"Great pedal platform" WTF?

[DaddyDom]

I'm confused, what characteristics must an amp display to NOT be good with pedals?

In almost 40+ years playing many amps guitars and pedals, I've never met an amp that didn't just ... you know ... take pedals.

Help me learn, OSG!

[GilmourD]

I'm confused, what characteristics must an amp display to NOT be good with pedals?

In almost 40+ years playing many amps guitars and pedals, I've never met an amp that didn't just ... you know ... take pedals.

Help me learn, OSG!

I think it depends on what you want to do with it, but most of the time when people say that they're talking about something like David Gilmour's setup where it has an excellent clean sound and they use pedals for dirt.

[OffYourFace]

it's all about headroom and how certain overdrive and fuzz pedals sound through them.

[MayTheFuzzBeWithYou]

it's all about headroom and how certain overdrive and fuzz pedals sound through them.

Yeah, I would say so too. Which brings me back to my statement about the Tiny Terror - nice if you like THAT crunch - but with Fuzz it sounded like a shoebox.

Another example: my Fender Vaporizer sounds good at neighbour-friendly living room levels - and takes pedals well - but beware: in the rehearsal room (so a bit louder) it absolutely sucks as there is little to no extra headroom).

Also: some amps that are too crunchy from the start and have no fx-loop make Reverbs sound „funny“…like way over the top and only usable if you‘re after Shoegaze sounds.

[JamesSGBrown]

Headroom, basically. so that you still get detail on mod/verb/delay and fuzzes and distortions don't flub-out. Thats why Twins are king- so much headroom that you keep all the detail.

[F15hface]

Everyone has already said it. I had an OR15 that just totally fell apart with fuzz or distortion. Swapped it in against a Vibro Champ and suddenly I like my Rat and Big Muffs again. It’s enabled a lot of fuzz buying.

[sessylU]

This is to do with more than just headroom, though, isn't it? I always assumed there were other factors at play, like how different frequency bands interact in the amp and respond differently to being driven (is there the same headroom across the whole spectrum? or will some parts saturate differently than others?) and impedance and stuff.

I always thought it was a spooky combination of things.

[DaddyDom]

Headroom, basically. so that you still get detail on mod/verb/delay and fuzzes and distortions don't flub-out. Thats why Twins are king- so much headroom that you keep all the detail.

That's the most useful distillation of what everyone else has alluded to, thank you.

My main amp for decades was a '63 AC30 and the only effect I really used was a valve Copicat, so my mileage is different to most others, I guess.

Now I use a '65 Champ and a small pedalboard with a Flint, Hotcake, Ibanez DL10 and a TC HoF reverb. Also the Copicat and an Ibanez AD150 for fun.

[øøøøøøø]

It never meant that much to me, because different pedals benefit from different characteristics

For me, fuzz pedals like headroom, while boost/drive pedals like an amp that’s prone to breaking up on its own.

If performance of delays and reverbs were paramount, then only an amp with an effects loop would be optimal, but I’ve never owned one of those

It’s generally more straightforward (and more instructive, too—at least to me) when someone just says “I really like this amp, it works well for what I do”

[marqueemoon]

Re: effects loops, the principle seems sound, but I’ve never owned an amp with one. There just aren’t very many amps that appeal to me in other ways and that I can afford that have them.

[GilmourD]

Re: effects loops, the principle seems sound, but I’ve never owned an amp with one. There just aren’t very many amps that appeal to me in other ways and that I can afford that have them.

For me the effects loop is mostly about time-based effects (delay, reverb, chorus, flanger, etc.), but that also depends on what you want. They tend to get smeary and lost if they're before dirty, but sometimes that's a sound unto itself.

[marqueemoon]

Re: effects loops, the principle seems sound, but I’ve never owned an amp with one. There just aren’t very many amps that appeal to me in other ways and that I can afford that have them.

For me the effects loop is mostly about time-based effects (delay, reverb, chorus, flanger, etc.), but that also depends on what you want. They tend to get smeary and lost if they're before dirty, but sometimes that's a sound unto itself.

A lot of my favorite reverb and delay sounds are on recordings and are effects applied not only post preamp section, but after the the speaker, the mic, and so on. Effects loops have their uses, but they don’t do that thing.

In a live setting that’s just not something I care about. Everything in front of the amp is fine for me.

[46346]

aye. my handwired Vox AC15 is hot stuff right from the first gain stage, and has it's own natural compression that is fairly aggressive. i have to be extra careful with my Uni-Vibe's output, and other strong modulation pedals, as they get swamped by the amp's native distortion, even at lower gain settings.

my blackface style Fenders are more 'open' and have lower initial gain stages, and so they handle the more radical sweeps of a modulation pedal, or the hot output of an overdrive or compressor pedal, or the extended range of a low-octave effect, etc.

Speaker types, too, can accommodate, or choke on, the extremes of effects pedals.