Pedal affect in overdriving SS vs Tube pre amp?

[sjturbo]

I have a Music Man RD50 with a solid state pre amp and tube output. I would appreciate it if someone could explain how driving the solid state front differs from driving the tubes and how that effects the sound. Thanks in advance for your comments!

[smackoj]

I think that Music Man amps were designed (just one old guys opinion) to produce lots of clean headroom. IOW not designed to drive the preamp to saturation like a tube preamp. Tubes have a natural breakup as they near and reach saturation which is what the term 'drive' means (push towards saturation). A SS preamp section as in the MM amps, is not conducive to being driven to saturation, it uses transistors and op amp chips to produce 'well' behaved gain and tone shaping. Those transistors and IC chips can be driven to the 'clipping' point but most people do not equate that sound to the sound of tube amp breakup. Leo Fender has a solid reputation for building amps with clean headroom, as an example, the venerable Twin Reverb amp and the Music Man lineup of amps.

I suppose I said all that to say this; your MM amp is not designed to do what you are asking it to do. Therefore, if you are wanting to get an overdrive sound from your amp, my suggestion would be to A. try some pedals that shape the signal prior to the amp. And B. search the net for a forum that deals specifically with MM amps. I'm sure there are many other MM amp owners who have sought answers to this issue prior to you.