Confusion after a OD Stomp and Amp Switching accident...

  • I was giving a 5150 profile one more chance before I deleted and I loaded up the Metal DS (which I love) and dialed back some of the 5150 gain. I was really diggin the tone a whole bunch, but it sounded distant. I found out I switched off the Amp and only had the OD going into the Cab part!


    Why is the tone sounding so good that way?


    I had only done this Amp OFF situation for totally clean sound before. I would never have thought about turning the amp off for high gain profiles . I started loading up every stomp OD with the Amp off and really liked what I heard. It's almost like I should go for super pure clean amps for volume purposes and dump the rest while saving all my favorite OD presets. Now I am confused.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

  • True. In many ways an amp is just a pedal in a big box. And vice versa.

    Kemper PowerRack |Kemper Stage| Rivera 4x12 V30 cab | Yamaha DXR10 pair | UA Apollo Twin Duo | Adam A7X | Cubase DAW
    Fender Telecaster 62 re-issue chambered mahogany | Kramer! (1988 or so...) | Gibson Les Paul R7 | Fender Stratocaster HBS-1 Classic Relic Custom Shop | LTD EC-1000 Evertune | 1988 Desert Yellow JEM

  • The main thing you need in an overdriven sound is a cabinet to tame the fizzy highs. As long as you have that any distortion device is a potentially useful sound. Most of the time this would be the amp but plenty of great sounds are also possible without an amp.

    I've noticed this right away. That was one of the things I liked with just OD into Cab. The other was thing was I was hearing more clarity on distorted notes. I would then turn on the Amp and have gain at 0.0 and increase slowly. Once you get close to 2.4 or so, you can hear the amps distorted fizziness get introduced. I also found that the Definition was acting almost like a treble fizz control -where decreasing it took out the fizz but darkened the tone. I just had to increase Presence to bring back some Treble without having the fizz.


    It really has me looking at creating tone in a whole new way, and I think a better way to tweak profiles.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

  • Good to know for later experimentation, it's always nice when someone stumbles upon some simple, but out of the box tweaks.

    Really! I would have never thought to plug a distortion pedal straight into a cab, let alone, like how it sounded. But I did hear of a guy who plugged in an amp into the wrong socket and made History. 8)

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.