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For standalone options, Big Muff and Dizzy Tone variants have typically proven to be girth-inducing high gain sources with my solid state gear, as has the Fuzzhugger Algal Bloom V2. Supercharged, modern Fuzz Faces aren't too shabby either. If you go the DOD 250 route, the Boneshaker offers better treble EQ control, i.e., can shave away icepicky treble content at higher gain settings. If you're looking to boost your amp's overdrive, I'm not familiar enough with CMOS preamps to make a sound recommendation.

Hey duder. I use SS amps almost exclusively. I love a cheap Rat2 or Rat clone set low gain and filtered to taste. Always works wonders for my amps, and I stack whatever fuzz behind the Rat. YMMV but I love the Rat for beefing things up.

Bought and sold more rats than I can remember. Worked great with my old twin reverb, not so great with my Marshall plexi, good with my jcm 800,...

They're cheap enough, and easily available, I suppose it's worth trying one with the solid state combo

Also kinda intrigued by that Fryette SAS. I'm not easily impressed by demos anymore, but yeah...This one seems to pack quite some oomph.
The "too loud" comment keeps popping up in a lot of reviews though, and the overal character is supposedly rather treble and sharp.
And they don't seem too easy to come by. There's one on reverb, but the international shipping kills the deal for me. What would be considered a fair price for a Freyette SAS?

The too loud thing comes from the stock volume pot taper on the first run. Basically went from 0-60 really quickly, which caught a lot of people off guard. You can make it more gradual with a simple mod (it's literally just adding a resistor, iirc). It is definitely not a shy pedal, though.

It runs an EF86, which has more of a fat full range thing happening than 12AX7s. It does get a lot of furry, crumbly texture at higher gain settings plus whatever nastiness you've dialed in with the bias. In person, I'd say the sound leans more towards thick mids and kinda saggy lows more than treble, which gets lost in most of the cell phone demo vids. (That and a lot of the vids are just people shredding.)

GC blew them out for $99 when they were discontinued a couple years ago, so you'll occasionally see them for $70-80, but most sell for around $100.

The Eristic wrote:The too loud thing comes from the stock volume pot taper on the first run. Basically went from 0-60 really quickly, which caught a lot of people off guard. You can make it more gradual with a simple mod (it's literally just adding a resistor, iirc). It is definitely not a shy pedal, though.

It runs an EF86, which has more of a fat full range thing happening than 12AX7s. It does get a lot of furry, crumbly texture at higher gain settings plus whatever nastiness you've dialed in with the bias. In person, I'd say the sound leans more towards thick mids and kinda saggy lows more than treble, which gets lost in most of the cell phone demo vids. (That and a lot of the vids are just people shredding.)

GC blew them out for $99 when they were discontinued a couple years ago, so you'll occasionally see them for $70-80, but most sell for around $100.

Thanks! I'll keep looking than. What I hear d so far had a REALLY sick Neil Young sorta vibe going on when the the gain was cranked. Ya know, the "my amp and speaker could explode any minute" kind of thing, with a somewhat spongy saggy attack. No lack of lows either.

For all I know it sucks on my particular little amp though, but for $100ish, I'd gladly find out for myself.

Art Tube MP studio preamp. $50 new and probably $22 used.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BBE6X3W/re ... B0002GZZNY

DRodriguez wrote:Or something always on and simple like a EP booster at unity or a Fairfield Modèle B

I'm ognoy and I support this message.

EP-booster at the end of the chain is the tits. Makes my amp AND my pedals sound better. Only bad this is that if there is some noise coming from your board it will boost the noise as well.

I definitely say try a RAT. Best distortion pedal into a SS amp I've heard. The early Melvins sound was RAT into Sunn Beta.

Rats also seem to have a pretty decent dynamic range. Not huge, but they'll clean up and dirty up nicely. I really like the "sort-of clean" tone of a rat.

SAS. Fryette SAS all day long. It's my go to pedal for any amp, but great for adding sparkle, clarity, dynamics, and or filth to solid state. If you can get one in the $100 range, do it.

PeteeBee wrote:Rats also seem to have a pretty decent dynamic range. Not huge, but they'll clean up and dirty up nicely. I really like the "sort-of clean" tone of a rat.

My "clean" sound is almost always a Rat dialed in with low gain. I often stack two of em and have the other maxed out for dirty doom shit.

I use an SS amp and my suggestion would be to set your HM-2 to no gain and then get some more lows on the eq.

fcknoise wrote:I use an SS amp and my suggestion would be to set your HM-2 to no gain and then get some more lows on the eq.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Haven't had the chance to play (kids, work, life), but yeah...The hm-2 has proven to be a usefull tool, way beyond the fizzy chainsaw thing it's famous for.

I used to have an old Rat that I ruetz'd. In ruetz mode, it wasn't gainy enough on it's own, but for the job I'd want it to do now, it might work great with the gain backed down a bit.

In order to fatten my cleanish sound on Beta and Alpha amps I used to use a Boss FZ-2, boost mode.

(BTW, the Alpha is my trusty practice amp )

Abanoise wrote:In order to fatten my cleanish sound on Beta and Alpha amps I used to use a Boss FZ-2, boost mode.

(BTW, the Alpha is my trusty practice amp )

Did I mension I have an FZ-2?

So yeah, I'll try it tomorrow. To be honest, after finally playing through the amp with a cheap es-335 copy...Tuned down to C standard, anything with a bit of decent dirt sounds more than okay

Just carefully tweaking the amp's eq (wich is surprsingly usefull, wide range of tones that don't just go from shrill to boomy), the issue doesn't seem all that big anymore. Humbuckers vs low output single coils seem to make the biggest difference. And contrary to what seemed most logical, the 'brite' input sounds way better than the super dark 'normal' one imo. Better platform for pedals it seems