That Pedal Show - Balancing Dynamics With Clean & Drive Sounds Into Big & Little Amps 

I propose a "Full Band Friday" to demonstrate how these ideas sit in the mix

Mick, as an audio engineer I always appreciate when you correct "sound guy" to "engineer"

Dan's comments on recording his gig where he didn't turn up all night points out something I think is important. Almost every paid gig I've played in the last 20 years, my amp has been mic'd and the signal sent through the PA. So, sometimes when you step on a pedal and your sound "goes away" to your ears... through the PA is isn't necessarily the case... although on stage is often the worst place to know for sure. If you run back to your amp and turn it up... the sound guy reacts... now, the battle is on. we've gotten to the point where we make the sound guy a part of the band, make them come to rehearsals, know the songs, when to turn things up or down, etc.and I "trust" that even if I'm having a problem hearing my stage volume correctly, they're making sure the audience isn't having the same problem. It let's me choose all my settings for pedals and amp volume in rehearsal, and be confident they are working for live use. Great episode again guys! My favorite youtube channel!

Bravo, Guys! THIS is what really keeps me coming back to your show. Thanx, once again, for this extremely valuable discussion/instruction - keep up the good work and keep'em coming! J.

Not missed one of these for well over a year now, LOVE IT

Y'all, there aren't that many channels that are consistently raising the bar on their content value like yours. This was absolutely brilliant. You're like the Bill Nye The Science Guy(s) of this stuff. Rich in info, but delivered so everyone watching want to hang out with you after the video's over. So good.

Probably my favourite episode ever. Great show guys!!

One of the best, if not the best episode, because it answered so many of the questions I'm dealing with week in week out. Thank you so much!

All time favorite episode for me. Answered some questions and found the process/demonstrations really engrossing. Well done gents, well done!

Mick always wears slightly darker jeans than Dan. I don't know why I noticed this. Great show this week!

Hellecasters' Menage: The Beak/The Claw...LOVE IT!!! Continue to enjoy the shows; keep up the great work! jimmy

I'm completley fascinated, how you two hit the spot! Thanks for that! Very, very interesting!

You boys are superb. Another triumph of an episode. I've commented before on other TPS vids that I'm not a pedal guy (rack and midi more my thing) but I've learned more from you two in the past year than from anywhere else, to the point that it has changed how I approach my tone. Thanks so much!

Mick..you're so good at responding to the changes when Dan makes a change, and vice versa. Love your show.

BD-2 chapter about 20:20, “Limiting rather than compressing.” Love this. One little thing said so nonchalant, but a huge concept. Awesome as always, thank you D&M.

Thank you guys for making these episode, they are truly informative!

Even on holiday, I can't miss this. Watching from sunny corfu in a water park 😎

This is an episode I need to see again, and I believe play along to fully appreciate. I love these slightly more esoteric shows.

Great video as always fellas!

Great show.....great points, amazing how many times this happens when you see bands, or during rehearsals.

This is something I've been wondering about because I just started running my amount clean and using a distortion pedal. The dynamic is so different from running my amp dirty! Thanks for the info, guys!

Great show as always! I like that little Jim "in particularly". Cheers!

Thanks for sharing all your knowledge ❤ Greetings from Chile

Ahhh that point of using an always on to make your higher wattage amp behave like a lower wattage amp was so on point. That is exactly what I do.

This is so true. I usually have to keep my dirty channel turned up substantially louder than my clean channel just to handle this type of thing. It sound loud by itself, but once you mix it into a full band mix it disappears long before the clean tone does.

Love the show, guys! Could you do an episode on dialing in amplifiers for best pedal interaction? Cheers!

This is great! This is something which I feel many of my fellow bedroom noodlers might face in terms of balancing gain contra clean sounds :) Thanks for making these vidd guys! I for one really feel my playing and tonal understanding develop every week!

Mick's playing at the beginning is awesome!

Great video, the points made about dynamics, headroom, etc. aren't just a live problem, they're huge to good recording too. "The volume is in the mix" as they say, and what you think is loud is not loud until you get all those instruments with their frequencies and amplitudes jumbled up in that thing we call music. I'm amazed how most of the mastering I do involves lowering the volume to make the whole mix sound louder. It's counter-intuitive when you haven't mapped out your frequencies and gave each instrument their own space. Like that 'perfect tone' we're all chasing, we also strive for the elusive 'perfect mix'. Cheers Lads!

Awesome video guys..these types of situations happen to me all the time..Depending on room , audience noise, band mates etc. You really don't get an actual "sound check" until the show begins..takes a couple songs for everyone involved to get used to the volume and properly adjust accordingly..which at times can be difficult at times..I guess making sure you have a "Big Jim" or a loud enough amp with a good amount of headroom to play with makes it easier. Thanks again guys, really love your show!

Hey Guys, Been a fan of the show for a while but it's my first time commenting as I was an acoustic player for 11 years and just got my first electric (SG Junior). I love all of your shows and learn something from each one, but this one's particularly applicable to me as you do a lot of rhythm playing demos which is largely what I do as a singer-songwriter who starts on the acoustic and beefs up his songs later, and the different ways to achieve a very palatable rhythm crunch tone depending on what amp you're going through is fascinating--and I learn very easily what's too loud/overkill, lol. Thanks again for catering to noobs and vets alike.

Next to "how to set up your amp to take drive pedals", this is probably the most important gear video. Thank yall heartily! Best wishes, -GC

Very informative guys. I can see where comparisons between low and high headroom amps in gig situations could go on forever. Also explains why the mid-boost switch on my amp does more for lifting my solos than any of my pedals when I'm gigging live.

I'd love to see more episodes that entirely focus on one classic amp like the hot rod deluxe episode. A twin reverb episode would be great

Brilliant! Dan, Mick, been watching all this time and you finally, somehow, squeeze a motorcycle reference into your show! Seriously helpful video. Cheers!

Good one here. Thanks 💕

Just got my D&M Drive from Keeley a couple days ago....looking forward to plugging into it this weekend!!

Trying to balance with the other guitarist in my band, this video is super relevant. thanks!

The incredible adventures of Little Jim and Big Jim. Nice prog chaps!

Nice one Dan! 16:25 “ so when I dig in with the Page on.......” and then plays the gentlest passage all video 😜🤣 EXACTLY the sort of thing I do all the time...........🙄🤪

Great episode guys! Really informative. I'm using a 15 watt Orange so very little headroom. The amp is mid heavy so does cut in the mix for rhythm, but there is still no where to go for solos. Best thing I've found is the Orange two stroke which has allowed me to boost the specific frequency where the rest of the band are least prevalent and cut bass or fizz as needed

Dat opening solo! Good stuff...

Great topic guys I agree you can't cover this one enough! Full band Friday to demo would be great, plus the chance to hear something other than the usual pub band standards.

Spot on about the motorcycle riding. Most people don't even realizing it when they're riding. :-)

I always love watching your videos, but there are certain ones I will watch over and over and over again. This is one of those episodes. Thanks! Others I return to time and time again: pedal order basics, yes you do need an EQ pedal, better lead tones, four guitars and three classic overdrives, delay uses and misuses, & thoughts on clean tones. There are more, but that's just off the top of my head.

Fascinating video as always! I love that you upload just in time for my lunch break every Friday, it's become part of my routine :)

I've learned a lot with this video

I've heard that about Big Jim, he can take it all and loves it all.

how great is this RU-vid channel I tell you

This plus Danny page makes my Fridays :)

Great video! Headroom plays such a large part in this and you did a good job of explaining this. I leave a katana always on before my drives, and match the katana volume to my OD808, then match my harlot and cali76 to that volume. The reason I do it in this order is because the tube screamer dictates the level because it pushes the amp. since I need to set it much higher to sound good (because it pushes the amp) I'd get a volume drop if I turn it off. All of the other pedals are fairly forgiving when I comes to volume unity. plus, everything just sounds better with a katana before it. So the katana is my new "unity volume" clean sound." I don't like the cali76 at the end to control levels because I feel that it takes something away when trying to drive my amp with the tube screamer. I use a one channel studio pro 35 and jeep it clean. I've done this for years and it works very well. and since the boost is on before my other drives, it doesn't make it any louder (bc of the lack of headroom). I think OD sound a little louder than clean anyway for the reasons you mentioned. for solos I use a ge7, boost mids, cut lows, boost volume.

Great episode, agreed with all your points. The amp comparison part at the begining was fascinating. Any way the best idea is to set up your pedals at a full band practice. The gain sounds you get at home playing alone usually don't have a lot of use in a band situation. Playing at home I used to cut the middle and treble on my amp and pedals. Now I'm a lot more "trebley" when playing with a band.

My favourite TV show every Friday :-)

You guys are the best!

yes! New pedal show

D&M Drive together with the Page... 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 A match made in heaven...!!! 🤘🤘🤘

Where possible I use 2 amps at once. One clean the other dirty. I also ride the volume on the guitar. Dirt is like bourbon, best served in moderation. Great insights today from you both.

Ooh. The Claw! I always wanted to learn that but found it too intimidating. That Jerry Donohue clip is one I watch often and the one I show people when I try to convince them that country guitar can be really technical and cool. Well done, Mick!

"Life too short for long RU-vid videos?" LIFE CAN WAIT UNTIL I AM DONE WATCHING THE WHOLE VIDEO, dammit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is very informative guys, thank you very much for this. Here are my takeaways from this. I have no switching system at the moment, so all of my pedal chain cascades into the next pedal in line, and I think I'm going to try cascading my light overdrive, which I use for more clean tones into The metal muff which I use for more full spectrum heavy overdrive. Low everything in terms of settings on the light overdrive, just because I only want to lightly limit the signal when I dig in, keep it mostly clean, and then set the metal muff to A slightly louder setting, all while keeping as much headroom as possible on my amp, so that it properly sounds louder when I step up Thanks again guys!

Best show yet, gentlemen. Use Dan first before Mick on your D&M pedals folks, if your need more cut through. Great advice on simultaneously using two amps of different wattage.

Always struggled with this problem. Very helpful episode Gentlemen.

Great show and episode Dan & Mick, keep up the amazing work! An idea for an episode: Could you shed some light on comparing the distortion produced by overdriving pre-amp vs power-amp. A lot of guys comment about the smoother/more melodic quality of a power-amp-generated distortion with the caveat of needing to crank up your amp to get the power tubes to that point. In contrast, pre-amp is expected to be harsher. It would also be great if you could show how one can achieve that power-amp distortion with different types of amps, especially small amps and even Class A amps. I have a THD Univalve and have been meaning to experiment with it for a while now. Thank you so much!

This was a great topic. Not many people have discussed how to balance your different tones. One topic that I have read about was ear plugs for protecting ears during a gig or practice with a band. Not many people have talked about this. Hearing is a vital things for guitarist. Any recommendations or input on this would really help.

I'm the kind of player that usually prefers to have all the sounds I get to be at a uniform volume, so this episode was particularly fascinating and enlightening. thanks a ton, gentlemen.

Another excellent show and a particularly helpful one as well, so thank you. BTW on premiere guitar's rig rundown for Shane Theroit playing on the Hall and Oates tour, he has a D&M Drive on his board and says it sounds great. COOL!!

No answers, just better questions. This episode proved that point. Great episode guys! There is just so much going on with tone and levels, where to start. My main rig is rack mounted gear and a few pedals. Many years ago I suffered from the "bedroom tone syndrome". My rig sounded great at home and larger than life when it was my turn at soundcheck. Sadly, it just didnt cut in a mix. I suffered from lack of mids primarily. I have since learned the difference between gig and bedroom tones. You guys have certainly made me aware of many more aspects, behaviors and psycho acoustic phenomena of different amps and pedals. So much going on that a one size fits all approach is just not possible. You clearly discuss and demonstrate many aspects of tone and many different variables involved. "No answers just better questions" sums it up perfectly! Many great things to experiment with and contemplate. The cool thing is every piece in the signal chain makes a difference. About 40 minutes into the video I was wondering if you lost your horn. Funny how with all you guys were talking about that entered my thoughts. Mick, I've been riding for about 40 years, when I mention counter steering with my fellow riders they are amazed when they try it. Everyone does it intuitively but it is mostly the bike doing it for them. Most think it is leaning the bike it what makes the bike turn. Counter steering actually puts the horse in front of the cart and gets things happening much faster and more precise. Thanks once again for another thought provoking Saturday morning coffee hour! See you next week! Who am I kidding, ill be tuning in to this video and some of your others much sooner. Cheers! Chris

This episode has really helped me with a major problem I've been experiencing. I have a Vox AC15. I love it! But there's so little headroom from my preferred basic sound into a dramatic lead. You've given me lots of food for thought as to how best I can get round this. Thank you! So useful.

Every time I watch you guys I think ," Would I rather be able to play like Dan or Mick ?" The answer is always , both !! Great video and very helpful. (By the way, I use a DOD Preamp 250 as my always on pedal )

Always struggled with this subject and my solution has been to give up trying to get stuff I use at home to sound the same as it does on stage. Horses for courses, that's how I see it. But at least now I understand why. I love Fridays.

Sort of related, not quite clean and dirty balance, but... Jimmy Herring uses like 5 or 6 volume pedals to control mix in monitors of his band mates levels. Thought that was really cool! But I'm still struggling with the actual topic at hand. Thanks guys, still working it out!

Recently got a D&M drive I absolutely love it

I use a volume pedal to even out the disparities between clean and distorted sounds. The volume pedal is a key component for on the fly “mixing.” Would love to hear you guys talk about volume pedal incorporation! Cheers

Big Jim and Lil Jim love it!

regardless of amp, guitar, band size, sound technician, room size..I always keep my guitars volume, floating around 5! You will always have that extra volume on tap!

Great show boys so much information. I completely understood all of this.My problem is i have a 4 channel amp with 3 modes of gain stages to each one plus a volume bump to the clean channel mode changes. So you can imagine the fun i have. Cheers :D

John Cipollina had a crystalline, ringing, spiky sound with tremendous dynamic range. For that exact reason (the dynamics), it turned out to be impossible to record him with any degree of fidelity. No one who didn’t actually hear JC play through his unique rig could really imagine what it sounded like.

38:50 Most important insight of the entire video if you're gigging! Something you have to experience, unless you learn about it on RU-vid!

would love to see a topic about attenuators vs pedals etc etc.

Ever since I got my treble bleed mod done now I just set it so I can back off for clean and turn it up into drive. That way I get a volume boost and dirt together and to top it off its a smooth roll in. I was a set on ten and forget it intill the mod now everything's perfect.

Oh goody, new That Pedal Show video, it must be Friday then. :0)

That intro was Ace Mick. Great tone and licks.

Great show! I have the exact same big Jim setup (4x12 greenbacks and all). I have tried two different compressors and found that both sounded very boomy with that rig (even playing a strat). Have you found the same? Or maybe I'm using the wrong pedals. I will try the BD2 trick for limiting, but I do like a compressed clean sound, just can't seem to get it to work with the big Jim rig. Any advice highly appreciated. Thanks!

Very helpful as usual guys. If I may give a tip this vid would even be better if at the end you do a recap by summarising the issues and solutions. This for guys like me whose hard drive can't process all the info :)

“Big Jim can take it”. That’s T-shirt quality.

I kid you not, I was just talking with some like-minded folks about dynamics, compression, and drives. You pair always have impeccable timing...

I would love to see a video about pick attack and transient response of different amps and pedals. I have noticed that sometimes I feel like my fingers are working harder with certain amps and certain pedal combinations and I haven't understood it. How do different amps and pedals affect not just the tone but the feel of playing?

This is really relevant to a current experience I'm having. I got the D&M after playing it into some high headroom/power amps in a couple of stores and it sounded absolutely killer! Got it home and put it in front of my 5w Laney Class A head which is what I mainly use for practise and the compression-on-compression just didn't work as well as really 'open' drive pedals or boosts in that rig. Still delighted with it, but it's a great demonstration that there isn't such thing as just 'the best' full stop; it's all about best for the rig and situation.

Looking at the walls of your video room, and all those pedals... how about giving them away in a worldwide competition? A true fan of your channel.

Once I discovered countersteering, I was dropping my RD400 Yamaha into the corners like Mike Hailwood, and it so unnerved two of my buddies that they stopped riding with me, stating that they didn't want to be there to witness my imminent demise. True story.

Because you two have pointed this out in the past, I try to use the concept when I balance out the output volumes of my different pedals. It CAN me a mystery for sure, matching clean to dirty. I think......that Lil' Jimmy may have cluttered that point a bit. But it finally did come across. Not used to hearing sounds from the show that aren't pretty awesome. (which they sort of weren't with the 5w Marshall) Otherwise another good episode as usual. Cheers

Hey gents a real warm salute... and with happy, happy clapping hands abound... Exciting collab on your new D&M DRIVE pedal- it was just what I’ve been trying to find for when I find/stream sound samples wanting the audio material to be as dynamic and with a depth of substance so I can further my scope and reach in terms of what I can work with. The D&D lets me round out with accurate dynamics so any clip is 9 times out of 10 fair game. I had thought samples and headaches where synonymous but alas I guess not. This pedal got me out of the jam of haven found some great, really cool sample but begrudgingly couldn’t work it in because dynamically the source’s sound quality was just not, well, it was’t quite sound. The D&M pedal fixes up my samples. Coming from an array of original sources - some streaming on RU-vid, for example which had been recorded on a tape deck fifty years ago all the way to a download from archive.org of a mid-range flat wav file from last weeks’ world news desk - both sources/samples can now co-exist together now with the confidence of quality and dynamics at one’s side. This opens up my creative process which now I consider your pedal up there creatively as a favorite delay or a ring mod which I usually use after the D&D. So with some snak attack skills you’ve found your way right justified on my board. Dig the orange looks good with that four letter M word synonymous with ring mod/synth heads abound. After thinking on what and how the D&D effects my creative process (get it, effects, haha), ok well after some thinking it calls to mind a talking point on a musician today and the speed at which we produce music and a little idea to help along the way can be a “for example” in which the reason for me posting this thanks and kudos may be of some use. If a pedal can make for today’s musician who has a globally rich set of stylings to make all their own - if a pedal can make for today’s musician who has a deeply plush line of artists and artistic works so to respectively make part of their makeup than as the world is teaming with those bonded by musical love and musical creation than something that can connect these illustrious dots as sources sample to sourced sample, mixed looped, fixed in time for the next step - and many people indeed I see are connecting such dots... than that, this is exciting - is the potential for something totally awesome to happen! The mind swims about and around the ways musician’s are interwoven with each other in a global community and each of us all carry respectfully parts and people diving downward through musical history into a excited force where making music is an act of blurring the lines - some of our best jams we say that a kind of jazzy thing, other musician chums in, yeah and with some blues, and yeah back to first revealer, fusion? A laugh is cast out as a expunged release of the band’s shared unknowingness for a label. It’s places along the way where we dscover music. Such is the thing that gets me out of bed. I had a friend who would fall in love with guitars. After my third delay and ring oscillator and first real great reverb, I get his lament as something real. They are alive like the D&D. And for the remaining rant of this post I’ll hit upon today’s musician and the creative space and such we all share. Thankful guys for a channel where a little write up on music making today can find its place somewhere other than a blog. I think any comments upon comments and so on come to our attention if anyone has ideas on this or something else. Very cool how my interest in pedals has me as an active viewer here to find they made with in collaboration a totally needed music pedal mussing on the market and in some small way, helped my aesthetics in how the pedal has cast light into a aspect of music creation which will unitedly lead me back to a topic on THUS channel as a new leaning into my process manifest in me telling my studio partner, hey I need that analogman pedal there, yeah... haha Another notable perk for those on the fence for picking up the D&D is if but one reason: WE ALL make music faster than anytime ever before, period. And this kind of tool is key to living with a value for choice musicality. And not just commercial and pro or old and phony stuff here at all. It just boiled down to that one thing we just love so much: music. A music that is flushed out, creatively speaking, is going to be in one form, maybe ten ways, well, it will be dynamic. If my new album seems to be asking me, “what’s the release date again?” before I’ve picked up my drum sticks then I must be a musician maker today. If after last nights set I opened a document file on my iPad, making notes some clear, some not so far of a theme for an album... a few images collages and tied in part by a photo placed in, wondering, “I bet this’d look good on a 7inch.” A few searches and its priced out, a few songs unplaced that may work - tomorrow we start on the 7inch... must be making music today, in this world of ours. Bring it to the band and finances, hell a schedule for production could be mapped out, like how they used to at Columbia Studios - for the surprise of discovery let’s just finish by March though in line with Columbia is something maybe. If it is churning, casting, caught air under wing so fast it defies bpm, we’ll make note at next take when we look down. Onward today we go... So with my process as I approach my music making - I make an array of source audio samples uniform sending them through this little dynamic box with these two guy’s mugs on it! I. An rest assured knowing the quality is there. I can restaurant it will be there tomorrow. And I can rest assure that years from now the dust of time will settle on such loops-of-sampling’s will smile back at me with the same glimmer and spark as yesterday. The line is blurry between stage and studio so make that mid-set, smoke-drenched jam crawl out the pocket of your rhythms jacket titled, its the album track, track just as strange and sweetly so it sleeps between tomorrow’s new release so your song’s restful, recharge, renewing your listener, soul drenched laugh, belly, blue blistering awesome, songs singing so softly, soft so silent so can to their slow sweet way renew well crafted, attenuated eardrums dropped in gray and with depth of heart so that you wake up as their dream and you wake up as there’s. As always, always all the time, cook with optimal ingredients. And, put your best foot forward, but don’t trip.

Great video. The struggle is real.

Boj here, Hello! Great video again guys. This is something I've been struggling with on and off for years. Some gigs I think I've cracked the secret then others I feel i'm back to square one. I sit right in the middle of those 2 amps today with a 25w Mesa mk5:25 and sometimes I feel there is enough clean headroom and I get my chumey pushed clean I want then come crunch time me gainier sounds sink. Hopefully this video will help me become more consistent. Thanks.

You should leave the SPL meter on the board at all times: it really helps in all your videos to know what level a particular amp/pedal/PU is having on sound levels. You probably won't have as many questions as to whether this or that is appropriate for bedroom, small club, halls etc. etc. Thanks and great shows!

I can't believe that 2 (English!) people who talk about "crystal clean" tone do not think about M. Knopfler and keep run back to the Mayer thing. You guys have a home made clean tone absolute genius less than 2 hours away from your booth

Brilliant episode chaps! As a user of an old BadCat Hot Cat 15 this all makes sense to me. Funnily enough I have the BD2 on the whole time and use a clean boost for solos. I am also going to experiment with a TC Hypergravity for level boost/sustain as cranking what can be a very loud amp really isn't an option. Took a bit of effort technique wise, but weaning myself off overdrive/high gain has really worked and brought out/enabled the dynamics. Oh and people can hear me in the mix! Keep up the good work!

THEY'RE BOTH MARSHALLS, DAN!

On my fender drri side I have my Wampler euphoria as a always on pedal! On my Friedman pink taco side it's already compressing so I don't need a always on pedal, although my Tumnus usually stays on though my Friedman. Haha Great episode guys!

so I play in a small church stage, and constantly battle with the increase for solos, and leads, and just to be heard sometimes.. . yet never wanting to be over the top.. I've heard you guys mention the less is more, and eq, eq, eq.. to get there... yet I don't think I ever really "got it" till now... lol.... anyways, is there a quick way to figure out how to be heard in a solo, when your in the moment?..... I don't usually get much of a chance to practice those moments beforehand...... love you guys for all the wisdom that you share with us !