BJFE / BearFoot fx Guitar Effects Community

I know most folks use a clean amp with BJFe drives for dirt but I'm just curious if anyone here ever goes the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) route and runs a dirty amp with just a couple pedals. I've moved this way mostly by necessity (can't afford to run an expensive rig and go back to school) so I'm just curious if anyone else has done the same and what your thoughts are on it. I tend to have an ebb and flow to my gear where I go simpler and simpler until I reach a breaking point and then start swinging back the other way only to make my board too complex and downsize... so on and so forth. I'm just finding it really liberating to use an amp for dirt and pedals for mod/delay/verb. Any thoughts on this? Am I doomed to fall back to pedals for my dirt in a couple months???



For reference what I've been toying around with is a PT-mini with Wah, tuner, fuzz, vibe and boost into a Retro Channel RR1. I keep meaning to re-wire the board but I've been lazy. Eventually I'm anticipating the following setup...

Strat -------- Fuzz > Wah > Vibe > Random fun pedal (Octave or Modulation) > Delay > Reverb -------- Retro Channel

Hey Cliff, I have been kind of in a similar place. A year ago, I think I owned about 11 BJFE and I loved them all, but mostly gravitated towards one or two of them. Over recent months, I downsized and was going with a couple of cornish drives and 2 BJFE (at any given time). What I found was that my home needs vs playing with others (jam sessions, rehearsals, VERY occasional gigs) were different. Because of the volume issue at home, pedals seem more important to me for simulating a cranked amp. In a band setting, I might use one drive in conjunction with the amp 90% of the time and then two other drives (usually Fuzz and Distortion) 10% of the time.

Now recently, I purged a whole bunch of pedals including an all time favorite that I hope will surface again in a less $ form. I also sold all my Cornish as I have small box G2, P2, and ST2 (never tried this last one) due at any time. This left me with 1 OD pedal, a delay that also has chorus, a wah, and a clean boost. I would also have a vibe, but that is another story... yes, that is still dragging on in another form...

Anyhow, all of this in-between pedal time has forced me to tinker with my OD channel in my amp. It's been a really good and liberating experience and helped me further to think about what I REALLY need and use vs what I WANT.

Here's the end of my long tale - for me - good delay/mild modulation, a decent wah (love my area51, but don't bother with all the knobs), solid distortion and sweet smooth fuzz pedal (the PPF is a strong contender to do both), a clean boost, and the most difficult of all pedals... a "more better" or in Hawaiian "mo betta" pedal. The "mo betta" pedal is a light to med OD pedal that makes the OD in your amp sing when played at live volume and fattens your clean tone when you are noodling at home. In my experience, the best I have ever tried - the Model G - to me, it was like a KLON except you can adjust the mids (the "c" knob) and get a more transparent OD boost. Conclusion - good amp OD is what we all want our pedals to sound like, if you can coax it out of your amp in your regular playing setting that's the starting point for everything else. The thing I like about my favorite low to medium OD pedals is not how they play on their own, but how they nudge my amp OD into harmonic bliss.

Sorry for long ramble...

Currently, I have volume constraints everywhere I play. For that reason, I have gravitated towards my dual terror and AC30. The dual terror is nice when I can only bring a handful of pedals. In that set-up, I prefer my PGC, KLON, DMM, SBEQ and Empress Tremolo. The KLON allows me to drive the dual terror and maintain the high-end bite in high gain settings.

With the AC30 rig I either run my KLON into my MHv2 or EGDM depending on which guitar I am playing (strat/sg or tele). Conveniently, I have my CH2 available for additional mayhem.

I can't really say I run dirt out of my AC30, but I am very pleased with the simplicity and british warmth of the dual terror. It gives nicely for rhythm and lead work, and the KLON has enough edge to set my tone apart on each channel.

I also have a stiletto deuce 2 and an old deluxe reverb that I take out to play with, but the AC30 and dual terror are so useful with what I do that they generally take precedence in live situations. I can say that cranking those amps brings out a whole new side, but one I rarely get to experience.

Cheers, gentlemen!

I have a modified, (used) Swart SST-30 on the way that can get big sounding dirty tones all by itself and reasonable volumes. It is making me rethinking the pedal board. I dont have it yet (arrives on Tuesday), but I do have a Swart AST PRO and when I turn it to 11 only the EGDM, Ruby Red, and SBEQ sound really good. I'd love to try a Red Rooster by BJFE and kick the amp up a bit.

I get the amp, most likely late, on Tuesday and we leave for a 5 day camping trim on Wednesday. But, history has shown that this is a good sign.