The Steel Guitar Forum

Now that I've got this new Ricky, I am trying to decide what amp I can get to help me get closer to
that overdriven David Lindley sound. I've been told
to get an amp with a dedicated overdrive knob. All of my amps are Fenders and don't have such a specific
control. Any suggestions? I need something with enough wattage (30-50 or more) for most band situations. I don't want to use a bunch of pedals.
Just a plug in and gooooooooooooooooooooooo. Any ideas welcome. Thanks!

Mike

An amp with a master volume control may get you what you want. You can crank up the front-end (preamp) to get your overdrive, and control output with the master.
Some amps have a nice creamy overdrive, and some seem just distorted. Maybe at a music store you could ask the rock players about the amps that have that quality.

Check out Clark Amplification.

I love my Tweed 5E3. No pedals or reverb needed. Super warm and clean all the way up. I am using a Celestion Blue for a speaker.

http://www.clarkamplification.com/

Bill's answer is indeed the "magic bullet".

If an amp doesn't have a separate pre-amp / master-volume, then a power brake can be attached to the output; But a power brake shunts the power amp section as well as the pre-amp section, causing distortion and break up around the amp's top 2 or 3 volume numbers, and thereby defeating the "creamy" clear overdrive of a driven pre-amp section but clearer power amp section.

A good tube electronics tech can usually install a master volume into an amp, ...even in non-destructive manners if desired, such as via stacked concentric pots for the pre-amp gain and power amp volume.

Another option is an outboard tube preamp, or an IC preamp that emulates tube dynamics well; But consideration must be given to whether the pre-amp is designed to allow gain saturation and overdrive (aka near or beyond headroom); Some are designed for clarity (lots of headroom), but even yet might drive an amp's pre-amp into the gain range of saturation and overdrive.

My main amp is a Mesa Boogie F-50. The F series, which is now discontinued, is a 2 channel amp that has one unbelievably clean channel with LOTS of headroom, and the other is the distortion channel which is a blend of modern and vintage dirt. This is a very loud 50 watt amp that I tame with an attenuator for low volume settings. The F-50 comes with a footswitch that allows you to switch between the two channels. If you want more info on the F series poke around on Harmony Central and you'll find lots of positive comments.

The only major (steel) artist that I know of that uses an F series is Robert Randolf, he has an F-100.

Hey I agree with Gary. My brother has built several amps, and the best has been his version of the Fender 5E3 Pro. I think its also the same amp that Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant both used. That Clark amp looks nice.

For what it's worth, the last time I saw David Lindley playing electric lap steel (with El Rayo X at the Fillmore in San Francisco), he used a Supro Console double neck six string guitar through a pair of Fender "red knob" Twin amplifiers. And I could swear I saw an Ibanez Tube Screamer pedal on the floor there.

To follow up on Brad's and Denny's comments, if you have a great tube amp that gives you the clean tone you want, an overdrive pedal could give you the breakup you need. Me, I run my Blues Jr. mostly clean, then goose the input with a clean boost or an OD pedal (currently, the MI Audio Blue Boy Deluxe).

The search for the perfect overdrive is one of those ongoing "holy grail" quests, but there are a lot of choices from both the big names and the boutique manfuacturers.

One manufacturer worth looking at is David Barber pedals (www.barberelectronics.com) -- Dave's a nice guy who will answer questions by e-mail. He has a lot of overdrive options, depnding on how much gain you want.

A great source of input from people who own lots of stomp boxes is The Gear Page's Effects forum:
http://thegearpage.net/board/forumdisplay.php?f=4

Well, I do have a Tube Screamer so I'll try that through a Fender Twin, Blues Deluxe, Vibroking, etc.
I can also use a compressor but then again, it gets to be so much with all the pedals. Thanks for the input

I love my Dr Zs. Maz Jr, and a Prescription. Doc put a master volume on the Script for me. Unreal amp!

I like the tone of my mesa maverick both clean and distorted. It's easy to get a good edge of break-up tone as well.

I just gave away my 5E3 Tweed Deluxe clone. I just didn't like that amp. I gave it to my oldest son, who is mostly into rock music.
The Princeton Reverb however, is a different animal, and I like mine very much.
All tube amps of course!!

It's been my experience that having a master volume control will also allow some tone changes in the pre-amp, depending where you set the gain/volume control. That may not be true with all amps of course.

FYI, I tried my Tubescreamer through my Fender Blues Deluxe, which, by the way, has a Master knob and also a Drive knob, I assume for some kind of overdrive. Even with the master up and the drive up, in all combinations, etc., the screamer gave me some additional hotness in the sound, but not the overdriven, long sustain sound I'm looking for. I will probably run it through an analog delay pedal to get a bit more spacious sound, but again, I really hate dragging a bunch of pedals around.

m

Try running the tunescreamer LEVEL maxed out, and use the drive function to finess the tone. Run the drive of the amp maxed, and use the master to dial in the volume. That should give you maximum crunch out of the amp, although it limits it's flexibility, in that you can't toggle the pedal for "clean" and "cruch" sounds without a huge change in volume. You could also experiment with different tubes in the amp.

the screamer gave me some additional hotness in the sound, but not the overdriven, long sustain sound I'm looking for

Mike, that's the beauty of my F-50, I can set the clean channel to pristine clean and the other to just about anything short of metal. I can get a decent Lindley tone with my P90 equipped BR9 running through channel 2 alone, and although I do like the sound of pedals, I don't use them for that tone unless it's in front of channel 2 already fattened up. That's the trouble with most pedals... I can't get the fat tone I can get from the F-50. Plus the amp's footswitch allows me to switch between clean and dirt. FYI, the clean channel is designed after Fender blackface tone.

If you want that "long sustain" sound, try running two overdrives together (also known as "stacked") or a boost pedal in front of the overdrive. That will definitely increase the sustain and get you in Santana territory. Leave the gain level low on the first one in the chain.

Oh, and keep your Fenders!

My fave sound to get a David Lindley typw sound is my National Dynamic, into a tube screamer, into my 70's Fender Princeton Reverb...



You can hear a somple of this sound when you go on www.myspace.com/terryvuncannon ...My myspace page...Terry V.

I have started using this pedal, the Visual Sound "Double Trouble" overdrive. It's based on the good old Tubescreamer, but with more gain plus "bass boost" switches on both channels so it's more versatile.

It's nothing sensational but a solid dynamic overdrive, and you can set two different drives and use them separately or stacked so it basically offers four sounds: Clean, dirty, crunch, full drive. Or you can set it with identical drives at different volume for rhythm/lead, or one drive for lap steel and one for guitar, etc etc etc... the options are many and the sound is good.



Steinar

The good thing about this forum is that there are so many good ideas and solutions. The bad thing about this forum is that there are so many good ideas and solutions. It's hard to decide which idea to try.
The F-50 sounds good but so does the Double Trouble
pedal. Other suggestions given are also viable. It's difficult to tell what things will sound like without trying them first. Thanks for the suggestions, though!
m

This subject is discussed over and over on The Forum in different contexts. The traditional pedal steel sound requires a powerful and clean amp. But blues and rock, on either steel or regular guitar, require some grit at lower power. There are very few amps out there that do both well. My solution is to use a powerful clean amp (current favorite is a Fender silver-face Dual Showman Reverb) with a good stomp box for distortion. The best one I have found (thanks to Dan Tyack's suggestion) is the Seymour Duncan Twin Tube. It's expensive for a box, but has two real tubes in it. It has two channels (rhythm and lead) and very flexible tone, gain and volume controls. When I put it in front of my volume pedal, it gives me very amp-like, pick sensitive distortion. It is basically like a small tube preamp.