dewman
Junior Member
Posts: 86
|
Post by dewman on Aug 10, 2005 8:27:20 GMT -7
Hi, I have a 2004 Carmen Ghia that sounds great plugging straight in, seems to not behave well when pedals are employed. Some pedals are ok, like wahs, but most disortion/overdrive pedals sound almost like the amp is unhappy with them- like the frequencies of the amp are canceling out some of the good sounding overdrive frequencies. Stu Carter from FatSound mentioned to me that the amp is compressed a lot with the EL84s, but I recently played a Voc AC30 reissue that took pedals much better. Fuzz face clones sound thin, my fulltone fulldrive II has a buzzy overtone when notes are played. A real tube (Tube Works) pedal has the same problem with the Ghia. Almost like the mids are scooped (yeah I know cool for Metallica but bad for the blues) A Hughes and Kettner tube factor sounded like the frequencies were mismatched for the combo as well- sold that pedal...Don't get me wrong- the Ghia sounds great, especially going straight in and cranking it. But often I like to mix in pedals, for color as well as to get drive at lower volume settings and the Ghia to my ears is having issues accepting them. I would like to have a pedal to overdrive the amp for leads, yet not scoop the amp tone or buzz to high heaven. Anyone have similar issues?
I know I am not crazy, I can hear this huge difference between pedals and my amps...or at least not that crazy...or not yet Eric Johnson tone crazy...My pedals sound great used with the same setup in my other amps like a marshall bluesbreaker or ampeg VT-40 or old Gibsonette- no buzziness or frequency cancellation. Is Stu right, are the EL84s the culprit and it's not going to be fixable? I have played around with GT and NOS tube combinations, and the basic buzziness and poor complementation of the tone is the same. Is the Route 66 a better alternative? I use the amp for the blues primarily...and play both single coil and humbucking guitars...Just debating whether I should stay with the Ghia, or find another Z amp where can get most of the Ghia tones such as the Route 66 without this pedal acceptance problem...??
Thanks for your help-
Dewman
|
|
|
Post by G'OlPeachPhan on Aug 10, 2005 9:31:42 GMT -7
Took some trial and error with my Ghia to find the right pedals. I've been at it for 8 years now with the Ghia, and I've tried more than I care to admit. What I'm left with in the aftermath, is a handful of dirt pedals that I'm very happy with when I decide to use pedals.
The general KEY to getting good sounds with pedals and the Ghia, is to let the Ghia get most of the gain you want for your sound, and just use the pedals for a little flavor. Full-on OD's, fuzzes, and distortions really aren't necessary with the Ghia, as the Ghia is capable of so much of that magic on it's own. Just use pedals for different flavors, and you'll have better results IMO. If you really slam the front end with a pedal, it's going to squish the tone. So I don't even use pedals to boost the signal much - just to add slight gain, and different EQ color to make the amp sing a little more. Again, a little goes a long way.
In particular, I find a neck humbucker on the 5th and 6th strings (E and A) to be my acid test. These two strings ANYWHERE on the fretboard are the first two to get messed in a negative way when using pedals with the Ghia. So dial up a pedal, switch to your neck 'bucker, and play some licks on those two strings. You'll know without any further experimentation if you've got a good match or not.
The works great with germanium boosters. I use a hellbilly and a java boost and am very happy with how they interact with my ghia. The ghia is capable of plenty of gain and compression on it's own, so a full on fuzz is always too much for my taste.
Another pedal that works great with the Ghia is the MI Audio Blue Boy. The internal trimmers and unique EQ work very well to allow you to tailor the pedal to have a sound and response that is just right for the Ghia. This is my screamer of choice for singing leads and feedback sustain when using pedals with the Ghia... But again, the Ghia can get those sounds on it's own if you just turn it up!
This may not apply directly to what you're looking for, but to get a huge chunky bottom for rythyms and such, try a fet boost. Makes the amp very heavy sounding as it tightens up the bottom. I used to own a TopHat Xpressor that I'd use the boost function for this with the Ghia. I don't use this particular sound much if at all any more, so I got rid of that pedal... BUT it did work VERY well in this application.
My ultimate suggestion with the Ghia would be to just get comfortable using your guitar volume control for shades of clean to dirty. If you're married to pedal format, maybe try a really high quality volume pedal to control the apparent gain from there.
These days I've just been cranking mine all the way up, and dialing the guitar volume to taste. I use the hellbilly modestly to add a little Germanium color, and also when I want to avoid the sweetening of the tone when rolling back the guitars volume control... it adds back some presence that you lose due to capacitance. I like the way the Hellbilly perks up the low end a little too when rolling back the guitar volume... it's a good sound having the softer bottom end too though, and I use both. The Java Boost on Full Range mode with the tone control on the pedal rolled back to about 9 o'clock, if you go easy on the output level of the pedal, works for a great fuzzy lead tone when you've got your guitar volume control cranked to "10." It also cleans up similar to the Hellbilly when you roll back your guitar volume, but it does so more drastically whereas the hellibilly is a little more gradual.
So I rambled a little, but this should give you a few new things to try to make it work for you. In the end though, the real beauty of the Ghia is when plugged straight in for me. It's amazing how you can vary the amount of dirt just by using your pick attack, with not much of an apparent change in volume. The dual EL84 Ghia does compress quite a bit, but it's a beautiful, natural, musical compression that you can really use to your advantage... well worth sacrificing a bit of pedal compatibility in my opinion.
Mabye you would be happier with an amp that compresses less and has a little more headroom? Z-28 maybe?
Finally, the AC30, a quad EL84 machine, while being an EL84 amp, is a totally different beast with greater headroom than the Ghia. I think there's a somewhat different tonal and response end result in mind between these two amps.
Good luck!
|
|
|
Post by G'OlPeachPhan on Aug 10, 2005 9:43:12 GMT -7
almost forgot... try a balanced NOS 12BH7 in the phase inverter in place of the 5751. the increased headroom makes the ghia more pedal tolerant.
|
|
|
Post by JoeYello on Aug 10, 2005 10:27:04 GMT -7
I had mentioned this in another post..try a Crowther Hotcake OD. While I find the Hotcake to have too much treble and bite with Fender amps with the Ghia it just seems to bring out the sweetness of the amp, particularily with humbuckers. I also have tried a Fulldrive 2 and I did not like it with the Ghia, thought it was muddy, The HC seemed to have the opposite effect.
|
|
dewman
Junior Member
Posts: 86
|
Post by dewman on Aug 12, 2005 8:05:15 GMT -7
Thanks for the help everyone, I have played around aver the past few days with settings and have made the buzzing as minimal as possible with my existing pedals. I just completed a variant of the AMZ fet boost which works well and is buzz-free. The fulldrive is useless with this amp IMO, although I am building a germanium rangemaster clone now as per your suggestions and hope that that will give a little color at modest volumes in the right way. I also tried the Radio Shack coiled extension (cheap) cable extender and it helps take some of the buzz out of less compatible pedals. It is really a nice sound with this cheap arse cord- I used it on all my amps in a back to back comparison and the original poster of that idea is right on. On the same note- I read on the Tonequest site last night an article on Cesar Diaz- SRV's amp tech among others- and he mentioned the benefits of the coiled cheap arse Radio Shack extension cable...Anyway, that and tweaking has minimized a lot of the noise from the incompatible pedals. Thanks again for your advice and experiences and I'll try to check out all of the pedals that you all suggested-
D
|
|
|
Post by myles on Aug 12, 2005 19:30:47 GMT -7
Remember .... the Ghia is a pretty gainy amp and dual triodes when designed for gain can squash and compress pretty fast. The other Z amps may be more pedal friendly and the EF86 front end amps the most pedal friendly (a pentode front end) amps of just about anything out there.
A few years back GT had an amp called the Soul-o 45. It was specifically designed to be used with pedals and ones that could smash an amps front end did not phase it a bit. If you ever heard a TS-9 moderate gain pedal through one of these you finally heard what a real TS-9 sounded like and realized how much the amp changed the pedal tone.
More 1st stage gain will be harder to tame with high output pedals. That is sort of the bottom line.
|
|
|
Post by martyncrew on Aug 13, 2005 10:24:49 GMT -7
I agree with the above comments - with my Pharaoh Amps Class A Boost the Ghia behaves and sounds great but with my Reverend Drivetrain the amp starts clipping as soon as I add "drive" (dirt) to signal. I understand why this happens but it's a real shame...
|
|