# Perfect Pedal Pairing



## gtone (Nov 1, 2009)

I've had pedals that played well with various amps I've owned, but every once in a while, you come across a match made in tone heaven. My most recent epiphany involves an early Crispy Cream Treble Booster (Ge) in front of a 5F1 Champ. Tried this pedal with three other amps with very mixed results, none of them particularly "magic" or otherwise inspiring, however. TB seems to bring out the best in my already corpulent Tweed Champ (maybe not as great with a brighter BF/SF Champ?), tweaked for even more milkshake-thick mids with the addition of a rebuilt 10" Weber Ceramic Blue Dog. With the little amp cranked to 12, the TB up to about 90% boost, you just ride the guitar's volume from tight grit to a nice crispy crunch all the way to harmonically rich, wailing, but very musical, controlled feedback and back again. I been playing this thing for hours at a time - most fun I've had with my pants on in years! 

Any other "magic" pedal/amp pairings out there that inspired you?


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## Jeff B. (Feb 20, 2010)

Treble Booster into my modded Traynor YBA-1. After chasing that 60/70's rock and blues tone forever I built a simple Rangemaster style treble booster and was dumbfounded to find that that simple little box had given me that sound. I had tried forever with overdrive pedals to get a good tone like that but to no avail. From sparkel to twang to crunch it was all there. With the amp already overdriving a 
bit and with the pedal at about 75% that was it, that was the sound. 

Another good pairing I found was my Garnet Sessionman paired with a Klon Centaur clone. I had made one just to see what all the fuss was about. The Garnet can be really picky about what pedals it likes and typically seems to hate all overdrive pedals although I can't blame the amp as it does need new tubes and a tuneup. The Klone and the Garnet blended together perfectly. It really opened up the amp and expanded on what was already there. The tone was rich, full, dynamic with smooth decay and lots of sustain even at lower volumes. It was that rich fat clean tone I always hear on records but here it was in my bedroom much to my surprise. The Klon circuit really is a fantastic booster. Bill F. and his engineers really got that one right.


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## The Lullaby (Dec 8, 2010)

I change my pedal order all the time just for funzies,
but I've been happy using my EBjr volume and EH lpb together for a while (that doesn't really count I know).

The EH boost does go nice with a Ts9 tube screamer or a Rat2 pretty good though,
I only use either for small increases in gain or volume


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## sproul07 (Jun 23, 2007)

Its funny how every single person that picks up a guitar and plays it, hears it differently. Its the same with tone, different players hear what sounds right to them. My favorite combo more recently has been my Tokai SG with the Visual Sound Hekyl & Jekyl (grey box) on the dist side, a Monte Allums Boss GE-7 and when I need a push for solos an MI Audio BluesBoy Deluxe into my Trinity Triwatt (ser #1). It just has an amazing tone that responds to my fingers the way I want and sings for days. My classic go to is a Big Muff & MI Audio in the Trinity with my EMG Strat. Maybe a bit of chorus for the Pulse sound!


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## gearalley (Oct 23, 2009)

Try stacking your dirt pedals. This helps me find 'my' sound.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Note that, while all "dirt" pedals depend on the tonal properties of what you feed them, they also depend on the level to determine the quality of the dirt they produce. So, it can often produce a very pleasing sound to feed one clipping pedal with the preclipped signal from another. Just be sure to manage the output level of the first one carefully, so that the second one can do something useful.

Of course, when it comes to distortion, a great many of us think we're using one pedal when really we're using two: the amp counts as a pedal. So, we set and feed the amp to be a distortion/overdrive pedal, but feed it with a pre-distorted signal from a pedal. In the same way that we are careful to dial in the settings of the amp and what we feed the amp, in order to get the most pleasing tone, one also needs to observe the same principles when stacking pedals in the manner you describe.


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## sproul07 (Jun 23, 2007)

Many people just consider effects to be just fun or unnecessary, but I view them as just as important as a guitar or amp to get the sound in my head out


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