Tube Screamer with other distortion

[Wizard of Wailing]

    Some dude at the local Music Go Round told me that people use the Tube Screamer with amp distortion or another distortion pedal. Is this true? Wouldn't using two distortions and or overdrives together cause a ton of hiss? Just wondering if anyone really does this.

 

[crash]

It is very common to use multiple distortion/overdrive pedals together.  The tubescreamer, for instance, is a lower gain overdrive with a EQ boost at 720 Hz.  This boost in the mids really helps drive the next pedal or amp into more distortion.  If you get too crazy, you can get too much distortion and get really fizzy.  Another thing to watch out for is too much low end.  That will make your distortion sound flubby, so you need to reduce some lows.  Try it out for yourself.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

The metal guitar scene does that a lot.  A Tube Screamer into a Mesa is common, as well as other high gain amps.  The mid bump from the Tube screamer off sets the scooped eq of a lot of the "heavy" amps.  And you get the associated signal bump for the crunch factor.  I always preferred the amps that had more of a Marshall eq rather than the Mesa scoop, then I don't need the pedal.  But a signal boost does make the tubes scream.
Patrick

 

[Tony Raven]

There's basically three kinds of dirtbox: distortion, overdrive, fuzz. Overdrive can be clean (a booster or line driver) or dirty. An OD gets some surprising tonal increases out of just about any amp, tube or solid-state (not so much with some sims, though). I have a simple homebrew OD (741 op amp) that's pretty clean up to about 7 before some nice clipping kicks in.

A preamp at the guitar end of the circuit is a line driver. Done properly, this makes the signal hot enough to push down the noise floor even as it preserves tone for long cable runs.

The TS is... well, it's okay. That is to say, most of the dozen-or-so circuit variations that have appeared as "Tube Screamer" are pretty good. But I used to have a gray-case DOD 250 Overdrive Preamp that was my all-time fave; I've since heard that the MXR Distortion+ & the Ross Distortion are mostly the same circuit.

Anyway, yeah, it makes sense to use an OD to push the amp, & a distortion to shape the tone going into it. You get, so to speak, BOTH burn & crunch.

As for hiss, that depends more on the circuit quality. There's so many players who use 10-20 chained pedals that I'm often surprised there's ANY non-hiss signal going to the amp.

 

[fdesalvo]

I run 3 ODs on my board: G2D Cream-Tone, Dr Scientist The Elements, and a JHS Morning Glory - all are distinctive, transparent, and amazing at what they do. 

When I need medium to high gain for leads or crushing power chords, I run the G2D into the Elements. 

When I need a med/tight high gain tone for my tele-tones/split bridge, I run the Elements into the JHS.  The G2D into the JHS is pure TX OD.  Even stacked, these pedals are fairly quiet - much more so than my Splawn, Marshalls, or Boogies ever were on their own. 

The beautiful thing is that I an get tones similar to each of those aforementioned amps, as well as others I never dreamed of having.  All easily accessed without tap dancing.

 

[drewfx]

all are distinctive, transparent, and amazing at what they do. 

Wow they're distinctive and transparent!

Um, at the same time?  :icon_scratch:

Or is transparent not supposed to mean, you know, transparent here?


(Just busting your chops for an awkward choice of wording...  :icon_jokercolor

 

[fdesalvo]

Ha!  For the sake of this thread:

Transparent = allows guitar's characteristics to pass through
Distinctive = they have their own unique voices

Awkward?  Whaaaaaa??  arty07:

all are distinctive, transparent, and amazing at what they do. 

Wow they're distinctive and transparent!

Um, at the same time?  :icon_scratch:

Or is transparent not supposed to mean, you know, transparent here?


(Just busting your chops for an awkward choice of wording...  :icon_jokercolor