Tube amp lead tones

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Guitar/Effects?sku=150831
not as robust as the ibby model but it's about 1/4 the price and works great for my 68'bassman

A modified Tube Screamer would help a little.

A lot of people may suggest an EQ pedal first, then a overdrive. That seems to be the way to.

I have an EQ, and a boss superoverdrive. I will definately revalve thet amp in the next couple of weeks. Do you have any good settings?

ps
Why do some people absolutely have the master volume on fender amps?

The problem is that your amp is too powerful. To get your amp to naturally overdrive you have to crank it up. A 100 watt tube amp is incredibly loud. This was no problem for Stevie Ray, he played on a big stage with thousands of fans in front of him. And Stevie was known to play incredibly loud. It was deafening. :shock:

But that is a big part of how Stevie got his famous tone.

You should invest in an attenuator. This would allow you to crank the amp into saturation but keep the volume to reasonable levels. This will get you much closer to that great Blues tone you are looking for.

To be honest, i dont really want a tone like his. I want a tone like mine, if you know what i mean. I got the clean i wanted, but the drive aint quite as good. But thank for the advice Wes, i will save up for an attenuator.

Put the amp in a closet and crank it and see what you think. :D

I found an amazing way which doesnt require a several hundred pound attenuator. i leave all the eq controls where they are, and just push em up! You get an amazing crunch. I know its only the preamp stage drive, but its pretty good. I tried crankin it up to 10, and it was ridiculously loud. People looked up at my house from the street. Everything in the room vibtrated, even my lungs. But it was good while it lasted!

Here is an article about ways to crank your amp at home that you might like.

http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_big_guitars_small/index.html

For serious blues tone, the modified Ibanez Tube Screamer (TS-808) is the way to go.

I just built one from http://www.buildyourownclone.com and it sounds awesome.
(Actually I built two and gave the other as a present to another guitarist that did me a huge favor).

There are sound samples on the clone web site, as well as http://www.generalguitargadgets.com

Like mentioned you'll need to get that amp to run at its saturation point, which is when the power supply can't keep up to the demand from the output tubes dynamics. In order to achieve this you'll need to turn the amp up. Without using a few tricks of the trade it will be loud. Once in awhile and using ear plugs you can get the output tubes to get the speakers to breakout (as its called). A few other things you could try would be an attenuator or Dummyload, or an isolation cabinet.

There use to be times when we would turn the 4x12 speaker cabinets toward the wall or build a wooden box large enough to inclose the amp. When doing this be sure you have good ventalation because tube amps get hot and need to be cooled. Another thought would be to use an isolation cabinet, which is a cabinet with a speaker and a mic inside that allows you to turn the amp up and only hear it through the mic into another amp or mixer.

I use both attenuators and dummyloads which allows me to run my tube amps harder.

Joe

Whats the difference between an attenuator and a dummy load?

With an attenuator you need to have some type of load connected, like a speaker. With a dummyload like I use I it is the load. It has mono line outs and a stereo out with a level control. In the amps & efx section of the forum you'll find a link to a page with my setup that shows how I incorperate both attenuators and a dummyload very effectively. Perhaps it will give you ideas on how to create a signal chain that will work for you.

Joe