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Post by guitarjoe on Apr 16, 2014 12:05:04 GMT -7
After readin the board, it's quite obvious that the EF86 amps eat up pedals like a fat kid eats chocolate, but what about our brethren with 12ax7 front ended amps?
What are the pros and cons of EF86 vs. 12ax7 front ended amps with different pedals? What type of pedal does each tube seem to love/hate the most?
Can a bad set of tubes affect how good your pedals sound through an amp?
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Post by "Z" Steve on Apr 16, 2014 13:13:17 GMT -7
My guess is your tubes are the life blood of your tone coming from your amp. If you have bad tubes, whether micro phonic or just plain too many hours on them - or crappy unmatched power tubes to begin with, you are compromising everything that comes after that (even no pedals and just your guitar).
I can't explain the difference re a 12AX7 and an EF86 other than an EF86 has more gain on tap and a crisper tone.
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Post by Jefferson on Apr 16, 2014 22:19:53 GMT -7
Not all EF86 amps are great with pedals, especially OD's. The EF86 tends to be a very complex sounding tube and is gorgeous IMHO. However all that complexity can backfire with some pedals. What doc has figured out how to so is to use the EF86 in such a way as to squeeze some complexity out of the tube, but only just enough to enhance pedals rather than detracting from them.
the M12 for example sounds great with everything I have stuck in front of it.
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Post by kustom250 on Apr 17, 2014 10:29:27 GMT -7
Of course a bad set of tubes is going to effect everything that's played thru them...pedals included.
In my experience an amp taking pedals well often means it's voiced like a BF Fender. Lot's of pedals are designed with a BF Twin in mind it seems. So when you play one of those pedals thru an amp without the headroom and midrange notch of a BF Twin people say they don't take pedals well. Which isn't really true, they just might not sound right with a pedal that's meant to fill in the mids of a BF Fender.
I own dozens of amps. All of them work just fine with pedals. Most of them don't sound good with stuff like a Tubescreamer since I don't have any BF voiced amps. But that's not the same to me as "not taking pedals well".
When I listen to online samples or read reviews I always check to see if the reviewer is using a BF Fender. Since that's not a sound I use it's not often helpful to me to hear a pedal thru one.
After all that I gotta say the 12AX7 Z's I've owned and played took pedals very well.
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