"Building" an 80s rack setup using pedals and paraEQ

[INRI]

I need advice regarding approximating the sound of 80s CLEAN rack tones, which I have been obsessed with lately - by using pedals. Instead of using old expensive rack gear, which I dont own, I would use pedals in their place. These would then go either straight to an Audio interface for that direct solid state sound, or into my tube combos.

Are there any disadvantages to this setup? One obvious thing is that my effects would go in front of the preamps as opposed to after, which is how they did with 80s racks. I'm a bit unsure how that would affect the sound differently. And does Line level gear sound different/better than guitar impedance gear such as pedals?

My pedals are compression, analog choruses, digital verbs and delays. I was thinking of getting an Empress ParaEQ in order the nudge my tone right where I need it to be BEFORE the other effects, as a way to compensate for the fact that all my pedals come in front of the preamps. Also, how do I avoid hiss that comes from connecting my MXR Custom Comp straight into the interface? This pedal is supposed to be quieter than other comps.

[Harley Hexxe]

Hi INRI.

  The 80s was a time when a lot of experimentation was going on with gear all the time. With that said, many guitar players used the clean tones from their amplifiers, and enhanced that with distortion and other effects. There is no setup that's carved in stone.

   It sounds like you don't have an amplifier for your guitar to start with, so based on that premise, I'll try to give you a starting point or two to jump off with.

   If you have a rack preamp, I'm sure there will be some kind of clean tones in it that you can experiment with until you get the sound you are looking for. IF not, then you need a guitar that has a good tone going direct into your interface. Starting with a good sound is always the key. You'll need to experiment with the EQ, to help shape the clean tone. Think of it just like you would do it if you were playing through your amplifier. Once you have EQ'd your clean tone and are happy with it, then you can start experimenting with enhancement. I find most pedals add their own character to your sound, so choose wisely. Compression will go in the front of your amp just like a wah. As for the preamp, well effects like Tube Screamers, Overdrives, Distortions, and Fuzz, these are all preamps by themselves but what separates them is the amount of gain and how fast they begin clipping. To get a "clean" sounding tone from the 80s, you have to realize they were not completely clean. Most of the clean sounds you heard back then were actually very low gain overdrive tones that used EQ to shape the overall sound, and the gain was set very low. This was done to boost the clean guitar signal and give it more strength because straight clean guitar didn't have enough power to sit in the mix usually and stand out.
   On the ADA preamps, you could turn up the gain on your clean tone to do this, but that could also push the amp into more saturated gain which becomes overdrive if you go too much.
   If you are trying to do this with only pedals, then I have found one that I like very much that gives me a very good Fender clean tone, but can also push into mild overdrive, and that is the Crazy Tube Circuits Crossroads pedal. I bought it just for situations where I can't take any kind of amplifier to a gig. It gives me a very pleasant clean tone with an added TS circuit if I want it. If you have a pedal like this one, and it gives you the tone you want, then you can use your compressor before this along with your wah. If you are going to use an additional EQ, you could try it in front of this pedal, or after it. (Pre-EQ vs. Post-EQ) The same goes for any OD or Dist pedals. Basically, the clean pedal, EQ, and Distortion pedals are everything you have in every basic preamp section of an amplifier, so you can experiment with the EQ in any placement on the signal chain.
After you have shaped your guitar tone the way you like it, then you can start adding your effects pedals to it. I personally prefer my Modulation effects after the preamp ( Phaser, Flange, Chorus, etc.) I also like to split my signal into stereo at this point. I use a TC Electronic Stereo Chorus Flanger for this. From there, I like to use delays on each channel set to different time intervals to get a very full and rich guitar tone. Programmable delays are best for this so you don't have to fiddle with twisting knobs when changing settings. If I am going to use Reverb, I always put it last in the effects chain. That's my own personal preference, some folks like to put it earlier in the effect chain, but I don't know why.
   One thing I would recommend before the modulation, delay, and reverb effects, is to add a pedal that simulates the power amp and speakers of your amplifier. Many people rave about the Strymon Iridium, but I've found the NUX Solid Studio does a bit more for half the price. If you go this route, get the full size pedal, not the mini one. And again, with a pedal like this one, you can experiment with where you like it in the signal chain. I have used it in the location I mentioned above with interesting results. It sounds like I've I mixed in my effects after the amp tones have been recorded. But then again at the very end of the signal path after all the effects and going into the DAW from there, it still sounds good.
   You'll have to play around with the connections until you find something that makes you happy. Your ears will let you know.

   As for line level vs. instrument level, pro studio gear is usually set to line level to reduce noise. It's a much lower level and it may be barely audible when monitoring at times, but that's the reason for it. One thing to keep in mind when building a pedal board, is that the more stuff you add to it, the more opportunity there is to introduce noise into your signal path, and with cheap pedals, the more you add, the noisier it gets.

   Regarding the compressors, a lot of them claim to be quiet, but the more you add the gain to it, the noisier they get. I'm not sure about this, but I think the more high-end compressor pedals are quieter, but I never tried any of them. I'm not a huge compressor user. I only use it on clean guitar tones, but I don't really turn up the gain too much or it gets noisy. I just use it to put back the natural sustain of the guitar notes that get too weak to be picked up when recording direct. You could also try a noise gate to cut the hiss out when your sound threshold falls below a certain level.

I hope that's helpful

[rnolan]

Hey INRI, welcome to the depot  :wave: .  To get your head around the issue it helps if you get a reasonable understanding of each thing/variables in the signal path.  There are various trade off's with the many ways you can create tones.  In the end the one you want is what sounds good to you (as Harley says, to your ears).   

Much of the considerations are about gain structure, from the pickup (millivolts) through to the preamp (~1 to 2 volts) to the power amp (Watts).  So the gain is increasing (millivolts to volts to Watts) and what you do in between affects (e.g. adding effects) the signal in various ways.  And the impedance (of the pickups and interconnections (i.e. various effects) also makes a difference.

[INRI]

Hi INRI.

  The 80s was a time when a lot of experimentation was going on with gear all the time. With that said, many guitar players used the clean tones from their amplifiers, and enhanced that with distortion and other effects. There is no setup that's carved in stone.

   It sounds like you don't have an amplifier for your guitar to start with, so based on that premise, I'll try to give you a starting point or two to jump off with.

   If you have a rack preamp, I'm sure there will be some kind of clean tones in it that you can experiment with until you get the sound you are looking for. IF not, then you need a guitar that has a good tone going direct into your interface. Starting with a good sound is always the key. You'll need to experiment with the EQ, to help shape the clean tone. Think of it just like you would do it if you were playing through your amplifier. Once you have EQ'd your clean tone and are happy with it, then you can start experimenting with enhancement. I find most pedals add their own character to your sound, so choose wisely. Compression will go in the front of your amp just like a wah. As for the preamp, well effects like Tube Screamers, Overdrives, Distortions, and Fuzz, these are all preamps by themselves but what separates them is the amount of gain and how fast they begin clipping. To get a "clean" sounding tone from the 80s, you have to realize they were not completely clean. Most of the clean sounds you heard back then were actually very low gain overdrive tones that used EQ to shape the overall sound, and the gain was set very low. This was done to boost the clean guitar signal and give it more strength because straight clean guitar didn't have enough power to sit in the mix usually and stand out.
   On the ADA preamps, you could turn up the gain on your clean tone to do this, but that could also push the amp into more saturated gain which becomes overdrive if you go too much.
   If you are trying to do this with only pedals, then I have found one that I like very much that gives me a very good Fender clean tone, but can also push into mild overdrive, and that is the Crazy Tube Circuits Crossroads pedal. I bought it just for situations where I can't take any kind of amplifier to a gig. It gives me a very pleasant clean tone with an added TS circuit if I want it. If you have a pedal like this one, and it gives you the tone you want, then you can use your compressor before this along with your wah. If you are going to use an additional EQ, you could try it in front of this pedal, or after it. (Pre-EQ vs. Post-EQ) The same goes for any OD or Dist pedals. Basically, the clean pedal, EQ, and Distortion pedals are everything you have in every basic preamp section of an amplifier, so you can experiment with the EQ in any placement on the signal chain.
After you have shaped your guitar tone the way you like it, then you can start adding your effects pedals to it. I personally prefer my Modulation effects after the preamp ( Phaser, Flange, Chorus, etc.) I also like to split my signal into stereo at this point. I use a TC Electronic Stereo Chorus Flanger for this. From there, I like to use delays on each channel set to different time intervals to get a very full and rich guitar tone. Programmable delays are best for this so you don't have to fiddle with twisting knobs when changing settings. If I am going to use Reverb, I always put it last in the effects chain. That's my own personal preference, some folks like to put it earlier in the effect chain, but I don't know why.
   One thing I would recommend before the modulation, delay, and reverb effects, is to add a pedal that simulates the power amp and speakers of your amplifier. Many people rave about the Strymon Iridium, but I've found the NUX Solid Studio does a bit more for half the price. If you go this route, get the full size pedal, not the mini one. And again, with a pedal like this one, you can experiment with where you like it in the signal chain. I have used it in the location I mentioned above with interesting results. It sounds like I've I mixed in my effects after the amp tones have been recorded. But then again at the very end of the signal path after all the effects and going into the DAW from there, it still sounds good.
   You'll have to play around with the connections until you find something that makes you happy. Your ears will let you know.

   As for line level vs. instrument level, pro studio gear is usually set to line level to reduce noise. It's a much lower level and it may be barely audible when monitoring at times, but that's the reason for it. One thing to keep in mind when building a pedal board, is that the more stuff you add to it, the more opportunity there is to introduce noise into your signal path, and with cheap pedals, the more you add, the noisier it gets.

   Regarding the compressors, a lot of them claim to be quiet, but the more you add the gain to it, the noisier they get. I'm not sure about this, but I think the more high-end compressor pedals are quieter, but I never tried any of them. I'm not a huge compressor user. I only use it on clean guitar tones, but I don't really turn up the gain too much or it gets noisy. I just use it to put back the natural sustain of the guitar notes that get too weak to be picked up when recording direct. You could also try a noise gate to cut the hiss out when your sound threshold falls below a certain level.

I hope that's helpful

That is a beautifully concise answer - thank you!

I didnt realize that even the clean tones in the 80s had any saturation, but it makes a lot of sense. If you listen to Landaus tone on Angelia by Richard Marx it i hardly crystal clean although its a cleantone.

I do have guitar amps. I Mainly use a Deluxe Reverb and  a Vox AC15. Correct me if Im wrong but I have the impression from resding the manual of that the ADA MP-2 has only tube tones. That the clean channel is not Solid state, as on the MP-1. Then - since it utilizes 12ax7 tubes i could perhaps use the Vox amp with an EQ, comp and analog chorus in order to imitate the MP-2 clean channel. I dont know how thi swill actually work in practice though.

Either way, your response made me realize that maybe Im overcomplicating it by thinking of my rig in terms of a rack rig with pedals instead of actual racks. It may be as simple as putting the pedals in the same order as racks without overthinking it.

[Harley Hexxe]

Hi INRI,

That's kind of what a rack system was at the start of it, a breakdown of the three main components that make up an amplifier; Preamp, Power Amp, and then Speakers.

Yes, you are correct about the MP-2, that has no solid state tones to it, just 10 tube voicings. The MP-2 takes a bit of tweaking to reproduce the actual voicing of one of the amps you have, but it's do-able. At this point I should ask if the AC15 has a loop? I doubt it does since it sounds like a reproduction of a vintage combo amp. I already know the DLX doesn't have one.
   So, using the amps you have, all your effects would go in through the front of the amp, and what come out the speaker is what you get.

   In the 80s, I mentioned that a lot of guitar players would use their amps with their rack gear, but they took their vintage Marshalls or whatever amps they were using to a mod shop to have them modified to be able to use the rack gear. This would have been anything from simply adding a buffered effects loop to the amp all the way to adding additional tubes and gain stages to produce much higher gain saturation, and you could tell those amps at a glance because they had added mini toggle switches on the front or back panel of the amps. So, essentially, what they were doing was making their amps into the same three basic amp components I mentioned above.

  As I explained in my previous post, most guitar players didn't like the sound of all their effect into the front of the amps, and they used  Modulation, Delays, and Reverbs between the preamp stage and power amp stage of their amplifiers. Many of them didn't even use the power amp section of their amps, but instead ran out from their effect into rack power amps which powered arrays of speaker cabs. (Remember, the 80s was a decade of more of everything)! You can still emulate this with what you have though and it will sound good. (Whoever came up with the saying 'less is more' needs to be Jap-slapped until you knock the stupid out of him). More is definitely more. I've been doing what you are trying to do using my old Fender Twins, and a Vibrolux Reverb, (for the center channel), and using pedals for enhancement.
   Here's what I do:
   The Twins are my left and right channels, (yes, I have two of them).
    The Vibrolux is my center channel.
I set the treble, middle and bass controls to "5" (essentially flat) The volume varies with how much natural amp overdrive I want. On my Fenders, since I have stronger tubes in them and I get more headroom out of them before obvious clipping starts to set in, "5' would be the loudest clean volume I get before it overdrives. That's pretty friggin' loud. On the average Fender right around "4" would be where that happens. If it's too distorted, I simply back down on the guitar volume pot to about "7" and it cleans up beautifully without losing any of it's fullness. (Who knew those were actually useful)? If your amp has a bright switch, leave it off. (Your option).

   Basically, what I've done there is I'm using my amps as power amps and speakers. Here's where my rig gets a bit interesting: When I'm using the Vibrolux, I set the Twin volumes lower, to match the volume of  the Vibrolux, which would be around "2.5" to "3", then I go into the rig in the following manner: Buffered tuner>Wah>Overdrive>Distortion,(if I use one), > Flanger> A/B/Y Pedal.
    From this point, output A on the pedal goes right into the front of the Vibrolux. Output B goes to my TC Chorus which splits the signal into each Twin, left and right, then each of those paths have a delay and reverb pedal in them set to different times and decays to widen the stereo image. I get a massive tone like this through the amps.

    Now to reproduce this without the amps and go direct into a mixing desk or DAW, I use the Solid Studio pedals, and set them to the power amp and cab IRs that I want to use. I've found that my Reverbs are cleaner if I use them after the Solid Studios. (The same way we did in the studio when recording. This works with the Modulation and Delays too. Sort of like adding effects in post). This way, I have all three elements of the guitar amp still in place.

    If your Chorus pedal can run two outputs, then try it with both your amps. Just set them across the room from each other and give it a go. You might like what you hear. To make it even more interesting, run your delay into one of the amps after the Chorus split.

  Let us know if that works for you in any way