Do I need a fuzz/distortion/overdrive pedal with my TV50?

[dflipp]

So, I need some help...

I keep watching these reviews on fuzz/distortion/overdrive pedals, that sound awesome, and I'm kind of puzzled by this whole thing... Some of them really sound much better than what I can get out of my Orange. Should I get one? Do I need one? How do they work?

Isn't the valve distortion on my Thunderverb 50, or any other "proper amp", always better than a "circuit-based" effect? Isn't the pedal going to "ruin", "pollute", an already better tone, achieved through better components and design? I can't understand about the way this works. I get the modulation and time-based part, of course...

What does a pedal add to the sound of an already great amp? How are they supposed to work? Should I run them through the clean or dirty channel? How dirty/clean?

I'm serious. Not a hint of irony. I'm a newbie regarding this whole "pedals scene". I need the "basics".

Please give me some pointers and something to school me. Articles, references, guides... Whatever you do think this will make me better understand this.

Also greatly appreciated are some tips of fuzz/distortion/overdrive that work great with the Thunderverb 50 for some doom-ish, sludge-ish, stoner, metal sounds, too! Please.

Thanks in advance!

Greetings,

Daniel

[PBA]

Effects pedals shouldn’t be considered to be in any way inferior to amplifiers. Guitarists tend to like valve amps because they produce a soft and rounded tone and respond well to playing dynamics. Personally, I’ve always found the feel of a valve amp to be more important than the actual sound it produces.
You should perhaps consider effects pedals to be simple tone shapers which are used together with your amp and guitar. After all, a pedal makes no noise at all unless there is also an amp.
Below is some philosophical description of the various types of distortion available and some brief hints as to how you might make them work for you.
Let’s start with the guitar signal. A pickup produces voltage which alternates between positive and negative at the same frequency as the note being played. The voltage is created by the string movement and reaches its peaks when the velocity of the string is greatest. The string vibrates “up” until it comes to a stop at the point of greatest excursion then vibrates “down” to the point of greatest downward excursion. As it slows down to reach those points of greatest excursion the voltage drops off. The resulting wave form consists of smooth curves and is often called sinusoidal.
Both your amplifier and distortion pedals change that smooth sinusoidal signal to some other shape. You amplifier has several gain stages in the pre-amp, a set of EQ controls and a power amplification section. Both the pre-amp and the power amp can add distortion. The EQ controls don’t really add distortion but they change the amount of signal that gets amplified at various frequencies. The amp designer also sets the way the amp behaves by altering the circuit design to give a particular voicing. This means that the EQ controls can change the way the amp sounds when clean and going in to distortion but have little effect once full saturated distortion is achieved. Generally, valves distort the signal to a different but still curvey shape.
As a guitarist you can control the sounds the combination of guitar and amp make by setting the gain, volume and tone controls but you can only do so within the range envisioned by the amp designer. Too much control over the sound of the amp isn’t really helpful as valve amps tend to sound best within some fairly narrow ranges of settings. Different amp circuits also tend to have their own sound profiles. Being grossly simplistic, there is a Fender sound, a Vox sound and a Marshall sound and there are variations on these. You should choose an amp which gives you the kind of sound you like. You have chosen an Orange so we can assume you like big fat sounding guitar with a wooly slightly fuzzy distortion without ice pick highs and that your clean sound needn’t be crystalline.
You can set up your amp to give you lead tones and then roll back the volume and/or tone on the guitar to give you less distortion less volume or both. This is great but the sounds you make are still entirely the sounds which can be made by a valve amplifier of the type you have chosen.
Guitarists mostly like having some extra sounds available and those extra sounds cannot be produced by a normal valve amplifier. This is where effects come in.
A fuzz effect will take that sinusoidal guitar signal and change it to something which is close to a square wave. It does this by amplifying the guitar signal with transistors, then clipping off the peaks. In doing so, a lot of the playing dynamics are lost but the resulting sound is sufficiently different to the sound of a conventional guitar signal that it can be extremely useful. The fuzz sound can then be modified further by a valve amplifier. When played through the clean channel, many fuzzes will sound harsh – sometimes in a good way. When playing into a distorting amp, the amp distortion can round off and smooth out the fuzz to something less harsh.
Rolling back the guitar volume can also have significant effects on the sound. With a little practice, the fuzz can be set to cut in on hard playing but leave softer picked music clean. Fuzz sounds cannot be produced using valves. The effect relies heavily on the ability of transistors to achieve vast amplification ratios and to flat line the gain when overloaded. Thermionic Valves just don’t behave like that.
Moving on to distortion pedals; these are often designed to emulate particular types of amp and to be used into a clean channel. The most common of this type is usually trying to simulate a Marshall. I bought an Orange because I’m not a big fan of Marshalls (or Fenders tbh) but occasionally it’s nice to have those tones available. Remember that the effect still doesn’t produce the sound without the amplifier. There is a certain amount of rounding and softening going on within the amp to make the eventual sound. It doesn’t really matter if the distortion effect used is of the “amp in a box” variety or of a more generic distortion type. As with any effect, it’s worth experimenting on the set up. They will all work into the distortion channel and you could find sounds that you like by doing so. Generally, if there is amp distortion, it’s probably better to set the effect up with less.
Which brings us to Overdrives. Well, overdrives and boosters really. These are designed to push an amp into greater distortion than it would otherwise achieve. When a valve amp goes into distortion it stops amplifying all the signal in a smooth and linear manner. The tone tends to develop a mid-bias as the bass and treble frequencies are harder to amplify at extreme settings. Effects such as the tube screamer simulate this effect by cutting bass and treble and distorting the mids. They also boost the signal to make up for the bass and treble losses. These effects are most often used into an amplifier which is already starting to distort or is close to doing so. The Tube Screamer then pushes the amplifier into more distortion. Orange amps tend to be voiced to produce a mid-heavy sound anyway so the tone shaping of the TS type effect is often not required. If you find this to be the case, then a simple flat eq. booster may be more effective. Treble boosters also exist and these can be used to vary the way an amp goes into distortion. A boost to the treble frequencies does not necessarily produce a harsh treble as the distortion is still concentrated within the mid frequencies and the amp still rolls off treble..
Ultimately, which pedals, if any, to use is a personal choice but they shouldn’t be thought of as making up for any deficiency in the amp. The amp does its thing, the pedals do theirs and with a bit of experimenting there are plenty of additional tones to be had.
Here is how I would suggest you thing about a set up. Let’s say you have a fuzz, distortion and an overdrive. I have fuzzes which don’t like buffered guitar signals. A lot of them don’t - so start by plugging your guitar into the fuzz. Next comes the overdrive, then the distortion and finally your amp. Set a reasonably clean tone and a mildly dirty tone. Your fuzz can be used into either channel but will get you different sounds. It will need some compromise in settings if you plan on using it into both.
You overdrive can be set to push the dirty channel into greater distortion, with or without a volume boost. Use this for your solo tone. The distortion could be set to change the clean channel into a differently voiced dirty tone and you could try the overdrive into the distortion to get a second lead tone. In reality, most overdrive pedals can be used as distortions and most distortions can be used as overdrives.
I’ll refrain from suggesting any particular pedals. However, good quality pedals are not cheap so try before you buy. If that’s not possible, look for second hand online and re-sell any you find don’t do it for you.

[fiveightandten]

IMO, you don't *need* a pedal with any good tube amp.

Want a pedal? Sure, lots of people want to use pedals. Need one? Nah.

-Nick

[Bensnake]

Like Nick said, you don't need a pedal. However a clean boost or an overdrive front out can do some nice things for your tone, like boosting for solos and tighten up the sound. A distortion pedal is not needed if you own a tube amp with nice gain and/or are able to crank it for some wonderful power valve saturation.

[Les Paul Lover]

Like Nick said, you don't need a pedal. However a clean boost or an overdrive front out can do some nice things for your tone, like boosting for solos and tighten up the sound. A distortion pedal is not needed if you own a tube amp with nice gain and/or are able to crank it for some wonderful power valve saturation.

However, people need fuzz.

I love fuzzes. Some are incredible to play with. My fuzz factory clone is a noisy box of fun. I love my Big Muff pie clone variant. They're just incredible boxes of filth.
The whooly mammoth is fantastic too.

They aren't trying to be an amp, they're just different. Love them!!!

[JTGuitar]

I would probably say no, however in my experience the Tube Screamer TS808 is always a great way to give a slight signal boost. Always handy to have it around, just for that little edge.

This overdrive pedal guide is quite decent as it outlines pedals specifically for blues players: https://guitaarr.com/guitars/best-overd ... on-pedals/

The Tube Screamer is at the top of that list too. But as the other comments say, you don't necessarily need a pedal for what you're after

[richardwebber]

If you a pro guitarist then please go for the best overdrive pedals available in the market also do share your music with us well. Here is the quick guide about how to select the overdrive pedal: https://top10league.com/best-overdrive-pedal/
But, still, I would recommend you to search for cheap effect pedals online for better deals.

[Caoimhin]

Orange amps don't need overdrive or distortion pedals because they sound great on their own. I own a few fuzz pedals I like a lot but I always go back to just using the amps dirty channel.