Solo Boost

[Deng]

Um, I am looking for a good boost for solos and lead lines...I was wondering if I should use EQ and poost mids and highs or use a TubeScreamer...Anyway, what do y'all think?

-Deng

[slapinandpopin78]

i think poosting the mids would be a nice, but usin the tube screamer would add alittle more grit and grind.

[brandondrury]

A tube screamer will add mids.

It depends on your tone. What type of music are you playing?

Brandon

[Matt]

Tubescreamers do have a huge mid hump.? A clean boost like the newer Fulltone Full-drives works great as a transparent boost.? But as Brandon mentioned, it really depends on what style of music you play.?

Most of the guys who use the Fulldrive leave it on all the time and just use the volume knob on their guitar...that concept of controlling volume, saturation, and *grind* (or whatever term you wanna use) seems almost non-existent in most of today's "modern" players.? Alot of guys might as well dime the volume knob and then rip it off and throw it away...

[brandondrury]

If you play the heavy stuff with full blown distortion, no pedal in front of your amp will do anything for volume.

Back in my speed metal days, I had to go out of my effects loop. This will give you total control of your volume but is just 2 more cables that can be tangled up.

Brandon

[Deng]

Yea,the boost would be for distorted metal.

-Deng

[brandondrury]

You have going to have to put something in your effects loop because adding any more level going into your amp is just going to saturate it more and hence give you more gain but no volume boost.

This is assuming you are using the amps distortion. If you are using a distortion pedal for metal (yuck) then you can put a volume booster after the distortion pedal.

Brandon

[Deng]

Yea, I knew putting something there would help me sometime...just never got around to actually doing it. Thanks a bunch.

-Deng

[brandondrury]

Just one little trick that I used to do back in the day to save money was using an overdrive pedal in the effects loop. Now if you add any gain at all, this will usually sound beyond horrible. So I just put the gain on the lowest setting and used the volume as a booster. It worked very well for me when I was low on cash. Most guitarists have a distortion pedal they aren't using laying around anyway.

Brandon

[Deng]

I used to put the Boss Ds1 and lowest level combined with my amp OD and to me it sounded pretty good. But I got rid of that for some reason...

-Deng