when playing live with my band i find that sometimes the higher lead parts are getting lost behind the rhythm, i always favor a simple live set up (distortion pedal and tuner) and im wondering what is the best way to boost the sound when i need to? Is it a case of simply using a volume pedal? or is there other ways to give the leads more power? somebody said an equalizer pedal would work but is that a good idea? not completely sure what an equaliser pedal does.....

oh and i have a pretty shit amp which doesn't have many channels, i just use a distortion pedal on the amps clean channel.

Any help much apprechiated

The first problem here is, you need a bigger amp...i dont how much watts your amps have but you need at least 300+. You need a multi effect or multi channel pedal, when you take the lead push the pedal/pick-up chooser to the first pick-up, your lead will be more clean.

For the rest, i cant tell you because i dont know your live setting.

Between, does the sound go out directly from your amps, or it go to speakers around the stage, this is a fact you should expect. It's always better when your sound go on speakers too, this way people will hear you better than a sound directly go out from an amp.

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I don't think 300 watts is really necassery but you do need a better amp. If you are using a distortion pedal I recomend that you use another pedal for boosting leads like a Rat pedal. It would also be good to invest in a noise supressor or even an EQ pedal.

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No...

You should probably just experiment with a volume pedal.

If you want a VOLUME boost for your leads get an EQ pedal or volume pedal in the FX loop of your amp, and keep em at a higher-than-normal setting for leads.

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You might want to get an equalizer pedal and boost your mids, mids help you cut through.

well i said 300 watts because i dont really know how big the place where he plays. I could say 1000 or 100...it depends on how big

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I think it's actually ilegal to play over a certain wattage in some areas.

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Get an equalizer pedal first and foremost. The equalizer works very much like the tone mid and bass knobs on the amp, but will give u a lot more range of adjustment in the guitar tone. It will allow you to boost/scoop the mids, add treble etc. Boosting the mids for a solo will make it cut through more. If you like your tone already and just want it louder, you can set the EQ pedal flat and just boost the volume so when you step on it you get that much louder for solo parts. Also depending how you set the EQ frequency it can change the amps distortion characteristics as well.

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In my experience, your amp should be getting miked through a PA. Therefore, you could actually use a 30 watt combo amp if you wanted. If just doesn't look as cool.

Cheers for the advice, as was said i definitely need to get a bigger amp but money is a problem, it will be a while before i can afford one so im looking for a temporary solution. my amp is a 100 watt marshall half stack whick does the job, it just doesn't have the channels to be switching around to suit the songs. i just basically want make the leads cut through without changing the tone. but still am open to any other suggestions, dont know a whole lot about effects pedals.

300 watts? Seriously, I hope that's solid state you are thinking of, otherwise I feel sorry for your neigbours.

Actualy, a 60 watt tube combo, mic'd, is enough. Even then too much sometimes.

And to the OP, a EQ pedal is a *must*. Doesn't realy matter what style you play, or if you use effects or not. It should be in every serious guitarists (musicians) arsenal.
It's the best tone shaping tool you get (for the money, that is).
Josh was right on by saying it was like your amp tone controls, but better.
And nothing beats changing between two EQ settings on the fly

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like everyone else said go with an eq. i've seen a lot of bands boost their solos when a little high mids would of got them the same cut through power without being that band that has solos twice as loud as the rest of the song.

You could just let the rest of the band stop playing while you're doing your solo.

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Yeh 300 watts is alot, live my triple x which is 120watts doesn't go to far above the master on 5, and thats pushing it live.

O YES another thing that will help alot is getting more speakers, more air pushed = more volume.

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