Boosting a 5150 - Which do you prefer?

[Soundguy213]

Why boost an amp that already has so much gain and sustain????????

It's not really that the 5150 "needs" to be boosted. The amount of gain it can output is pretty insane. However if you (by ear) set the 5150 's pre on 6 (or 1 O'Clock) and listen to it for a while to get your ear used to the tone.

Drop the 5150's pre gain down to around 3 or 4 (10;30 or 11 O'clock)Then take OD pedal like a TS or OCD or something simalar, turn the distortion section to 0, tone knob to taste and the Volume of the pedal up to match the original gain of the amp when you had its pre gain around 1'clock. Now A/B the 2 settings. turn off the pedal, turn up the gain back to 1 oclock, drop the back down and turn on the pedal till the amount of gain level sounds even.

Once you get it even, listen to how the pedal affects the tone of the amp. You'll probably noticed a drop off of the muddy low end, resulting in a more clear and punchy tone. usually the 5150's gain is very "dark" or "murky" So lots of guys like to run a pedal instead to hold cut and clarity so they dont have to push tons of the annoying fizzy high end the amp is famous for, just to cut through a mix at human Volume levels.


But anyway to the OP, TS or Max 808 or a Fulltone OCD is my recommendations

 

[vultures]

Mod the SD-1, stock it's alright, but this mod gives it some more juice. It gives the amp an extra edge and give it some balls, I almost cannot play my 5150 without it.

Step 5, don't jump it, replace it with a regular LED

Damn that seems simple enough.

It is, takes about 10-15 minutes to do it, $5 +/- for the parts and shipping. What do you have to lose? The SD-1 is only worth about $40 max on the used market.