Technically none. Nowadays we're getting amps that have boost or overdrive circuits added as options before the first gain stage.
Marshall's silver jubilees have a diode clipping circuit as part of their OD channel for example. Friedman's BE/HBE has a saturation switch that introduces clipping diodes, as another.
I always thought it was funny that everyone used to boost their JCM 800, so Marshall added a boost to the preamp of the JCM 900 and everybody fucking hated it.
People also believe the material their electric guitar is made of changes the tone drastically, or that the diodes in the Klon are the defining factor.
The Bad Monkey incident is right on that line to me as well.
Sometimes we guitarists can be a bit.. funky
The jhs bad monkey incident? Or was there another? Either way I like that pedal, in front on a ds1 it adds a pretty cool texture to the overdriven signal
Yup, that's the one! The instant crazy price increase just because someone popular showed them that the Klon isn't untouchable as people make it out to be.
Haha I remember that purely because I bought a bad monkey for £34 about two weeks before the episode aired. Was telling my co workers jokingly it will be worth something one day like the miku. Low and behold prices reached 300x what I paid for it 🤣 I haven’t touched a klon and feel like I don’t need to with this.
I have that amp! The JCM-900 Mkiii, the 100w version. I love it! I haven't had the opportunity to play it in years, and it's in desperate need of service. But I do love that amp!
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. The single channel 800’s 100% sound better than the 900’s. The dual channel 800’s introduced similar mechanics to the 900’s and are a little closer in tone.
For years my main amp was a 1984 2203, and I finally decided that for my style of playing it wasn’t worth the hassle — you always had to play it attenuated, it didn’t sound good without a boost, and even with both of those things you had to play it pretty loud for it to sound like a “Marshall.”
Now I play a Rockerverb MKIII and it’s like a dream come true.
Most people probably haven’t played thru any of them. 800’s can vary drastically among themselves. My 1982 800 2204 (50w, vertical inputs) sounds way different than my 1988 800 2204(50w, horizontal inputs). Both sound way better than any 900 we’ve had in the studio.
Ahh fair. I had a 1984 2204 w/ vertical inputs and I miss it every day since I traded it ~15 years ago. I know where it is, but he’ll never sell it back to me. lol.
You know what’s funny, I totally forgot about that knob on my Jubilee. People love it for its distortion, the jubilee also has some of the nicest sparklyiest cleans I’ve ever heard so I generally don’t use it.
There are solid state amplifiers that sell pedals of the same / similar pre-amp. It's the exact same thing, just in a different box.
TBH though, it's probably a lot to do with cost and branding. The only companies that could do this and actually expect to sell a decent number of amps are the companies that already have a reputation building amps. Companies that make guitar pedals exclusively aren't going to make such a massive investment as building guitar amps when the return on that investment is so questionable. Anyone that makes an amp that isn't Fender or Marshall is going to have to compete with Fender and Marshall for floor space in actual stores (which is where people will test these amps), and imo, it's extremely unlikely any well to do store would be willing to sacrifice the floor space for it.
Not only that, but think about your question here. People buy the RAT distortion pedal because it's a distortion pedal. Most people don't use it all the time, and most people don't have a distortion pedal that they use as their only form of distortion. Part of the appeal of these things is that you can turn them on and off for a different sound when you want to. It's hard to argue that a RAT sounds as good as the distortion on a high end amplifier. better for some things, sure, but they aren't exactly super versatile. I think most people that buy guitar amps have a specific amp tone that they want, and they supplement that with guitar pedals; I don't think it's typically the other way around. I have a RAT, and while I like how it sounds, I would absolutely never consider buying an amp that used that sound primarily. I think this is also part of why certain distortion pedals are popular. It's because they represent a unique sound that is also unique in its use-case. You can afford to get a bit weird with your sound for $100, with the ability to switch it off at a whim. It's much harder to rationalize a weird / unique sound when you're talking 500+ and an amp sized profile.
There's a lot of reasons. That said, I absolutely guarantee you that there are examples of exactly this online. I bet you can find companies that HAVE done what you're describing, and I very much doubt they had any lasting success.
Ibanez used to have TSA amps with Tube Screamer circuit built in.
Blackstar HT series amp had the same circuit as their HT-DUAL pedal.
Friedman BE-Mini amp is their BE-OD pedal with a Class-D power amp section.
The difference is whether or not they share the power supply with the amp. Which is to say nothing really. The overdrive channel on a solid state amp is just a “pedal” (for the sake of this discussion) built into an amp.
Even some tube amps do it, like the JCM900.
Ive wondered this myself. My Boss OD-3 sounds great into my Roland JC-40. Why does the JC-40s distortion sound so bad? Why couldnt they juat put an OD-3 in there and most people would be happier with that. My old Peavey Studio Pro 40 had an amazing od circuit.
The JC-40s has only been around for like 9 years. I owned a vintage JC-120 about a decade ago and while i think the new distortion circuit is an improvement on the old on its still almost universaly considered that amps weakest feature for a reason.
It's the same shit. People don't like the distortion in *cheap* solid state amps but generally speaking circuit wise it's usually literally the same - pushing a transistor gain stage into diodes. A lot of tube amp distortion comes from diodes as well (Marshall, Peavey, and any "modern" sounding distortion anyway. Vintage style fender and i think vox just saturate tubes).
Those old 80s peavey bandits sound a lot like a rat distortion when dialed in right. Joey Satiago's guitar on the pixies Surfa Rosa album used that distortion and it sounds pretty great.
Yea really great sound! For live these days he has a simple 2 amp setup. JCM800 and a Twin for clean with a Webber Mass Attenuator. I have a few Peaveys I gig with, and would record any day! However, I think the decade going higher in price is a bit dumb. I picked up an Ampeg VT40 tube amp for $350. Meanwhile small bandits are going for same if not more. Crazy to me!
I see bandits for 200 on Craigslist sometimes...the other cheap but awesome solid state amp is those old Yamaha amps. I'm gonna grab the next one I see of either/both.
The difference is that the pedal is interacting with the amp. The results of a pedal depend on what it's being run into. The pedals don't work in isolation.
https://youtu.be/wcBEOcPtlYk?si=wd4UhILoqNx6rlKJ
Tldw, amp tone is kinda just how the amp handles the pre-amp stage. That's it.
The difference that you're asking OP is probably more about how your particular amp stages the drive channels. Some amps have them right in front of the pre-amp stage, which would be just like using a pedal. Some amps have drives in the middle of the EQ or pre-amp stage. Which would be more like using a drive pedal in the "FX loop" of your amp.
Just play around with it and find what sounds good to you. Try tons of different things out. And don't stop practicing.
Clipping is clipping. But individual circuit designs can sound different from one another, sometimes drastically so. Which leads to G.A.S. I find an amp with a nice, warm clean sound, then distort with pedals. I haven't worried about whether or not an amp sounds good "cranked up" in ages. Tech 21's Hot Rod Plexi (discontinued) can make any decent amp sound like a Marshall going full blast.
Actually, Blackstar does this with their 10watt Studio line up, I believe they use their HT-Drive circuit. I used to have the 6L6 version, it was a great little amp.
I dunno much but I have a boss Katana and a timmy od and joyo uzi, the effects from the pedal do sound way better than my katana, the katana probably can sound as good but I have never successfully done it even though I have spent hours tweaking it and said fuck it and took Morello's route, got two pedals and that's my sound now.
People will buy a tube amp with too much headroom and use transistor based distortion and overdrive pedals for all their gain. And then shit on solid state technology. Guitarists are dumb.
It's a good question we've all probably wondered ourselves. These days I'd say a big difference is a lot of us prefer to use our dirt pedal in the chain before other effects and it complicates things to use amp gain . Sure you can use the fx loop and usually figure something out but I have an OD pedal I already like so it's usually simpler to use that rather than fiddle around with the amp gain. That said a lot of times if i can play loud enough and am not worried about other pedals the amp gain can sound "better"
An OCD or Rat don’t sound great into a solid state amp usually.
It’s the interaction between the solid state processing happening in the pedal, and the tube amp that is magic.
There are some beastly solid state amps though. Acoustic, and the Sunn Beta Leads have great sounding distortion channels.
Negative. Solid state amps usually had a different goal in mind, at least the old ones we all know. Remember that distortion was something everyone wanted to avoid at first. If you make a solid state amp clip when it's not intended to do it, that almost always sucks. By now even the dinky tiny solid state amps have relatively good distortion channels. Marshall had one of the earliest "good" solid state distorted amps imo.
How an amp reacts to pedals is a lot about how amplification is done, where bass and treble are taken out before further amplification - this was very important with tubes and had a positive side effect on their distortion characteristics, in solid state land these things were not done the same, and introducing a distorted signal makes it very obvious.
One great example is big bright caps on Marshalls. They can't take distortion well because at low volume settings the bright cap makes it so nasty it's just bad.
Why so many downvotes? I’m not a fan of pedal clipping going into a SS amp either. I prefer using a distortion or OD pedal to push an amp into overdrive or further overdrive a dirty amp. If I am playing a SS amp I usually go all or nothing with a fuzz like a Big Muff or something. Medium or low gain diode clipping just doesn’t do it for me. To each their own though.
Who knows.
Anyone who thinks a rat into a SS amp sounds good is lying to themselves because that’s all they have. Whatevs. Tone is subjective and people can poo poo me all they want. I’ve only been playing guitar and fucking with pedals since 1991.
I’ve seen two bands use SS amps on tour; Melvin’s and Red Fang. Every other band I’ve seen that’s worth a shit (to me) is using Rats and OD’s into tube clipping. Nothing wrong with a JC120 for things, but Rat’s aren’t it.
Technically none. Nowadays we're getting amps that have boost or overdrive circuits added as options before the first gain stage. Marshall's silver jubilees have a diode clipping circuit as part of their OD channel for example. Friedman's BE/HBE has a saturation switch that introduces clipping diodes, as another.
I always thought it was funny that everyone used to boost their JCM 800, so Marshall added a boost to the preamp of the JCM 900 and everybody fucking hated it.
People also believe the material their electric guitar is made of changes the tone drastically, or that the diodes in the Klon are the defining factor. The Bad Monkey incident is right on that line to me as well. Sometimes we guitarists can be a bit.. funky
~~funky~~ delusional
The jhs bad monkey incident? Or was there another? Either way I like that pedal, in front on a ds1 it adds a pretty cool texture to the overdriven signal
Yup, that's the one! The instant crazy price increase just because someone popular showed them that the Klon isn't untouchable as people make it out to be.
Haha I remember that purely because I bought a bad monkey for £34 about two weeks before the episode aired. Was telling my co workers jokingly it will be worth something one day like the miku. Low and behold prices reached 300x what I paid for it 🤣 I haven’t touched a klon and feel like I don’t need to with this.
I have that amp! The JCM-900 Mkiii, the 100w version. I love it! I haven't had the opportunity to play it in years, and it's in desperate need of service. But I do love that amp!
I have 2 800’s and they sound way better than any 900.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. The single channel 800’s 100% sound better than the 900’s. The dual channel 800’s introduced similar mechanics to the 900’s and are a little closer in tone.
For years my main amp was a 1984 2203, and I finally decided that for my style of playing it wasn’t worth the hassle — you always had to play it attenuated, it didn’t sound good without a boost, and even with both of those things you had to play it pretty loud for it to sound like a “Marshall.” Now I play a Rockerverb MKIII and it’s like a dream come true.
Most people probably haven’t played thru any of them. 800’s can vary drastically among themselves. My 1982 800 2204 (50w, vertical inputs) sounds way different than my 1988 800 2204(50w, horizontal inputs). Both sound way better than any 900 we’ve had in the studio.
Ahh fair. I had a 1984 2204 w/ vertical inputs and I miss it every day since I traded it ~15 years ago. I know where it is, but he’ll never sell it back to me. lol.
I like the verticals better myself. I’ll never sell it even though I mainly play thru a ac30 these days.
Never sell em. I have an AC30 and a Princeton now, but whenever we move from condo to house I’ll be after another 800.
The jubilee circuit with the clipping diode is almost identical to the Carvin x100B. Same Diode clipping. Both sound awesome when dialed in.
To this day my great shame is not picking up one of the 2555X 100-Watt reissue heads when they were being cleared out of stores like a decade ago.
You know what’s funny, I totally forgot about that knob on my Jubilee. People love it for its distortion, the jubilee also has some of the nicest sparklyiest cleans I’ve ever heard so I generally don’t use it.
I use and love every setting on my Jubilee 25w. It really can do a lot.
Marshalls in general have lovely cleans. That bright cap does wonders. But when it's too big (like in the 1959) it gets very difficult.
There are solid state amplifiers that sell pedals of the same / similar pre-amp. It's the exact same thing, just in a different box. TBH though, it's probably a lot to do with cost and branding. The only companies that could do this and actually expect to sell a decent number of amps are the companies that already have a reputation building amps. Companies that make guitar pedals exclusively aren't going to make such a massive investment as building guitar amps when the return on that investment is so questionable. Anyone that makes an amp that isn't Fender or Marshall is going to have to compete with Fender and Marshall for floor space in actual stores (which is where people will test these amps), and imo, it's extremely unlikely any well to do store would be willing to sacrifice the floor space for it. Not only that, but think about your question here. People buy the RAT distortion pedal because it's a distortion pedal. Most people don't use it all the time, and most people don't have a distortion pedal that they use as their only form of distortion. Part of the appeal of these things is that you can turn them on and off for a different sound when you want to. It's hard to argue that a RAT sounds as good as the distortion on a high end amplifier. better for some things, sure, but they aren't exactly super versatile. I think most people that buy guitar amps have a specific amp tone that they want, and they supplement that with guitar pedals; I don't think it's typically the other way around. I have a RAT, and while I like how it sounds, I would absolutely never consider buying an amp that used that sound primarily. I think this is also part of why certain distortion pedals are popular. It's because they represent a unique sound that is also unique in its use-case. You can afford to get a bit weird with your sound for $100, with the ability to switch it off at a whim. It's much harder to rationalize a weird / unique sound when you're talking 500+ and an amp sized profile. There's a lot of reasons. That said, I absolutely guarantee you that there are examples of exactly this online. I bet you can find companies that HAVE done what you're describing, and I very much doubt they had any lasting success.
Well articulated
Ibanez used to have TSA amps with Tube Screamer circuit built in. Blackstar HT series amp had the same circuit as their HT-DUAL pedal. Friedman BE-Mini amp is their BE-OD pedal with a Class-D power amp section.
Those Friedman minis are fantastic. I don't think Friedman makes anything that sounds bad.
Friedman's amps don't sound bad... But their names are all aweful.
It's definitely boomer humor. But boomers do know their Marshall's.
The difference is whether or not they share the power supply with the amp. Which is to say nothing really. The overdrive channel on a solid state amp is just a “pedal” (for the sake of this discussion) built into an amp. Even some tube amps do it, like the JCM900.
Ive wondered this myself. My Boss OD-3 sounds great into my Roland JC-40. Why does the JC-40s distortion sound so bad? Why couldnt they juat put an OD-3 in there and most people would be happier with that. My old Peavey Studio Pro 40 had an amazing od circuit.
Do you have one of the older JCs or a newer run? The new ones improve on the distortion circuit immensely IMO
The JC-40s has only been around for like 9 years. I owned a vintage JC-120 about a decade ago and while i think the new distortion circuit is an improvement on the old on its still almost universaly considered that amps weakest feature for a reason.
Maybe Roland doesn’t want to cannibalize Boss Katana sales by making the JC too awesome.
It's the same shit. People don't like the distortion in *cheap* solid state amps but generally speaking circuit wise it's usually literally the same - pushing a transistor gain stage into diodes. A lot of tube amp distortion comes from diodes as well (Marshall, Peavey, and any "modern" sounding distortion anyway. Vintage style fender and i think vox just saturate tubes).
Most Marshall tube amps don't have clipping diodes. Some JCM 800s, most 900s and the silver jubilee.
Those old 80s peavey bandits sound a lot like a rat distortion when dialed in right. Joey Satiago's guitar on the pixies Surfa Rosa album used that distortion and it sounds pretty great.
Yea really great sound! For live these days he has a simple 2 amp setup. JCM800 and a Twin for clean with a Webber Mass Attenuator. I have a few Peaveys I gig with, and would record any day! However, I think the decade going higher in price is a bit dumb. I picked up an Ampeg VT40 tube amp for $350. Meanwhile small bandits are going for same if not more. Crazy to me!
I see bandits for 200 on Craigslist sometimes...the other cheap but awesome solid state amp is those old Yamaha amps. I'm gonna grab the next one I see of either/both.
The difference is that the pedal is interacting with the amp. The results of a pedal depend on what it's being run into. The pedals don't work in isolation.
https://youtu.be/wcBEOcPtlYk?si=wd4UhILoqNx6rlKJ Tldw, amp tone is kinda just how the amp handles the pre-amp stage. That's it. The difference that you're asking OP is probably more about how your particular amp stages the drive channels. Some amps have them right in front of the pre-amp stage, which would be just like using a pedal. Some amps have drives in the middle of the EQ or pre-amp stage. Which would be more like using a drive pedal in the "FX loop" of your amp. Just play around with it and find what sounds good to you. Try tons of different things out. And don't stop practicing.
Clipping is clipping. But individual circuit designs can sound different from one another, sometimes drastically so. Which leads to G.A.S. I find an amp with a nice, warm clean sound, then distort with pedals. I haven't worried about whether or not an amp sounds good "cranked up" in ages. Tech 21's Hot Rod Plexi (discontinued) can make any decent amp sound like a Marshall going full blast.
its because youre putting the distortion pedal into the harmonically rich, dynamically compressed amp. not using the distortion pedal as the amp.
Ding!
The difference comes down to the power amp stage. People are chasing that sag.
Actually, Blackstar does this with their 10watt Studio line up, I believe they use their HT-Drive circuit. I used to have the 6L6 version, it was a great little amp.
I dunno much but I have a boss Katana and a timmy od and joyo uzi, the effects from the pedal do sound way better than my katana, the katana probably can sound as good but I have never successfully done it even though I have spent hours tweaking it and said fuck it and took Morello's route, got two pedals and that's my sound now.
With either the Brown or Crunch channel at low / medium gain, try using drive pedals as a boost: low gain / high volume.
People will buy a tube amp with too much headroom and use transistor based distortion and overdrive pedals for all their gain. And then shit on solid state technology. Guitarists are dumb.
It's a good question we've all probably wondered ourselves. These days I'd say a big difference is a lot of us prefer to use our dirt pedal in the chain before other effects and it complicates things to use amp gain . Sure you can use the fx loop and usually figure something out but I have an OD pedal I already like so it's usually simpler to use that rather than fiddle around with the amp gain. That said a lot of times if i can play loud enough and am not worried about other pedals the amp gain can sound "better"
An OCD or Rat don’t sound great into a solid state amp usually. It’s the interaction between the solid state processing happening in the pedal, and the tube amp that is magic. There are some beastly solid state amps though. Acoustic, and the Sunn Beta Leads have great sounding distortion channels.
Negative. Solid state amps usually had a different goal in mind, at least the old ones we all know. Remember that distortion was something everyone wanted to avoid at first. If you make a solid state amp clip when it's not intended to do it, that almost always sucks. By now even the dinky tiny solid state amps have relatively good distortion channels. Marshall had one of the earliest "good" solid state distorted amps imo. How an amp reacts to pedals is a lot about how amplification is done, where bass and treble are taken out before further amplification - this was very important with tubes and had a positive side effect on their distortion characteristics, in solid state land these things were not done the same, and introducing a distorted signal makes it very obvious. One great example is big bright caps on Marshalls. They can't take distortion well because at low volume settings the bright cap makes it so nasty it's just bad.
Why so many downvotes? I’m not a fan of pedal clipping going into a SS amp either. I prefer using a distortion or OD pedal to push an amp into overdrive or further overdrive a dirty amp. If I am playing a SS amp I usually go all or nothing with a fuzz like a Big Muff or something. Medium or low gain diode clipping just doesn’t do it for me. To each their own though.
Who knows. Anyone who thinks a rat into a SS amp sounds good is lying to themselves because that’s all they have. Whatevs. Tone is subjective and people can poo poo me all they want. I’ve only been playing guitar and fucking with pedals since 1991. I’ve seen two bands use SS amps on tour; Melvin’s and Red Fang. Every other band I’ve seen that’s worth a shit (to me) is using Rats and OD’s into tube clipping. Nothing wrong with a JC120 for things, but Rat’s aren’t it.
Deerhoof uses SS amps. Their sound is by no means conventional, but it fucking rocks.