Rusty Box- How do you use yours?

[Iheartreverb]

I’ve got a Rusty Box on the way as I couldn’t pass it up. I’m interested in whether people use these as an always on preamp or a drive pedal? 
in the case of the former, are you going into an effects return or similar? Essentially making that the sound of your amp.

If you’re using as a drive pedal, how do you find it? 
 

cheers 

[Inga]

personally I think it's better used as a drive or just some extra colour you can turn on doing key moments tho definitely not an always on for me, works great honestly but prefer just running a sansamp and keeping it simple

[Cosmo Valdemar]

On 15/10/2025 at 19:14, Inga said:

personally I think it's better used as a drive or just some extra colour you can turn on doing key moments tho definitely not an always on for me, works great honestly but prefer just running a sansamp and keeping it simple

What's your set up - Rusty Box into a Sansamp or straight into an amp? Which Sansamp do you use? 

[thumbo]

It’s an always on ‘tone-shaper’ kind of pedal for me, so I’m using it more like a preamp. However, I don’t run it last in my chain. It’s currently sitting after my compressor and octave pedals, but before my Rat clone. It’s worthwhile experimenting with it in different spots in your chain as it can do some cool things to gain pedals.  

[Inga]

On 18/10/2025 at 15:20, Cosmo Valdemar said:

What's your set up - Rusty Box into a Sansamp or straight into an amp? Which Sansamp do you use? 

when i used it I would go aguilar tlc compressor and sansamp (BDDI the old one with no mids knob), and I had a xotic x-blend with a rusty box in its loop, and just kicked on the x-blend bypass sometimes to let the rusty box through a bit but the whole setup was a bit overkill for me