Originally Posted by: jasim.hd

Hi, Jeff.

For some reason I can't quote you. First of all, thank you for your input in this, I see clearly your point through No Rest For the Wicked, the sound is just clear cut and that's that.

So it seems everyone agrees on overdriving is way better than distortion, and I can vaguely see why. But my question is, you recommend overdriving my amp's dirty channel? I've tried that but the sound serioulsy is just plain bad with a lot of noise!

Again, thank you so much for your thoughts!

I wouldn't necessarily just use your amp overdrive. My experience is that in smaller amps, it's nice enough but doesn't really give you the 'thing' you want.

I would actually still work with the pedal you've got. Just my thoughts but; your amp should be clean and functions as an EQ. So those lows, mids and highs are mostly controlled by the amp.[br][br]The problem with the Fullbore is that it's trying to do everything from the pedal. When you try to be all things to all people, you fail. That said, in my opinion, that's easy enough to overcome.

The key to finding good tone is how to start finding it. I'll be blunt, I could get good tone out of almost any amp. Not that I was super awesome. I just had some tricks to start with. A baseline.

1) Amp - Start with your Treble at 1 o'clock, Mid at 10 o'clock and Bass at Noon. With certainty, this will not be your final EQ. Also, toggled to clean.[br][br]2) Pedal - Level the EQ settings, all at noon, not pegged. Do not enable to scoop feature. Set your volume to noon. Your Gain to zero.

This is your 'ground zero'. You're trying to avoid, at first, the pedal coloring your tone.

3) Now, start chunking (palm mute chunking) an open low E string. It's clean so it's obviously not awesome yet. While chunking that E, slowly turn up the Gain.

4) You should have a sense of when it sounds overdriven and when it's overboard. When you're about at the desirable gain, chunk an E chord just to see how it sounds as a chord.

5) EQ tha AMP on that E chord and dial it in as close as you can to a good tone. You may not yet be there though but get close.

6) Play some other chords and include some opens like a D and an open G. This should give you an idea of the tone clarity (you know, that sparkle).

7) Adjust your amp EQ. Ignore everything you've read about scooping mids and this, that and the otrher thing. None of it matters through your rig. Your ear is your tone theory. Your amp EQ knobs could be just about any configuration. It doesn't matter. The amp setting I noted at first are a general starting point. A little bottom, a little extra high and scoop a little out of the mid..but still kinda flat. I do tend to adjust the High and the Low more than the mid. Low first, then High and then I place the mid.

7) Fuss and fuss and fuss...the above is to start the tone seeking process. The key is to dial on the amount of gain you need and then EQ around that.

What about the EQ on the pedal? Fine tuning. Think of it as the fine tuners on a Floyd Rose; first you tune, then you fine tune. That's why you set them to noon. Flat EQ from the pedal and now you can adjust to add or remove certain colors.

All that above is my guide on how I would start to dial in an amp pedal combo. And it's not like you can't use the other features on the pedal, like the scoop/frequency thing, but you have to set the baseline and add from there.