Question about OD channel and tubes

[ryryrecords]

G'day all!

I have an HT-1R head into a 1x12 Ampeg cabinet.

I am looking for the illustrious breakup sweet spot that tube amplifiers are famous for. My tone is Keith Richards, blues, and classic rock.

My question is about the Overdrive channel. What happens when I switch between the normal channel and the OD channel? Is it still an all tube circuit, or is my signal now being processed by something digital or other?

As a side question, is their less compression by sticking to the normal channel? I live in an apartment with thin walls so I can't turn up very loud, which, I know may make the tube sweet spot hard or impossible to attain. It may be realistic to use the lower end of my OD channel at a limited volume.

I welcome all thoughts, suggestions, and thank you in advance!

Cheers!

Ryan

[thephantum]

Both channels on the HT-1 cross some kind of digital processing, but the majority of tone comes from the tubes.

As you increase the gain on a valve it will always compress a signal before it clips and overdrives. So, if a signal is overdriven, it is also compressed. For that reason, the OD channel is always going to have more compression than the clean channel.

The only way to get breakup from the power tube is with volume. If you ever get the opportunity, crank the clean channel. You'll get a crunchy sounding OD that you will not be able to reproduce on the gain channel. That's power tube breakup. The only way to get that tone at low volumes is to use an attenuator.

[ryryrecords]

Thanks for the explanation. I can hope my apartment building catches on fire and when everyone evacuates, I can dime the amp

[amit]

There is no digital processing involved. (except reverb unit/chip) perhaps.
(I think above poster meant solid state instead of valves/tubes).

It does have op amps in signal chain, but that is true for most pedals too.(tube screamer, od1, ds1 .. rat,buffers etc all are mostly op amp based.).

It gets into the Digital realm when there is ADC/DAC involved on the main line.



.

[Adam-T]

I believe the only real major Solidstate component in the main signal chain which is usually a valve is the Phase Inverter - but given that this device doesn't affect the sound quality and can be a source of unreliability in 100% Valve amps (premature failure etc) , it`s better off solid state anyway . I know there is one op-amp in the HT1 not sure if it does anything more than buffering though ..

Whatever, the HT1 gets constant glowing reviews despite the bargain basement tubes and awful speaker ! so I doubt a Solidstate PI and an opamp can be holding it back much