Ending the Pedal Dance - A Tube Amp Tone Tip

[Dave]

I played my first paying gig in 1966, back when transistor amps were new and most amps were still tube. There were a couple of "fuzz boxes" available and everyone had to have one so that they could play Satisfaction! The Fuzz Face and the Mosrite Fuzz were two of the most popular. If you were lucky enough to own an amp with a pre-gain/drive control you were set. The rest of us had to figure out other ways to do it. Those who played lower wattage tube amps had the advantage; they had natural distortion. I was playing through a Bandmaster reverb at the time and it pretty much had the sound of a Bassman with added reverb.

 

Of course, the sound of the times was Hendrix, Clapton, and Santana, IMHO. Those guys were playing the natural breakover sounds with some occassional sawtooth and square wave distortion from a foot pedal. We didn't care how we got it, we just had to have that sound.

[wpkg]

i've been using htis method for a while, but since I have treble bleed caps in my LP when I turn the volume knob up, my highs are swallowed up by the mids and bass. fiddling with the tone knob doesnt bring them back. but if I leave volume on 4-5 on the guitar and click on the OD box, i get a good sound.

 

turning up the volume also gives a great sound... but its different than what I can get with the OD pedal with all the highs from my rolled off volume knob... anyway around this one without using an OD?