Drive Pedal Heaven

Rex said:
If you're touring or playing in other situations where the venue provides the backline, your pedalboard is your only shot at a consistent sound from night to night. Whatever amp lands in your lap on a given night, just dial it clean and let your pedals work their magic.
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This was exactly the reason for me, as I've said before I had a massive G2 (Gigrig) based floorboard, pre-Fractal. Amp (whatever the amp was) was basically all EQs at noon, everything (reverb etc.) from the board.

Means when you show up and your Marshall has somehow become a 70's Princeton, you can cope!
 
Rex said:
If you're touring or playing in other situations where the venue provides the backline, your pedalboard is your only shot at a consistent sound from night to night. Whatever amp lands in your lap on a given night, just dial it clean and let your pedals work their magic.
Click to expand...
Exactly! I used a Mesa Mark IV head for live gigs for years. The other reason having the right drive pedals on the board is when the power in the venue is uneven/low, it does strange things to tube amps. On those nights, I would just use the clean channel of the amp and get all my higher gain tones with the pedals. Converting to a “pedal platform” situation saved my butt many times.
 
2112 said:
I was never a "pedal platform" guy and only used drives like the SD-1 as a boost for a little more gain into an already crunchy amp. Having all the worlds best drives as well as a selection of Fenders, Hiwatts and Vox style amps in the III makes me appreciate the dark art of stacking drives a little more though.

Anyway, back to play the USA Lead model with nothing in front of it :p
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Been digging the MkIV lead sound lately.

Also, really loving the pushed rhythm. It really goes nicely through the low/mid gain range, and cleans up well with the guitar's volume knob.
 
I have to admit that the one pedal I do really miss is my Xotic EP boost. That thing added such a nice punch to my tone. I almost never turned it off. Anyone know how to reproduce that on the AxIII?
 
OK trying it out now. In the thread you linked, jbaumeister mentions "cutoff frequency". I don't see that parameter in the FET boost. Am I missing something? He was describing this using the Ax8.

Here is how jbaumeister describes using the FET boost to recreate the Xotic EP:

EP with Unity gain, knob off, "flat EQ" mode:
use the FET Boost as is with Output Level = 5.79 and cutoff frequency = 4800 (it rounds to 4799)

EP, Unity gain, Vintage mode:
Output Level = 5.75 cutoff frequency = 1804
 
curious said:
OK trying it out now. In the thread you linked, jbaumeister mentions "cutoff frequency". I don't see that parameter in the FET boost. Am I missing something? He was describing this using the Ax8.

Here is how jbaumeister describes using the FET boost to recreate the Xotic EP:

EP with Unity gain, knob off, "flat EQ" mode:
use the FET Boost as is with Output Level = 5.79 and cutoff frequency = 4800 (it rounds to 4799)

EP, Unity gain, Vintage mode:
Output Level = 5.75 cutoff frequency = 1804
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Probably referring to the High Cut in the Drive block.
 
Rex said:
If you're touring or playing in other situations where the venue provides the backline, your pedalboard is your only shot at a consistent sound from night to night. Whatever amp lands in your lap on a given night, just dial it clean and let your pedals work their magic.
Click to expand...
There’s a difference between doing something out of necessity and preference. I understand the necessity but have trouble understanding the preference. I can understand someone eating dog food to avoid starving, I have difficulty understanding someone eating dog food because they dig the taste.
 
For me - it became a preference because of the range of stuff I wanted/needed to play.

If/when I was playing within a genre, I didn't appreciate it - for example back in the day all I needed was a two channel Marshall amp, boost and delays etc.

However when I was covering SRV, AC/DC, Iron Maiden and a whole lot more - that became harder, using drive pedals meant I could get much more flexibility. Yes I could have gone back to the amp and tweaked it, but having a clean amp which I can add a TS to for SRV, a Rook Royale for AC/DC, boost that with the TS for leads, Wampler Pinnacle for JCM800, boost that for live.

etc.etc.
 
zenaxe said:
There’s a difference between doing something out of necessity and preference. I understand the necessity but have trouble understanding the preference. I can understand someone eating dog food to avoid starving, I have difficulty understanding someone eating dog food because they dig the taste.
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There are some really great overdrive and distortion pedals out there that sound great on their own and stacked together through a great sounding amp. The advantage, therefore preference, in my experience was having greater tonal versatility rather than the same basic tone (one amp) with different gain levels. I moved on from the Carmen Ghia, multi OD setup to channel switching amps in order to simplify my rig and it didn't take long for me to regret the decision. As @iaresee said earlier - Horses for courses. Don't knock it if you ain't tried it. ;)
 
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