"Underdrive"

[Mike McLane]

As a Deluxe Reverb guy I play basic greasy, gritty rock & blues. I've always set my amp clean and used my Mach I to create my "second" gritty channel which stays on more often than not. After viewing the YouTube reviews of the HBE Detox EQ and MP Orange Underdrive I thought about building the Cold Turkey and setting the amp for gritty I use more often and using the "Turkey" to clean up for the Fender sparkle. Anybody ever tried this?

 

[Gordo]

I've been using the haunting mids to do that. You can dial in and out of grit with just the guitar volume.

 

[daeg]

An 'Underdrive' is just a mid-scoop with a touch of attenuation right?

 

[Mike McLane]

You're probably basically right. From what I've read its the mid-range that's the major factor in pushing the breakup in amps and pedals so attenuating the signal overall PLUS a little of that "offending" mid-range band is probably the gist of it. Backing off the guitar volume (with treble bleed) basically does the same thing, but could still benefit from some judicious EQ'ing which the pedal could provide. My question's a bit more basic. . . I see YouTube demos and think "wow, that's impressive", but wonder if real world results (sans the studio setup and post production, etc.) are much less so. Just wondered if anybody's tried it and what kind of real world experience they had.

 

[Gordo]

I started using it with the drive channel on my 6505 mini and a humbucker guitar. It's nice to be able to tweak the amount of grit I have with just the volume control. So I found that using the Haunting Mids with the extreme upper end boosted (not sure what frequency or how much) gave me a ton of wiggle room to have nice crisp cleans and a slightly ratty top end grit when cranked (but a hairy version of clean). With single coils I have to pull it back a bunch but same effect.

I haven't played out in forever but want to give the Dan Armstrong Purple Peaker a shot with the live rig to see if it does a similar thing.

 

[daeg]

The Rangemaster makes a great underdrive for the Tweed Deluxe. You probably already know the Tweed Deluxe is bassy and mids forward, while the Reverb Deluxe is fully scooped.

If I were in your situation, I'd be using the Deluxe Reverb with a Tubescreamer based OD, so I'd simply turn the Treble up on the Amp and the Tone down on the pedal.

Other options for accenting the highs to consider:
* PedalPCB Byrdhouse (JangleBox)
* PedalPCB BBW (BBE Sonic Stomp)
* PedalPCB Unicab (DSM Omnicabsim)