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Originally posted by Harris:
I am asomehwat familiar with the Hot Rod 50, though I've never owned one. My first suggestion would be to use an EQ pedal with boosted volume, boosted mids, and reduced treble. The volume boost will cause a fairly large increase in your overall distortion in the Hot Rod 50 because you'll be slamming the preamp section of the amp and contributing to the cascading gain.

By cutting treble in the EQ, you'll greatly smooth out the tone (decrease fizziness). The resulting tone will be extremely fat and singing.

I have tried this trick out with the Hot Rod 50 before and it really works well.

I have also seen Warren Haynes a few times using a Soldano SLO (the big brother of the HR50). He used the SLO for a crunchy rhythm tone, then stepped on a Klon Centaur for his lead tone. Basically, he was using the Klon for a volume boost and to punch up the mids and simultaneously reduce treble. That's what the Klon excels at doing.

Another player who uses an EQ pedal with a master volume amp is Slash. He plays a Marshall Jubilee head and steps on an EQ pedal for his fat lead tone.

If you really want to go with an overdrive pedal, I would go for a Tubescreamer type pedal that provides lots of volume boost and can roll off treble. There are loads of options, ranging in price form $50 (Nobels ODR1) all the way to the Klon (lots of money).

With a lot of good master volume amps (like the Hot Rod 50), you don't need a pedal that adds gain -- the amp's preamp section has loads of available gain which is realized when you hit the amp with a boosted signal. Instead, you just need something that boosts the signal and adds a little tone shaping (usually treble rolloff and increased mids).

The nice thing about using the EQ idea is that the difference in your rhythm tone and lead tone will not be too drastic. You can have a detailed crunchy rhythm tone, then step on the pedal to cut through the mix and have plenty of sustain.

Good luck.

Harris

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Harris you sound like you know your S**t !

Good post brother Harris

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Good post brother Harris

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George,

Thanks, but I'm just another hack guitarist. It's really the builders (like you) that really know their stuff. I just get to wank away with my mediocre chops using all of the great amps and pedals that are available.

And as for master volume amps -- I don't even own one anymore. I have six guitar amps and they're all non-master vintage designs (A Ghia and some old Marshalls). With all of the great overdrive pedals, I find it easier to control my tone with a non-master amp and a few choice pedals.

Regards and keep up the good work,

Harris

Thnaks for all the replies. Harris, I think the EQ idea is the best one. What would be a recommended EQ? Would Boss be a good option, or is there a better choice?

i'm tired of living the bosses' dream
they'll squeeze you dry man if you let em
better take your - take your - take your chances

Yes, the Boss GE-7 would work fine. I owned one for a while and liked it, though some people think it's noisy. I currently own an older Boss Parametric EQ pedal that would work great, too.

MXR (Dunlop) currently makes a couple of EQ pedals, including a 10-band pedal (probably more control than you'd need).

At the expensive end of the spectrum, Carl Martin makes a parametric EQ that is supposed to be very clean sounding.

Basically, any EQ pedal will do it. My recommendation would be to pick up a used Boss EQ pedal for $50 and see if it does the trick for you. If not, come back here and we'll try something else!

Regards,

Harris

try a pedal compressor the fd2 is a good overdrive also (fulltone)