LTD SE into DD or DD into LTD?

[slidegtrguy]

Hi this is my first post here.
First off I want to say that David has insanely great customer service, totally took care of my Tone Press problem.
Now I leave the TP on all the time, and will never take it off my board, (set to not squash very much).
My question: after my TP I have been running a DD, but as I just picked up an LTD SE for cleaner dirty sounds, I am unsure where to put it.
Right now it is between the TP and the DD, but it is hard to get much volume boost for solos from the DD.
I can rethink everything and just turn the guitar way down for clean, but I am used to having pedals do the volume boosting. Also I am running the DD at 18volts, which helps a little with the headroom, but not quite enuf. I would hate to have to add a boost pedal after the DD, too many on the board already! I only have one 18volt jack on my SKB Stage 5 pedalboard, but I will try to run the LTD at 12 volts next.
Thanks

[RayBarbeeMusic]

I run my DD into the LTD and have been doing that for a couple years now, happy with the results. I use the DD as a higher gain pedal (though not high gain) and the LTD set to very light break up and volume boost.

LTD: Gain 10:00-11:00, Volume 2:00, Tone 4:00; DD: Gain 10:00, Volume: Unity gain, Tone: 3:00.

The thing to remember when cascading pedals is don't set the gain on either one very high. I find the DD with gain at 10:00 is plenty for my "gain tone", and use the LTD for either a "pushed amp" sound by itself, or as a volume/slight gain boost to the DD.

I've tried running them in the other order but it just doesn't work for me, I don't find it nearly as versatile.

[slidegtrguy]

Thanks for the reply.
So that makes sense, I will try it tonight at my gig.
So do you use the DD and the LTD by themselves for crunchy stuff and cascaded together for lead boost?
Do you use the DD just by itself much, and do you ever pull out the mid-boost?
I need to get out of the habit of always leaving the LTD on and instead just use it for a boost .
I will, however, never turn off my Tone Press.

[RayBarbeeMusic]

So do you use the DD and the LTD by themselves for crunchy stuff and cascaded together for lead boost?\

Yes; I use both alone and cascade them for a lead boost when needed.

Do you use the DD just by itself much

Yes, I use them both by themselves; the LTD for a just breaking up sound, its very similar to just hitting the front end of the amp harder or turning it up til it starts to overdrive; and the Direct Drive for actual "distortion", though I don't set the gain very high.

, and do you ever pull out the mid-boost?

For a while pretty much never, but I've been messing with it recently. To my ear its more of a gain boost than anything, and I'm not much of a high gain player, my DD gain stays around 10-11 O'clock. I'm using big strings though, so even with normal output pickups they hit the front end pretty hard. Its hard to equate the gain level I get at that setting with where it would have to be using 9s/10s/11s to produce a similar feel. I've just found over the years that lots of gain just gets you lost in the mix and kills your dynamics, plus it makes your fingers lazy because you rely on that compression. When I hear people describe a DD as a "medium" gain pedal I just shake my head lol.