High Gain and Clipping Diodes

Gear
#1

I’ve recently added a Malmsteen Strat to my arsenal and have been experimenting with some high gain pedals. Namely, the Fender Malmsteen pedal as well as the DOD YJM308 (not at the same time lol). With such a tremendous amount of gain on the Fender pedal in particular, I thought I might get enough from running it into a non-diode clipped channel of my Marshall Jubilee. As it turns out, this is not enough gain and I find myself running a pedal with clipping diodes into the dirty channel of the Marshall (effectively another pedal with clipping diodes). Is this atypical? I’m not maxed out on either the pedal or the amp gain but it still seems odd to be doing this and care needs to be taken to not end up with something fizzy.

Shredders seem to boost high gain amps with pedals all the time and my presumption about such amps is that they usually have channels that are “artificially” clipped. Or am I wrong and do live and studio scenarios rely on clean amps exhibiting power section distortion plus a pedal?

What is the typical approach to finding “enough” gain? Is diode clipping at the pedal AND the amp a normal thing?

Thanks!

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#2

depending on the amp it may have built in distortion or overdrive depending on the brand of amp. The thing is that they usually need to be cranked in order to get the sag and power amp type distortion there fore a pedal in front can boost it somewhat without being super loud. Sometimes you can use an over drive pedal then another one as a second stage and this is how it usually works in amps as well. One side of the tube is one stage and then the other part of a pentode would be the second stage. Some times they high gang amps with a ts 9 in front really are there to sort of eq before the preamp comes in like tightening up the bass per say. I would imagine a jubilee will not have the same distortion as say a mesa mark 4 so youd have to boost the signal a bit before it goes in cause the amp will only give you so much.

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#3

I’m using a 1959 clone (super lead 100, 69’ spec), my gain/volume, treble and middle is maxed out. Bass near zero or to taste, presence to taste. My my guitar, SD Fury pups, I get AC/DC rhythm tones straight in, it’s quite dirty but not soaring.

At this point all I need is my clean boost maxed out to get to YJM territory.

I’m not familiar with your amp’s model, not sure how different they are.

So in this case I’m not using any diode clipping. My amp also has a Post Phase Inverter Master Volume set to 50% but as I said the gain or normal volume is 100% on my bright channel, I’m not linking the channels with a jumper either; just the bright channel. The 1959 is a four input amp, I’m using the top left input.

#4

I mean, this is one of those things that’s super subjective, and at the end of the day if it sounds good it IS good. But, looking to what others have done, there’s no single “right” answer.

Joe Satriani, for example, likes to rely on a Boss DS1 for most/all of his gain, and run it into a clean amp. In the metal world you see the reverse a lot, guys using a Tube Screamer set to essentially a clean boost running into a distorted amp, though here the idea is mostly a pre-EQ than it is an adidtional gain stage. Some people DO like the sound of adding a gain stage out front to a tube amp, as they claim something about the combination of even harmonic distortion and odd harmonic distortion (tubes tend towards one and diodes towards the other, but I forget which is which) sounds better than just one alone.

Myself, my amp “happy place” is preamp tube distortion on its own, with the poweramp adding some compression, but nothing else out front. I have an OD lying around - a BYOC TS808 variant I built mostly for a fun project, that a buddy of mine who’s a professional auto painter finished for me in a hot sparkle blue - and while it does sound kinda cool hitting the front end of my Mesa Roadster, I think that amp sounds a little more open without it, and I haven’t really found it additive on my Mark V.

But, end of the day, I’d say experiment a lot. Try running a distortion into a clean amp, into a lightly driven amp, into a heavily distorted amp, try varying the amount of volume boost and the amount of distortion, see if you can find a sweet spot where the amount of amp gain and the amount of pedal boost and gain are really working for you. Might be all pedal, might be all amp, who knows. Everyone has a different “sweet spot” for their playing.

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#5

That’s some fine playing, Twagsta! Turns out that’s exactly what I’m working on right now! So, yeah, a very relevant sound clip that I appreciate. I started from scratch again, maxed out everything on that ridiculously high gain Malmsteen Fender pedal and ran it into the lead channel with the diodes off and gain half way. I tried with gain on full and it compresses a lot and gets buzzy to the point that the rig stops sounding like a Strat so, half way on the amps gain is it for the moment.

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#6

That’s really fascinating insight on Satch, Drew! I didn’t know that’s how he went about his tone. Good to hear that some people are mixing diodes and diodes, onboard and off. The issue that I run into even when I was somewhat happy with what I was hearing is that the Fender Malmsteen pedal is so treble heavy that mixing it with the amp’s diodes gets fizzy if one is not careful. Then, when I think I have the right amount of treble, I try recording something and find it’s not right. Anyhow, like I said to Twangsta above, I started from scratch with the Malmsteen pedal dimed (like he does) and turned off the diode clipping in the amp. Then halfway on the input gain. This seems nice, now, and still sounds like a Strat but with that searing quality of Malmsteen and the touch sensitive gain is still their minus the treble issues.

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#7

That’s a very different amp to mine for sure.
Thanks for the kind words!
From your post to Drew looks like you got the issue licked.
Every rig has it’s sweet spot; play loud brother!

#8

Wise words brother! All roads lead to Rome… wait which forum is this :laughing:

#9

this is what I don’t get. Joe gets a signature 4 channel amp from peavy and he uses DS1 for his dirt tone. I mean whats up with that and why he need 4 channels if thats the case haha

#10

I use a YJM Strat into a Jubilee with a Keeley TS9 on the lead channel. sounds great. however, I had a tone control put on the bridge pu to THICKEN it

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#11

Do you have the red LED on (output master knob in) or off (output master knob out)?

#12

red led ON. amp gain on one o’clock…

lead master usually full.
master volume on 3 o’clock

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#13

No clue. :lol:

My guess - one, that anyone buying a “Joe Satriani amp” is going to expect it to have a decent amount of gain, so there HAS to be at least one gain channel. Two, that I think the crunch channel got used for a lot of rhythm parts around that period. Three, that I think he did occasionally record a few tracks with the red channel on that.

I’m reading his memoir at the moment, and I learned, very much to my surprise, that the bulk of the guitar tracks on Crystal Planet were a 5150, of all things, although I don’t know if he was using the amp for gain, or hitting the clean channel with a DS1.