I have a hard on for my Super Hard On

[JonnyScaramanga]

My SHO arrived this week. It is the best pedal I own because
1) It sounds good
and, far more importantly,
2) It gives me the opportunity to make nob jokes.

Unfortunately, it hasn't solved the problem I bought it for. On my Marshall 2550 I find it really hard to get a good balance in volume between the two channels without either running way too much gain on the lead channel, or making the clean channel really weak. That's because both channels share gain and volume controls. The amp sounds great but whoever came up with that control layout was not exactly a genius of foresight.

Also, the SHO makes everything sound better, so I just want to leave it on all the time. It's slightly intangible what the difference is at low gain settings (Zachary Vex calls it a presence increase), but when I turn the pedal off everything sounds a bit cack.

[imported_Dannyboy]

Nice score !! Where did you get it from ? Which paint job ? How are you using it in you chain then ?

I don't really know the Marshall 2550 amp, but I find my (homemade cloned) SHO is no problem for cleaning up the amp. I find these type of boost pedals work best on a single channel setting. Get your amp doing the slightly overdriven sound, and use the SHO to give it that kick for leads and / or volume boost.

[imported_timmyo]

Originally Posted by JonnyScaramanga

My SHO arrived this week. It is the best pedal I own because
1) It sounds good
and, far more importantly,
2) It gives me the opportunity to make nob jokes.

Unfortunately, it hasn't solved the problem I bought it for. On my Marshall 2550 I find it really hard to get a good balance in volume between the two channels without either running way too much gain on the lead channel, or making the clean channel really weak. That's because both channels share gain and volume controls. The amp sounds great but whoever came up with that control layout was not exactly a genius of foresight.

Also, the SHO makes everything sound better, so I just want to leave it on all the time. It's slightly intangible what the difference is at low gain settings (Zachary Vex calls it a presence increase), but when I turn the pedal off everything sounds a bit cack.

I had that with a pedal I used to own - apparently it's to do with the pedal having a properly high input impedance (more so than the amp alone) so you get the full response of the pickups. Or something.