OD/distortion pedal/stompbox VERSUS "natural" gain

  • hi Chrisliting, just my cents here.


    after having played guitar for something like 43 years, I came to the conclusion that the gain factor is mostly on the hands. might sound philosophic, but that was my exprience.


    check out my signature, especially the teazers on my soundcloud. believe it or not but each dist sound you hear, I mean the highest one in gain, have the setting at not more than 75% of setting. the highest I remember didn't exceed 7.5 in gain. no OD pedal or booster whatsoever...........this is why I like so much the plexi profiles because they respond to the hand strenght: you go easy you have a crunch, you go super easy you have an almost clean....you go hard you get what you hear in my clips.


    michael

    "...why being satisfied with an amp, as great as it can be, while you can have them all?" michael mellner


    "Rock in Ecclesia" - new album on iTunes or Google music

  • ... which is one the BIGGEST benefits of a TS, i.e. tightening the low-end


    I guess in my experience the more transparent overdrive I have sounds better. tightening the sound without loosing any low end, but to be honest, I have no experience with Mesa amps, and the Mesa profiles I like best were profiled with pedals in front of them haha. :D


    I will sure give the green scream a try the next time I'm tweaking a boomy profile. Thanks!

    Edited once, last by guitarj ().

  • Keep in mind that 50% or higher on the Kemper Screamer's tone knob is all equivalent to 100% tone on the real thing. Only 0-50% functions like the real thing.


    I find that if you want that pure amp tone, the best way to dial it in is with EQ in front the amp. I usually use a single Studio EQ, using the low shelf to drop the bass just enough to tighten it up, and a 1-2khz boost with one of the parametrics to bring out the searing/djenty tone.


    I find using the Screamer as a boost works well, but it totally sounds like a Tube Screamer, regardless of whatever amp you apply it to.


    You can also mess with Definition in the amp block. I find anywhere from 60 - 90% works best - some heavily boosted profiles come out with definition at 100% and I find it sounds a bit raspy and tends to lack a little body. I prefer a slightly fatter pure amp tone, then use the Studio EQ to really dial in the distortion tone I want.

  • EQ up front is probably a more sound and precise way to tighten up gain. I'm probably a lot less experienced than many of you here, and with not as well trained studio ear. I really started using the 808 drive with previous gear I owned that needed a lot more help sonically. I started out using od to add gain to a clean amp. Having a love for high gain sounds also, really just happened upon using od in front of those, and later I discovered it was a common practice.


    Honestly though, this Kemper is a huge step ahead of my previous gear... including a few tube amps. I really don't need to use od at all. If a profile isn't doing it for me, I just move on. I have learned a bit about doing more deep editing, but I just don't really need to. Maybe when I get serious about recording, and quit playing with my new toy, I may need to add some eq up front or even post. For now, I have been very content to run through profiles and enjoy sonic bliss. No pedals, and tweaking! Loving it!

  • Ok so Bluetooth trabsmitter send out from headphones


    OR I looked around and I can plug the 1/4 " headphones out to 1/8" aux input of the Bluetooth audio transmitter !


    thing is would the sound be good that way?