# Classic dirt pedals for an old Deluxe/Deluxe Reverb?



## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Some of you might have seen my 'new amp day' thread a few days back - I've recently acquired a 65 Blackface Deluxe. 

I'm finding that the amp is kinda picky about dirt pedals. 

I'm not sure what it is about the amp (at a technical level) that makes it not get along so well with some pedals - any input on that would be welcome.

Mostly I'm looking for recommendations on classic pedals that will get along well with an amp like that and drive it into moderate overdriven/crunchy territory. 

At the volume I'm playing it, the amp is naturally producing a sound ranging from Wind Cries Mary up to Castles Made of Sand or so. I've got a clean boost that makes it a whole lot juicier and opens up an SRV Texas Flood sort of tone. Maybe not quite so cutting in the top end. Fed into a 2x10 open back cab, I get big round bass and smooth highs, especially on the neck pickup.

I've also got a Suhr Riot that seems to be working well for an over-the-top wall of Marshall sort of sound when I need that.

I'm looking for something in between, Bryan Adams 'It's Only Love', Bad Company 'Good Lovin Gone Bad' - that sort of thing.

Any input? Good experiences?


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## starjag (Jan 30, 2008)

Could it be the speaker? My silverface Deluxe Reverb likes lots of pedals.


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## surlybastard (Feb 20, 2011)

I would say +1 to the speaker. Any time I've played one, or seen someone play one a Deluxe Reverb is just about the best pedal platform around.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

Greg Ellis said:


> Some of you might have seen my 'new amp day' thread a few days back - I've recently acquired a 65 Blackface Deluxe.
> 
> I'm finding that the amp is kinda picky about dirt pedals.
> 
> ...


I took my /13 CJ11 right into the Arts Music store in Newmarket and grabbed every one of their dirt pedals. I walked out with a custom badass OD. This is the best way to figure out what works best.

Also, they'll be able to tell you right there, if there's an issue with the amp.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

That's good advice, Adcandour.

Star/Surly, thanks, but I'm pretty sure it's not the speakers, they sound great.


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

I find that on anything but a tweed, that sparkly Fender high end can be hard to match with dirt pedals. For example, one of my all time favourite pedals, the Timmy, just doesn't seem to work with non-tweed Fenders; even the pedal's creator agrees!

You might want to look into some of the pedals by Barber. They will add the mids you need and also seem to play fairly nicely with the Fender high end (won't kill it or exaggerate it). Experimentation is key, but I wouldn't start swapping speakers. Add to the clean sound you love, don't go changing your base tone.

TG


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Thanks TG!

"Sparkly Fender high end" might be the wrong assumption on this particular amp. The top end is certainly very sweet, but in general I think it's a lot more throaty and round than your typical Deluxe Reverb. More like a Bassman really.

There's a big round bottom end, and that's what gets lost when i hook up certain drive pedals. The meaty lower mid and bass completely fall out and the volume drops in a major way.

Other pedals are fine. The Riot is an interesting case - there's a three-way voicing switch on the top. The leftmost position sounds great, and maintains the full rich tone of the amp. The other two positions (middle and right) are weak and lacking, in a very stark contrast to the left position.


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

I'm spreading my love for the EHX Soul Food & Wampler Euphoria.[video=youtube;4rCVUOLfNo0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rCVUOLfNo0[/video]


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

thanks Bzrk! The very END of that Wampler video, last 45 seconds or so - that's what I'm looking for. Just a bit of grit blended into the already great tone of the amp.


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

He does a good Tele/Euphoria sample too. I chose this clip for the Deluxe. Not as nice as YOUR vintage number but hey. Glad to be of help Greg.


Greg Ellis said:


> thanks Bzrk! The very END of that Wampler video, last 45 seconds or so - that's what I'm looking for. Just a bit of grit blended into the already great tone of the amp.


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

You may want to try a Timmy then. Also, and this will seem completely out of left field, but the EH LPB-2ube is the most transparent od pedal I have every heard. Your low end will not get killed and it can make your amp sound huge while adding some nice lower level dirt. Volume loss will not be an issue; I powered a 2x12 cab with this pedal alone (yeah, it has a LOT of output on hand if necessary!).

TG



Greg Ellis said:


> Thanks TG!
> 
> "Sparkly Fender high end" might be the wrong assumption on this particular amp. The top end is certainly very sweet, but in general I think it's a lot more throaty and round than your typical Deluxe Reverb. More like a Bassman really.
> 
> ...


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

I wonder if something like a Way Huge Green Rhino would work for me.

That pedal has a control that can boost/cut up to 12db at 100Hz. 

There's a point in this video, roughly 2:20, where he dials that 100Hz control down to cut 12db, and the effect on his tone is pretty much exactly what I'm experiencing with my amp when I step on a dirt box - the whole bottom end drops out and overall volume drops quite a bit too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCev3b_ikFc

I've been reading up a bit on Tube Screamer mods, and it seems like a fairly common tweak to adjust the high pass filter to a value below the stock 700Hz or so, in order to keep more low end in the signal. It seems like I ought to be able to do something similar to my Sparkle Drive, but I haven't found any guidance that's specific to that pedal yet.

Has anyone done a mod like this?


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Greg Ellis said:


> I wonder if something like a Way Huge Green Rhino would work for me.
> 
> That pedal has a control that can boost/cut up to 12db at 100Hz.


DUh, why didn't I think of this? I have one on my board! The great thing about the Rhino is you can set the TS mid bump where you like (make it prevent or dial it out) and you never lose low end thanks to the controls. For the specific tones you are after, this is probably better than my Timmy or EH suggestions.

TG


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

If I dial back the bass on the amp, the problem is reduced somewhat. The Sparkle Drive still sounds very nasal though, not really what I'm going for.

I like a big bottom end, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, lol. 

I think maybe a lot of Deluxe style amps are a bit boxy and treble-focused with their single 12? I used an over-sized 2 x 10 on purpose, to give it a lot of resonance and big meaty bottom end.

Hopefully I can figure out how to mod the Sparkle to let a bit more bass pass through it. It seems simple enough, but I haven't opened up the pedal to take a look yet.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

I opened up the Sparkle Drive to see how easy it would be to mod.

If I understand what I'm seeing, there's a high pass filter before the gain stage and it's currently setup with a 4.7K resistor and a 0.047uF cap. 

If I understand how that sort of filter works, it ought to cut the bass response from about 720Hz and below. No wonder it loses a ton of bottom end.

I have a 0.068uF handy, but that would only drop the cutoff frequency to 500Hz or so; not sure that's going to be enough. 

A 0.1uF would bring it down to about 338Hz.

The popular mod for this pedal seems to be switching out both the cap AND the resistor, with .22uF and a 2.2K values, setting that filter around 328Hz.

I think the resistor reduction is intended to give more gain? I don't really need that, but I guess it wouldn't hurt too much.

I already looked at whether i could run my .068 in parallel with the existing .047 cap - that would be pretty much perfect, 294Hz, but i can't see any easy way to fit that on the backside of the pcb. It rides very close to the bottom plate of the pedal. Certainly convenient tho. Hmmm, maybe i should try it and see if it does what i want it to.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Bah, it's gonna take better solder-fu than I've got. Can't fit the leg of the .068 into the same thru-hole as the existing cap.

Is there anyone who fixes/mods pedals in the Newmarket, Aurora, Richmond Hill area?


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

just twist the legs of the new cap around the legs of the existing cap and dab a drop of solder. Done.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

keto said:


> just twist the legs of the new cap around the legs of the existing cap and dab a drop of solder. Done.


I wish it was that easy. It's a flush-mount box-shaped cap - no visible leads from the top side.

I can probably remove it completely and replace it, but I don't have the right value on hand at the moment.


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## jimmythegeek (Apr 17, 2012)

Hi Greg,
I'm wondering whether you've played the amp as is with your sparkle drive as is with a band yet. I only ask because you describe the drive as nasal. For me, that's the best description of TS or TS clones ever. I think that's due to the dreaded mid hump. The point is those pedals never worked for me because I don't really play guitar in much other than solo situations and they sounded awful and nasal. In a band situation though, I find that the TS is fabulous. The mid hump that makes it sound nasal alone sounds balanced in the band since the drummer's cymbals tend to monopolize high frequencies and the bass player sucks up the low end. It's all about the mix I guess. If you're like me though and looking for a nice sound by yourself then a booster is the way to go. I love my Mad Professor Ruby Red. It does the clean boost thing but the master volume feature let's you use it as a drive.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

You might be right Jimmy. No, I haven't cranked it up with a band yet. In fact I've hardly cranked it up at all really. 

I just did, took it up to seven, and it totally changes the character of the amp. A lot of what I was hoping to get with the Sparkle Drive is ALREADY THERE, lol.

Gonna have to re-think quite a lot of things, it seems.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

One other thing, and maybe it doesn't make a difference in your case:

I found that my DRRI wasn't as happy with TS in the Vibrato channel as the Normal channel - I guess because the Vibrato channel has the 'bright' circuit always on? So I used a Radial ABY to switch between the TS in line to the Normal (my dirty channel) and the guitar straight in to the Vibrato channel for my clean (w/ verb). Worked pretty well. And I could combine the two sounds by flipping the two outputs out-of-phase for an extra boosted sound.

Just a thought - YMMV.


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## Swervin55 (Oct 30, 2009)

Greg:

I have a 66 DR. I also have a couple of Swart 6V6 platforms. My favorite pedal for what you describe (light gain, transparent) with these amps is the Fulltone Fatboost. Wondering if you've tried one of these? 

Edit: I play mostly single coils. The FB is always on.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Thanks High/Deaf. I hadn't even considered that the two channels might be different in that regard. I just checked the AB763 schematic and sure enough there's a 47pf bright cap strapped across the volume pot on the Vibrato channel only. I'll mess around with the 'Normal' channel and see if it reacts any differently.

Swervin, thanks. The amp sure likes boost pedals, and even my Sparkle Drive sounds great if I crank the mix knob all the way over to the clean only side. I might end up with a few levels of boost, or even stacked boosts, who knows?


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

> Swervin, thanks. The amp sure likes boost pedals, and even my Sparkle Drive sounds great if I crank the mix knob all the way over to the clean only side. I might end up with a few levels of boost, or even stacked boosts, who knows?


I use a booster pedal that I won in a contest here mostly all the time. 









I before I won that I pulled a line out of my Ibanez UE 305 and ran it through an old pedal box with a straight footswitch in it. That goes in to the dry channel set that I set at a lead volume.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

I had a chance to try the amp at stage volume this past weekend. Well close enough, it was dialed in to keep up with drums and bass, at a friend's house.

I was plugged into a Marshall 4x12 cabinet at 8ohms. Probably not too typical for an amp like this, but I like the flexibility of a head format and it sure let me travel lighter.

I had to turn up a lot higher than i was expecting - it ended up something like this:

Vol 7.5, Treb 8.5, Bass 6.

I tried it up as loud at 8.5, but 7.5 seemed about right and gave me lots of control from the guitar. If I needed a bit more i could step on the boost, and sometimes I did 

The amp has a LOT of cut and snarl at those settings. I certainly didn't need a pedal to add a sharp edge. It's easy to back off on the guitar volume and it cleans up very nicely. I also found myself adjusting the tone control a couple of times, to back off on the "shrill" for certain sounds. It's not something I'm accustomed to, but it's certainly handy, and I'm happy to learn, if that's what works.

The Riot continued to be useful for that 80's metal thing. It took a bit of messing with to adjust to the louder volume, but it came together fairly easily. I tried all the voices and I still like the leftmost position with this amp. 

Clean boost was very useful as well. And the Super Comp came in handy too, when we were messing with Doobie Bros and Dire Straits sort of sounds.

The Sparkle Drive was still disappointing tho. It just didn't add anything useful that I couldn't get some other way (some BETTER way even). The bottom dropped out, the tone got all nasal and thin, it just didn't seem like a useful sound to me. No biggie, maybe I don't need a tube screamer if the amp is already screaming, lol.

I tried both channels on the amp, and both the straight-in and padded jacks on each. The channels didn't seem a whole lot different to me at that sort of volume level. I suppose the bright cap is a lot like most, it makes a big difference at low volume and fades as you go up. The padded inputs might be useful if i were trying to record a clean sound, but I preferred the straight-in jack on the Vibrato channel, and stuck with that for most of the afternoon.

I had an awful whack of noise from my Holy Grail. It passed signal fine and added the expected effect, but there was a distracting hiss and buzz in the amp any time the Holy Grail was in the signal chain, whether it was engaged or not. I hadn't noticed this before, at lower volumes. No idea if it was local to the room, or only apparent at very high volume. Taking the pedal out of the signal chain completely fixed that up. Hopefully it's just a power supply issue and I can get around it by running a separate wall wart just for that one pedal.

Aside from that issue with the reverb pedal, it seems to be coming together nicely. It's quite eye-opening for me to get the majority of my sound just from the guitar and amp with nothing much in between. That's new


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Woohoo! Powering the Holy Grail separately removes all that annoying buzz. Phew.

I'm trying to lock in my pedal board for a six hour jam coming up in a couple of weeks. Getting that issue out of the way is a relief.

Next up is Phaser/no Phaser and where in the chain?

I like having a Phaser sound handy; it's a lot nicer than chorus (to me) in some applications. Besides, the chorus effect in my H2O is really quite intense, and because of that it can be a bit overwhelming. If I understand correctly, Visual Sound put a switch on later models that allowed a user to choose a more subtle chorus effect. I don't have that switch.

Right now I have a Danelectro Pepperoni phaser - a dirt cheap copy of the classic MXR Phase 90 as far as I'm aware.

I'm a bit nervous about tone suck, and I'll have to try that out with the amp to be sure. I wish I'd taken it along with me on the weekend for the high volume test.

Right now my chain goes like this:

Wah > Korg Pitchblack tuner (doubles as a kill switch) > MXR Super Comp > Danny Phaser > MXR Clean Boost > Suhr Riot Distortion > H2O Delay + Chorus > Holy Grail Reverb > amp

I took the Sparkle Drive right out, to make room on the board for the phaser.

Just playing it a bit this afternoon, it seems like the Compressor takes away a lot away of the phaser effect when I kick them both on. The phaser has a lot more obvious sweep when the Comp is off. 

I wonder if i should switch the order of those two?

Where would you normally put a phaser in your chain?

I'm not eager to put too many pedals AFTER the Compressor, for noise concerns, but it seems fairly well behaved so far in that regard.

Any thoughts?


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

Re: The noisy Holy Grail, if you've followed my thread on "switching power supplies" you're familiar with all of the noise I was getting from my pedal board. Several wall warts would have worked for me but would have been a pain in the rear as for mounting, setup/teardown, etc. The Decibel 11 SM power supply I got from Electric Mojo was considerably cheaper than any of the Voodoolab stuff, including an ISO 5, installed quit easily under my PT-2, and has 6 isolated outputs = nice and quiet.

I highly recommend it.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Things are good enough on the power side. All my pedals play nice on the DC Brick except for the Holy Grail, and I've got the original (came with it) wall wart for that one. Not the best solution, but it will do. If I'm spending more money, I think it will be on a drive pedal, not a new power system.

Moving the phase shifter ahead of the compressor helped a lot; things are working a lot better sound-wise. Though my Riot is making a racket now when it's engaged; I'll have to mess with that some more, maybe try it on 18v power.


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## StevieMac (Mar 4, 2006)

Hey Greg. I'm not a pedal guy at all so I certainly can't help in that regard. I have another suggestion though if you're still into exploring the amp itself: if you haven't already, try bridging the channels and playing with the settings on each. You might be surprised with what you find there. Alternatively, if you're not otherwise using the Normal channel, you can pull that preamp tube (rightmost when facing the back of the amp) for a bump in gain & dynamics. Keep searching for tone!


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

At least on the DRRI, I think the inputs have to be out of phase. If you just use a cable, the mids and lows are cancelled out and it sounds thin and weak. I've used a Radial ABY (xformer iso with a phase switch) to play around with this though.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Stevie - interesting thought - I honestly haven't messed a whole lot with mixing the amp channels yet.

Today I did what adcandour suggested - went to the Arts and tried every OD pedal they had. 

Xotic Effects AC+ was a really strong contender but curiously, i walked out with exactly the same MXR Badass OD that he did; go figure.

I wanted to love the Way Huge Green Rhino, and it really is a very nice pedal; just not what i wanted.

The MXR has the same 100Hz knob on it, so i can choose how much bass to keep or dial out.

I need to play with it all a bit and see where this goes.

I was dearly hoping that The Arts would turn out to be a SolidGold FX dealer, but they're not.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Gawd there's an awful buzz in my jam space.

My friend's house was totally polite to single coils, and my middle pickup was a dream, but at home it's a nightmare of buzz.

It's especially bad if i apply some gain.

What are my obvious buzz makers? Motors?

I've already tried killing the flourescents, no change.


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Today is the day - major workout for the rig as we do our annual reunion jam.

5 guitar players, 3 bass players, 3 drummers, various singers - we'll make our way through about 55 songs in a span of 6 hours.

I listed out the guitar parts I'm doing, below. Plenty of different tones to cover ranging from clean and jangley up to metal. Hope the rig holds up 

Wish You Were Here
Man in the Box
Wanted - Dead or Alive
Lay It on the Line
I'm Eighteen
Billion Dollar Babies
Neon Knights
Sultans of Swing
Ten Years Gone
Long Train Running
The Seeker
The Weight
No Time
Little Bones
Little Dreamer
Hangover
Wrathchild
Let It Ride
She-La
Mary Jane's Last Dance


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

We had a great day and the amp was a champ for sure.

She had some pretty fierce competition from a Marshall, a Hiwatt, a Blues Deluxe and an Egnater Rebel 30, but my Deluxe blended in really well and carved out a nice space on the sonic canvass among those other tones.

Really couldn't be happier, wow.


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