Hey Everyone,
This is not some ground breaking trick, just something a lot of people forget they have.
When recording electric guitars, a lot of guitarists use pedals for distortion, overdrive or input boost. I like using a good studio D.I. (which I am sure most of you have) as a booster to the input of the amp. Most studio D.I.'s are better then the 9-volt pedals people bring in and you get a great "wow" factor from the clients. I like the Avalon U5 for this application since it has a hi-cut and bypass tone knob that sometimes gets used, and sometimes doesn't. So you can color the tone/eq or leave it pretty flat. It really works nice, even with clean tones. I don't like to boost it too much, but a little bit goes a long way in making the sound more "in your face" from the speaker source. Most good D.I.'s will do the job. Great wow factor without forcing any change in their sound. It can also help make "cheaper sounding" amps sound "more expensive."
It can also be used to boost the level of an effect hitting the input of an amp. Put it after a wah-wah and get a nice "White Room" kind of sizzle to the wah. Put it after an old tube echoplex with the echo on off for the color and boost the echoplex's mojo going in. Hitting the input of an amp harder can bring all kinds of magic. It is fun, try it if you haven't already.
