What pedal am I looking for?

[Rick Lee]

As a point of reference, I generally run a Friedman BE-OD Deluxe or a Dirty Shirley pedal to get my distortion tone. I always use cranked Marshalls and I always have the gain on the pedals, as well as the internal trim pots, turned all the way down. Still, they're too gainy for me. What I like lies somewhere between AC/DC (For Those About to Rock) and VH (1984) tones. For example, when running a JCM2000 DSL50, I only use the green channel - volume dimed and gain at about 2 o'clock. Any farther to the right and I feel like it gets muddy, which is where I want a pedal to do the rest.

Do I need a treble boost, an EQ, a preamp pedal or what?

 

[stratjacket]

Perhaps a low gain (aka transparent gain) pedal. I have a Walrus Audio Messner that’s an always on pedal for me. Works great, love it. There are several out there, Friedman Golden Pearl for example

 

[JMP2203]

what guitar&pickups do you use?

 

[RockyStar]

Hmmm....there are a few ways to approach this. An EQ pedal can help, I am a big fan fo the Empress Para-EQ. A straight up boost pedal can help. The Whirlwind Bomb is a nice pedal to give you more of what you already have. Handy pedal to have for a lot of things. The Revv pedals are nice. The G2 (green) pedal would do wonderfully in your situation. Another pedal that comes to mind is the EWS lil Brute Drive II. Great little pedal to add a little something to the sound.

 

[Marshall Freak]

I use an ocd in my dsl clean channel for an ac dc type tone. Its an older one though.

 

[napalmdeath]

What's wrong with OD1 on the lead channel?

 

[Rick Lee]

I use the red channel on my DSL50 once in a great while. But I also have some four holers and MV JMPs. I only ever use humbuckers, but a few of them have coil split options. If I could just shave a tiny bit of gain off my Dirty Shirley pedal, I think it'd be perfect. But I don't know how to mod it to get less gain.

 

[romanianreaper]

Again, at the expense of appearing like I'm overly glorifying my best bud's pedals, the Keeley D&M is awesome for that. I have used it with the Fractal Axe-Fx and use it now with my Friedman JJ Jr. It has a Drive and Boost and you can switch the order, etc. It is definitely not an over the top gainy pedal for sure.

I have the Keeley Filaments, which is a high gain pedal, and always go back to using the D&M. BTW, I used to own the Friedman BE-OD and loved that one!

 

[Racerxrated]

I would try an EQ pedal first..you are looking for a 'slight' boost and nothing is more 'slight' than a 5, 7 or 10 band graphic pedal. Try a cheap Danelectro Fish n Chips first, they are like 30 bucks and pretty quiet. I have a bunch of them as they were part of my gigging tone for 10 yrs or so. Cheap enough to be disposable. If you want to spend a little more grab a Boss GEQ10..made up till the late 80s. Super transparent and quiet. I also have a TC 1140 and that's a great boost too, but the Parametrics have a bit of a learning curve as each band affects the other...

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

A better question is what pedal CAN'T you use. What you want is already what a lot of people do and ha e been doing for years. Volume is step 1 for old Marshall types but seeing as that can't always be done, double boost. Get your amp crunching where you like it and kick a TS variant or SD-1 variant over top. All drive pedals are similar iterations of each other with some being better or more diverse than others. I would for cut use an OD-1/SD-1 or juiced TS type and for more , layer with an eq for leads. I run a JCM800 with a klon type drive pedal and a Koko boost for leads. I also do a similar thing with a DOD yjm pedal and an eq for more. Or I run an OD-1 into Koko. The options are endless. Treble boost for more old school etc etc. That's how you get some nice clear classic tones vs the over saturation of today's mega 6 preamp tube amps.

 

[Rick Lee]

I forgot to mention that I do have an old SD-1 that works pretty well. I'm thinking of buying another and modding it. Also considering an EP Booster. Hell, I just don't know. Mrs. Lee working from home now really puts a damper on my loud playing time.

 

[thenine]

TC Spark might work for you.

 

[panhead]

If you play that loud id think a Boss ge-10 would do the trick

 

[155]

using the green channel on clean or crunch? doesnt it have 2 modes? why not use the crunch setting with gain lower? sounds like its compressing when you push the gain?

 

[napalmdeath]

I forgot to mention that I do have an old SD-1 that works pretty well. I'm thinking of buying another and modding it. Also considering an EP Booster. Hell, I just don't know. Mrs. Lee working from home now really puts a damper on my loud playing time.

Bingo.. EP Booster in front of the SD-1. I ran an EP and Zakk Wylde OD in front of my DSL's green crunch, though I ran the gain a bit higher on the amp. I was into thrash metal territory pretty easily.

The DSL is no slouch. The tones ARE in there.

 

[Rick Lee]

My DSL50 is only one of my amps. My #1 is a 1987XL, which does get pretty gainy with both volumes on 6. My '69 1959 clone build is a little less gainy with the same settings. My '79 2203 has been in the shop for so long, I forget what it sounds like. And I've only had my 2553 since Mrs. Lee started working from home, so I haven't gotten to experiment with it enough yet. I love my DSL50, but it's not going to become my main gigging amp.

 

[psychodave]

Boss PQ-4. It’s an EQ that can drive an amp as needed. It also doesn’t squash the headroom like a lot of gain pedals do.

 

[napalmdeath]

My DSL50 is only one of my amps. My #1 is a 1987XL, which does get pretty gainy with both volumes on 6. My '69 1959 clone build is a little less gainy with the same settings. My '79 2203 has been in the shop for so long, I forget what it sounds like. And I've only had my 2553 since Mrs. Lee started working from home, so I haven't gotten to experiment with it enough yet. I love my DSL50, but it's not going to become my main gigging amp.

Sounds to me like you've got what you need without the DSL.

 

[acidvoodoo]

If I could just shave a tiny bit of gain off my Dirty Shirley pedal, I think it'd be perfect. But I don't know how to mod it to get less gain.

I've never tried the DS pedal but I thought I read somewhere that there's an internal gain pot. If there is, maybe dialing that back would get you where you want to be?

 

[Rick Lee]

Yes, there is an internal trim pot, and I have it at zero.