables help Alot too.
I love the stacked distortion sound maybe you need a Noise superior like the Boss NS-2
*supressor
Is that a humbucker equipped tele?
Check out East Bay Ray's work with the Dead Kennedy's - he uses delay in front of dirty amps on purpose for that trashy sound, with the repeats getting progressively cleaner. It's a unique tone.
Brian, you make awesome pedals and are an absolute pro in your field. but i found this demo a bit unfair. You just tell everyone this is wrong and this is right. I play dirty (singel channel) amps. because i like the response of those amps. I use tons of pedals, but if you use gain from the amp (witch i prefer) is that you need different pedals are use them in a different way (lower gain and use the pedals more as a boost/eq pedal). The delay pedal is something else, at medium gain it can work if you keep de the levels very low and just use it as a bit of glue instead as a tool for creating sonic landscapes.
Very good video, you showed very important things about tone. Actually I would use Delays etc. in FX Loop, the sound is different and the amp wouldnt make so much mud in the sound. Just like you said in the end.
Thanks for video !
Greetings from Poland
4:15 lol..that is what you hear all the time in small clubs with young metal bands
there is so much bad ass in that pedal
Your best bet is to use the distortion from the amp with a mild boost pedal or use a high gain or TS pedal through a clean amp. Putting distortion on top of distortion is a recipe for mud, hiss and blah tone. You would be surprised how little distortion you actually need really
My amp is always set on clean , from there ==> to whatever effect
OK!! I will do that... Thanks :) who doesn't like his?? Well, personal preferences...
For the guitar player.... Know your gear. Signal chain pros and cons. What do you want? Does it serve the song? Do you have the money? .... Have fun doing what your doing. If you had a bike you know what I mean. It's a ride
you are sending 4 cables to the amp?
It's kind of "fair-play" to use another delay (here TC Flashback) not just to compare but just because you like (or you pretend to like ;-)) the sound. It gives a little bit of peace in the world of business if you understand what I mean.
Anyway to get back on the subject, I don't know if you made a video about "Overdrives on a crunchy amp, best of both world ?" but it should be a good idea.
For example, your Wampler Paisley is really killer on every crunchy amp I tried... I get my Wampler Paisley for an exchange at first but when I tested it on my crunchy amp, it sounded so good that I didn't exchanged it ! And now it's on my "big PB".
I have made a demo of it on my channel but it deserves a better one (that I'll do).
I think you should consider making a video like that because putting an overdrive on a crunchy amp is a good mean for having a tight and precise/clean overdrive sound with the natural compression and rawness/wildness of tubes saturation.
And Wampler pedals works good on crunchy amp too (at least the one that I got)
Nicest Blackstar tone I have ever heard.
What printing process is used during the intro? Doesn't look like screen printing to me, so I'm curious.
+Nick de Beer UV
can I use fenders' clean amp with distortion pedal to get heavy metal sound?
Very much so
I recently bought a Blackstar HT Club 50 as my first half stack, mainly because I love the distorted channel that naturally comes with the amp. Are you saying in this video that to use distortion (overdrive too?) pedals I should disregard the distorted channel and play on clean? This makes me feel that it was a waste of time/money choosing an amp with nice distortion when I could've bought any amp if I'm just going to use the clean channel.
Gage Killion Just use a balance between the distortion's channel gain and the pedal's gain.
Precaria Black Metal oh that makes sense! Thank you!
I just have a question on this subject while we are still here. What would be the best place to put your delay effects stompbox on your pedal board? I have noticed that delaying the guitar signal into the rest of my setup actually doesn't make everything sound to messy when switching effects on or off. I noticed you and many other guitarist put their delay last..... Can you maybe help a man out?
+Lonely Guitarist I always prefer to run it after any overdrive, distortion or fuzz. If I'm using an amp's dirty channel, I run it in the effects loop
+Wampler Pedals I use it before my distortion it sounds a lot smoother when you run after it amplifies the delay making it louder , I don't have a effects loop on my amp so this seems to work for me
So my amp has no fx loop. Does that mean a delay pedal will not sound good on my dirty amp?
Not if the amp is too dirty (has too much gain)... the question is, "how much is too much?". I'm not sure exactly, but I'll say that if you are unhappy with the sound of your delay pedal and it's because you are using it in front of a dirty amp, that could be why. *****
Profesor Eshnibly?
I brought an acoustic Marshall amplifier and I want a bit of distortion. Could I use a distortion pedal for an acoustic amp to make it dirty?
Jordon Olsen You can, yes, but be aware that on an acoustic amplifier you may need to turn down the tone control on the pedal quite a bit so it's not as brittle sounding.
What kind of mic did you guys use? That sounds huge.
MarshallStack3203 Thanks! 2 MXL ribbon mics, fairly inexpensive ones actually.