Switching between drives and clean

[Thenewexhibit]

I’m curious; what are your methods for using drive blocks into an edge of breakup amp where you still want to use the clean edge of breakup sound?

I find that the drives sound good into the amp by hitting the front end with a bit of level, but then turning it off makes the clean significantly quieter. If you turn the level down on the drive pedal to be around unity, I find the drives don’t sound as cool in my opinion (take for example a tube screamer; you need the amp to be cooking a bit and a little level from the pedal to meld into it, but then when you turn the pedal off, your clean isn’t loud enough).

Have you guys experienced this? And if so, what kind of work arounds do you use for this BESIDES scenes? Keep in mind, I’m running my current setup like a pedalboard into one amp. I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’ve considered the idea of using modifiers so that when the drives turn off, the level of the amp turns up a bit and or a compressor turns on too, but thought I’d ask and see the different methods.

 

[Dickie Fredericks]

Set up a control switch.
Make the clean volume go down when the drive pedal is engaged. Put the drive on the same switch.
Or make a new scene.

 

[JoKeR III]

I've found some drives react better with different amps and I prefer unity gain with drives unless I want a boost. The Jam Ray and Horizon Precision Drive are a couple that work great with edge of breakup tones. Another that I'll use if more gain is needed is the Super OD model. These models seem to sound better to my ears with lower gain amp settings than the T808 models.

 

[unix-guy]

Even my "clean" still has boost type Drive in front.

Try the RCB, Micro Boost or SDD.

 

[giantslayer]

There are a couple of things you may be able to adjust on the amp to reduce that volume discrepancy:
1. Experiment with a little more gain and/or master volume.
2. Add some speaker compression.

 

[Dave Merrill]

Set up a control switch.
Make the clean volume go down when the drive pedal is engaged. Put the drive on the same switch.
Or make a new scene.

^^^ These two answers, your call.

If you have spare scenes, and switches to call them up, that's the more straightforward way

Adjusting volume with modifiers isn't as clear IMO.

 

[Budda]

Just roll with the volume difference. 9 times out of 10 people have a clean tone that seems louder than their dirty tone, making the dirty parts seem a little lacklustre.