booster pedal/tube amp

[Poffa]

Just bought a tube head amp (newbie)
A sovtek mig 50 (orange edition) connected to a engl 412cab - 8ohms
this amp has no mastervolume, so I was wondering :
is it possible to use a clean - booster pedal (not distortion)
to overdrive preamptubes to get a slightly overdriven tone ?
or will this hurt preamp tubes ? or even not give any overdrive at all ?
I've tried to crank it up a bit to about 1 o'clock
but this setting seems to damage my ears.

i'm thankful for any responses

[Rick Erickson]

Sure, it's possible to drive the preamp tubes into submission before the volume control, but I think you would have more fun, play better and be more popular at parties if you found a distortion pedal you liked the sound of and just used the amp to regulate the overall volume. If the amp is hurting your ears and you require the sound of a "real amp" cranked up - then get a smaller amp or buy a power attenuator.

RE

[Poffa]

Thanks for the response

I have tried 2 distortion pedals (boss metal zone and ds-1) also a ibanez fuzz (fz7)
the metal zone gives quite a chunky chugg sound - sounds ideal for metal rythm.
but what i'm looking (hearing) for, is the slightly overdriven blues sound, for soloing.
in my ears, none of these pedals will give that sound - as it sounds like they are changing the entire tone of the guitar, and not overdriving the actual/clean guitar sound.
Any ideas what pedal i should try ?


Poffa

[Rick Erickson]

Any ideas what pedal i should try ?

Probably the most popular Blues distortion pedal is the Ibanez Tube Screamer, particularly the TS808 model. These have been re-issued and are still available new, I think. The Boss SD-1 is a pretty good sounding pedal also. The trick, in my opinion, is to find the spot on the tone control that makes for the least amount of tone-shift when you engage the pedal. For me that's 9:00 on the Ibanez TS. There are lots of variations of the TS out there - the Fulltone Full Drive is another example of a popular smooth distortion.
You just need to try different stuff until you find what suits you.

RE

[pdf64]

4x12 cabs are very efficient = loud, you need a speaker cab which creates less sound pressure level per watt input. Then you can crank your amp without bothering with booster pedals.
I'd guess that the drivers in the cab are celestion v30s. They will take 60 watts each, you could try just driving one rather than all 4. That will lose you 6dB spl. Switch to a g12t75 and you're another 3dB down. Still rather loud for domestic use but a lt easier on your ears. Peter

[Poffa]

Thanks for replies.

I hooked the cabinet to 2speakers only in 4ohms, and this seemed to lower the volume a bit.
also i bought the xotic bb preamp whitch has 30db of boost.
the boost itself did not help as much, but the overdrive in that pedal is beautiful..