Fender Twins don't like pedals????

[drano]

This week I was at a well-known store in downtown Chicago that has dealerships for a BUNCH of botique amp and pedal lines such as Bad Cat, Fuchs, Soldano, Rivera, Victoria, Bogner, Diezel, Menatone, Emma, Zvex, ProAnalog, yadi, yadi. The guys there were very helpful. One voiced the opinion that certain Twins had some characteristic about the input circuit that made them notoriously unfriendly to pedals and that many pedals sound much better on other amps than they do on such Twins. Before hearing this I had figured that my Twin was so clean that there was no better amp to test a pedal on in order to hear most accurately what the pedal sounds like. Is this criticism of Twins common? Anybody else agree with it? If so, is the reason known?


Thanks,

 

[jokerjkny]

that's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard...

IMHO, twinR's are the test bed of any pedal.

 

[RichSZ]

I owned a '65 TRRI...sold it because it was so damn loud. Anything past the first hint of volume was very loud.

But....the Fulltone pedals I had at the time (Distortion Pro, Fulldrive 2) sounded awesome through that amp. I mean really, really good.

The Line 6 DM I tried sounded horrid....but maybe that was just the pedal itself.

-Rich

 

[TAVD]

I wouldn't agree with that but I can understand why someone might make such a claim. Some pedals just don't perform as well with clean, high headroom amps. it's not really a reflection of the amp. Some examples might be a fuzz pedal or a clean boost to goose the input stage. You won't get that nice smooth overdrive that other amps can offer. Maybe that Morley wah that sounds great with a high gain will sound way too bright with the twin. And bad sounding pedals will sound even worse.

 

[Ed Reed]

I had a Twin RI and it didn't take pedals well at all. The RI was supposed to have belonged to some Nashville recording artist so sold it to buy a rack system. After I had it for about 6 months I came to belive he sold it because it sucked. It may have been a dud, I don't know and I've never tried another. I was lucky enough to trade it for a 66 Deluxe Reverb and it takes pedals very nice.

 

[mlynn02]

the twin loves pedals--with one exception in my opinion. i never found a fuzz pedal that sounded good through my twin. but any overdrive and of course any modulation, wah or other "wet" effect will sound great too. ymmv

 

[ericb]

I presume you're referring to Overdrive, Distortion and /or Fuzz pedals right? Because every amp takes any other type of pedal fine (with the exception of delays in front of hi-gain !) Anyway, I have a friend who has a 65 Twin .. I have a 1970 Twin (I blackfaced it but it really isn't much different than the normal '70 it was prior) ... They both take od, dist and fuzz pedals JUST FINE... The trick is knowing which pedal and how to dial in amps with pedals.. I don't like Tube Screamers with Twins but Fulldrives sounded great... Bd2's sound great , Rats sound great, Tonebone Classic sounds AWESome and on and on and on! ERIC

 

[celestion101]

My Twin didn't like higher gain pedals, but did fine with Tube Screamers and other similiar pedals. I'm sure they can be tweaked to be more pedal friendly with what you want to use. Is it easier to tweak an amp for pedals, or buy and sell pedals to work with the amp?........hmmm, I wish I had the answer!

 

[riffmeister]

I just turn up my TR to get that great distortion sound.



























what's that you say? I couldn't hear you........

 

[Tomo]

I played through RI Twin Reverb at Berklee.
I got really good od tone with my CJOD.


Tomo

 

[drano]

Thanks for all the support. I was suddenly overcome with self-doubt when I heard that one comming from a dealer with such an intimidating inventory. What if all those pedals I dumped might have sounded better on a "better" amp?

I'm not sure if the guy who told me that about Twins was referring only to dist/od/fuzz pedals, but I was. I love to a/b pedals with mine. I can hear a pedal's most subtle nuances with it. By comparison, I can take two od pedals that sound completely different through the Twin and then plug them into my Velocette and they sound like the same pedal. I'm starting to think I'll never find a good OD amp (or any amp, for that matter) that has a clean channel as good as the Twin. Oh well, wasn't thinking about selling it anyway.

 

[DestroyAllGuitars]

I have been working with Twins since 1972 and have never had
a problem with pedals in front of them. A Twin is a loud clean amp
ideally suited for use with pedals. Perhaps it's just a case of
some really lousy pedals that will not work well regardless of
what amp you are using. PLZ NOTE that I'm basing this on
the assumption that we are talking about quality Blackface Twin Reverbs. Nothing modern with red knobs or overdrive pull switches, interstaellar interocitors etc........

 

[riffmeister]

Originally posted by CliffC
......PLZ NOTE that I'm basing this on the assumption that we are talking about quality Blackface Twin Reverbs. Nothing modern with red knobs or overdrive pull switches, interstaellar interocitors etc........

But I NEED those interstaellar interocitors to get my sound!!

 

[leofenderbender]

I agree with the premise in part.

A twin has so much headroom that a pedal sounds like a pedal. Pedals into amps with less headroom can push the tubes into distortion at lower volume levels. The pedal distortion effect can then merge with the amp distortion effect and sound more natural to the ear.

 

[doctord02]

tweed twins dont need no stankin pedals...

 

[ottobahn]

Originally posted by leofenderbender
I agree with the premise in part.

A twin has so much headroom that a pedal sounds like a pedal. Pedals into amps with less headroom can push the tubes into distortion at lower volume levels. The pedal distortion effect can then merge with the amp distortion effect and sound more natural to the ear.

The MI Audio Tube Zone in front of my '71 Twin Reverb sounds GORGEOUS.:angel

 

[bealzabub]

Originally posted by drano
This week I was at a well-known store in downtown Chicago that has dealerships for a BUNCH of botique amp and pedal lines such as Bad Cat, Fuchs, Soldano, Rivera, Victoria, Bogner, Diezel, Menatone, Emma, Zvex, ProAnalog, yadi, yadi. The guys there were very helpful. One voiced the opinion that certain Twins had some characteristic about the input circuit that made them notoriously unfriendly to pedals and that many pedals sound much better on other amps than they do on such Twins. Before hearing this I had figured that my Twin was so clean that there was no better amp to test a pedal on in order to hear most accurately what the pedal sounds like. Is this criticism of Twins common? Anybody else agree with it? If so, is the reason known?


Thanks,

Hello,just to clear this up,I'm the guy that said that, and I was misquoted.I said I have experienced this SPECIFICALLY with RI twins, with some OD/Dist/Fuzz pedals.Not every type of pedal,or Twin!!!Not every RI twin either.Ya see,this is how the truth gets lost in translation!

 

[kingsxman]

Major consideration on what kind of sound you like. I had a Fender Super (not Super Reverb..but Super) 4x10 that had a killer clean sound. But If put any overdrive/distortion pedal in front of it ...it sounded like crap! Thin. Buzzy. No fatness at all.
I was just about to off theamp when someone suggested a speaker upgrade. This had those blue Fender alnico speakers in it. I talked to Ted Weber and told him what I was looking for. He recommended replacing the two bottom speakers with 10F150's.
Immediatly all my overdrive pedals came to life with a fatness that was great!! So...if your looking for a fatter sound...it could be the speakers.

On the other hand...I've owned a ton of amps and Fenders are really fussy as far as putting an overdrive in front of them. My hot rod deluxe probably takes pedals better than any fender I've owned.

 

[Lucidology]

I played through RI Twin Reverb at Berklee.
I got really good od tone with my CJOD.


Tomo

Do you still use that CJOD Tomo ...?

 

[jay42]

The only Twin I'm aware of with a different input structure (after the AB763) is the TRII. They're all different before that time...low power Twins, the first high power tweed, the blond era.

On the downside of that notion, David Gilmour used a pile of TRIIs on the Momentary Lapse Of Reason tour....though I don't know if he was using them as power amps, as documented for the Pulse tour with all the Hiwatts...that was an Alembic F2-B preamp, which looks an awful lot like the Twin Reverb input.