How To Use an Overdrive Pedal With a Tube Amp or Solid State Amp
It’s such a simple looking thing, often with just two or three knobs, I mean how hard can it be to set up an overdrive? Well, it turns out maybe a bit more thought is needed than you may, at first, think.
There are roughly two types of overdrive pedal, 1. the type that will give you an overdrive sound on a clean channel of an amp (they are mimicking an amp sound themselves), and 2. the type that will ‘push’ your amp more and interact with it. Some can achieve both.
Oh, and then there are also clean boost pedals, but we’ll leave these out of the discussion for now. And, just to add to the confusion, some overdrives from both of these ‘types’ will work better into some amps than others. But let’s start somewhere…
Setting the ‘Amp Mimic’ Type Overdrive
OK, let’s look at setting up an overdrive that mimics a style of amplifier. We’ll go with this first as if you don’t know what type of overdrive you have on the floor, using this option first lets you find that out. In other words, if this overdrive gain sound doesn’t sound great, you’ve probably got a more interactive type of overdrive in your hands that works better pushing the front end of an amp into greater overdrive.
Anyway, with this ‘Mimic’ type of overdrive we are looking to use the overdrive sound from the pedal itself (examples of this type of pedal are the Bogner La Grange and Wampler Plexi).
Pull your guitar volume control back a bit initially. Up to halfway back, though be aware that your treble can change on some guitars when you do this.
Set you amp to a clean sound that you like, so fiddle with the EQ on your amp until you’re happy with this basic sound (not too thin if you’re playing a single coil Strat type guitar, or maybe not too fat and full if you’re using humbuckers in a more Les Paul type guitar).
Pop the gain on the overdrive to a middle position, and then engage the pedal. Set the level control so that when you engage/disengage the drive pedal is a similar volume to the amp volume on the clean channel.
Now set any EQ or tone control on the pedal to get a sound you’re happy with.
Also at this point you can add or remove gain to get the drive sound you are after. It now becomes just about playing with the EQ and gain as you play different types of material. Be gentle on the controls though, small tweaks can make a big difference, and trust your ears, really listen to the sounds you’re getting, try to think about the amount of gain, the bass and treble etc., and how they interact.
Setting the ‘Push’ Type Overdrive
With this type of overdrive pedal we’re looking to push the sound of the amplifier using the pedal, giving a lot of control in your guitar’s volume pot.
Some pedals will do both jobs, the ProCo RAT is a classic example that will do both, for example. So, you will be using either high gain on the pedal with a clean sound on the amp and a low level on the pedal, or, pulling the gain down and push the level up on the pedal, let’s see how this works…
Pull your guitar volume control back a bit initially. Up to halfway back again, but be aware that your treble/tone can change on some guitars when you do this.
This time though, we’re not using a clean channel rather we’re going to set our amp to that ‘just clipping’, edge of break up, crunch sound first. This is the perfect place to start and puts a lot of control back into your guitar volume pot.
Make sure your amp’s EQ or tone shaping controls are set so that you’re getting a sound you like.
Set the overdrive pedal so the gain and level are midway. And… turn the pedal on.
At this point you may have too much volume going one, so if you have a master volume, use that to manage the output. If not, it will be a balance between the pedal’s gain and level controls.
But of course, you want the pedal to push the amps own voice, so we can keep the gain control quite low on the pedal and use the level to push the front of the amp. We’re stacking drives here (you may have heard about this) and it’s all about trial and error. But it can give you such a full and enjoyable to play sound.
You may have to try balancing the gain on the pedal and the amp, just keep in mind you are using the pedal to get more out of your amp, but not necessarily huge amounts of gain. In fact, less can be so much more (listen to your favourite guitar tracks and you may be surprised at how little gain they actually use).
Have fun with it…
Hopefully this quick guide has helped a little, if you need anything or have any questions, please feel free to drop us a line.
