vox ac30 questions

[skylinesfade]

I'm still a little new to guitar and to this amp i managed to receive, but i was hoping to enlist the help of others.


my amp is a 1998 vox ac30 6/tb. It sounds wonderful and i love how clean the normal channel is. However the brilliant channel seems to pose the problem for me. I'm not sure how to increase the gain to get a little bit more distortion. I know the ac30 wasn't made for distortion but i just wanted a little bit more of a boost. I play music in the style of u2, coldplay, radiohead, and mute math.


Basically right now i'm running a mim 72 fender telecaster deluxe reissue striaight into the vox ac30.



I know i probably will need a pedal to boost the gain a bit but will i need a treble booster or will i need a distortion pedal? any suggestions?

[cortezthekiller]

Hey,
perhaps try the mxr micro-amp or something similar to start with. It seems to boost the signal with little coloration to the sound (or so I find). That would push the amp into a natural saturation.

-Dave

[Sweetfinger]

Hey,
perhaps try the mxr micro-amp or something similar to start with. It seems to boost the signal with little coloration to the sound (or so I find). That would push the amp into a natural saturation.

-Dave

+1 on the Micro Amp type boost. The Duncan Pickup booster would work, or even an EQ pedal with a volume boost.

[theunrulychef]

+2 to the boost pedal. I hardly ever use a regular "distortion" pedal anymore. If you're looking to get into the DIY aspect of music electronics, doing a Rangemaster clone is super easy & they sound great. You can get parts at Small Bear electronics.

A Rat is also a good choice for a distortion pedal (preferably an older one with the LM308 chip). They're quite versatile & useful for all sorts of stuff, from bass to drum machines / samples & even vocals.

You're lucky. That's an awfuly nice rig to have for being "new to guitar". My first electric setup was a Sammick & a Peavey rage amp.

[Crisp Flan]

with your AC-30 I'd use treble booster or some other kind of booster, Flynn Amps here in Scotland do a great OC-44 treble Booster and a 'hawk booster' that I've used with AC-30s, both sound good.

[Steve Conner]

Yay for Scotland!

[pdf64]

AC30s are pretty loud amps. If you want to get some overdrive at a quieter level than would happen if you just turned everything up full, then you need an overdrive pedal, not a booster.
Or you could get an attenuator. Attenuators go between the amp and speakers to reduce the sound level, by absorbing some of the sound power coming out of the amp.
With that, you might need a booster as well, in order to get enough overdrive, but probably not.
I wonder where Flynn have found a good reliable source of OC44s to go into production?Peter.

[Robert M. Martinelli]

+1 for the use of an OD ( Ibanez TS, Boss and the like ). The advantage lies in the fact that an OD can be used both "as such" or as a booster ( by turning up the volume and setting the drive to a minimum ).

"Real" distortion units tend to sound too fuzzy when connected to the brilliant input of an AC30, because of their "clipped" ( squared ) output waveform.

HTH

Best regards

Bob