The Other Amp
An amazing development this evening... I've been playing the Strat through the Tube Screamer into my Champ at low, low volume, and it's pretty cool. It doesn't exactly rock, though, as the 6V6 tube isn't getting a workout at all at that volume, so all I'm getting is the sound of the pedal. It's nice, but it really isn't as nice as the Champ on its own.
But tonight, I tried something out that I suspected might sound cool. I have an old Vox bass head, 125 watts (EL34 tubes) with a nice gain+master volume control panel. This is the amp I played very loud punkrock bass through for years. I have put guitar through it before, and I knew that I cranked everything to 10 (well, except the master volume), it would overdrive.
Tonight, I put the Tube Screamer between the Strat and the Vox head (running into my good old 15" bass cab). I set the pedal for a "clean boost"—the "drive" knob at 0, the "level" knob at about 9.
Oh. My. God.
Holy rock and roll, batman. I noodled around this setting for a half a minute before falling into the Ziggy Stardust riff, and then it absolutely floored me. Once I'd found that, I had the sound in my head and I knew how to play it. It sounded absolutely fantastic. Unlike my earlier test, with the Tube Screamer I don't need to max out all the knobs on the amp—just crank the Vox's gain up to about 8 or 9, and the mysterious "sensitivity" knob all the way up, and the boost provided by the pedal is enough to drive it way into overdrive, even on the single coil pickups. But especially with the humbucker. Wow! What an amazing sound, and what amazing dynamics—everything I had missed in the Champ at low volume was there: tons of compression, sustain, and CRUNCH like I couldn't believe. Even at low volume! This had me blasting away at the Strat in a completely new way, 'cause the amp dynamics are working like you expect them to. What a find!
I've got to get a mic set up and record some of this. My rig now includes killer sounds for the Strat, both clean and overdriven (for that matter, the Vox sounds pretty decent clean, too, though not quite as charming as the Champ).
But tonight, I tried something out that I suspected might sound cool. I have an old Vox bass head, 125 watts (EL34 tubes) with a nice gain+master volume control panel. This is the amp I played very loud punkrock bass through for years. I have put guitar through it before, and I knew that I cranked everything to 10 (well, except the master volume), it would overdrive.
Tonight, I put the Tube Screamer between the Strat and the Vox head (running into my good old 15" bass cab). I set the pedal for a "clean boost"—the "drive" knob at 0, the "level" knob at about 9.
Oh. My. God.
Holy rock and roll, batman. I noodled around this setting for a half a minute before falling into the Ziggy Stardust riff, and then it absolutely floored me. Once I'd found that, I had the sound in my head and I knew how to play it. It sounded absolutely fantastic. Unlike my earlier test, with the Tube Screamer I don't need to max out all the knobs on the amp—just crank the Vox's gain up to about 8 or 9, and the mysterious "sensitivity" knob all the way up, and the boost provided by the pedal is enough to drive it way into overdrive, even on the single coil pickups. But especially with the humbucker. Wow! What an amazing sound, and what amazing dynamics—everything I had missed in the Champ at low volume was there: tons of compression, sustain, and CRUNCH like I couldn't believe. Even at low volume! This had me blasting away at the Strat in a completely new way, 'cause the amp dynamics are working like you expect them to. What a find!
I've got to get a mic set up and record some of this. My rig now includes killer sounds for the Strat, both clean and overdriven (for that matter, the Vox sounds pretty decent clean, too, though not quite as charming as the Champ).