OffsetGuitars.com

fuzzjunkie wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 02, 2020 9:47 am

ElephantDNA wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 01, 2020 12:52 pm

fuzzjunkie wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 31, 2020 9:47 am

When I used a Rat with my AC-30, which is an older red panel Top Boost model with Greenbacks, but I did the same with a grey panel with Silver bells, was have the amp set for the edge of breaking up tone and the Rat was for Marshall style rhythm crunch.

I never used the Rat for solos. It makes a fun sound to occasionally dime the gain and wail away, but I usually keep it at 10-10.5 on the dial as an overdrive. I prefer a good Tonebender or Rangemaster type pedal for solos with a Vox amp. A Big Muff can ok work too.

I never stacked gain pedals back then, and seldom do now, so I didn’t experience the subtracting bass effect from doing that. I still have the Rat, but it’s been replaced on my board with something more transparent that delivers more of a Marshall crunch and can handle stacking. It has bass and treble controls in a Baxandall tone stack, so no bass loss.

I think the grey channel is basically a modified 250 with options to change the clipping diodes. Everything from FET to Silicon is in there! Haven't played it but it seems like an interesting option for boost/OD because of the versatility. Rat can be similar that way - super versatile and has a lot of options. I can see using it for rhythm or leads or both it just depends on what pickups you have, how you set it up and what you're doing with guitar volume. I don't think there's really a wrong way to use it, it just depends on what you're doing with the rest of the setup.

I think you are correct that the Grey Channel pedal is a 250 type distortion, I was talking about a grey panel Vox AC-30.

*all dates are approximates, I am not an authority on vintage Vox amps and I don’t think anyone knows the exact dates changes were made.

Vox used a red panel on their buff colored combos from 1959-1961, and on the black combos with brown grill cloth from 1961-64. These had the Blue Celestion speakers. Top Boosts were added as a mod component to the back of the combo head in 1962-63, and then in late ‘63 or early ‘64 they started adding it to the panel controls.

The Grey panel amps have black grill clothes and the Top Boost is fully integrated into the control panel. Some of the early ones have the Blue Celestions, but Celestion changed the color to silver in 1965, so those are called Silver Bells to distinguish them from the Blues even though they’re the same speaker.

For a while I used a re-issue Colorsound Tonebender that isn’t a classic transitor Tonebender, but is actually a Distortion + with a tone control. It sounded pretty good into an AC-30. Not as good as a regular Tonebender but I liked it better than the Big Muff.

ElephantDNA wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 02, 2020 10:09 am

fuzzjunkie wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 02, 2020 9:47 am

ElephantDNA wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 01, 2020 12:52 pm

I think the grey channel is basically a modified 250 with options to change the clipping diodes. Everything from FET to Silicon is in there! Haven't played it but it seems like an interesting option for boost/OD because of the versatility. Rat can be similar that way - super versatile and has a lot of options. I can see using it for rhythm or leads or both it just depends on what pickups you have, how you set it up and what you're doing with guitar volume. I don't think there's really a wrong way to use it, it just depends on what you're doing with the rest of the setup.

I think you are correct that the Grey Channel pedal is a 250 type distortion, I was talking about a grey panel Vox AC-30.

*all dates are approximates, I am not an authority on vintage Vox amps and I don’t think anyone knows the exact dates changes were made.

Vox used a red panel on their buff colored combos from 1959-1961, and on the black combos with brown grill cloth from 1961-64. These had the Blue Celestion speakers. Top Boosts were added as a mod component to the back of the combo head in 1962-63, and then in late ‘63 or early ‘64 they started adding it to the panel controls.

The Grey panel amps have black grill clothes and the Top Boost is fully integrated into the control panel. Some of the early ones have the Blue Celestions, but Celestion changed the color to silver in 1965, so those are called Silver Bells to distinguish them from the Blues even though they’re the same speaker.

For a while I used a re-issue Colorsound Tonebender that isn’t a classic transitor Tonebender, but is actually a Distortion + with a tone control. It sounded pretty good into an AC-30. Not as good as a regular Tonebender but I liked it better than the Big Muff.

Ha! I later realized my mistake on that one! Was looking on my phone and I failed at reading. No worries! The Voxes do seem to love the dist+/250. Great combination.