light break up

I'm trying to get a deluxe reverb to the point of just beginning to break up for a bit of drive and the OCD is a bit to hot, would an overdrive like a Tube screamer/soul food or a boost work better

Hi Blake, I am chasing a similar sound, and run a Double Trouble which is two Tubescreamer clones in one enclosure. I still find it too heavy and a little thick at low gain and missing the sparkle and light break up I am looking for. I have asked Gear Santa for a Soul Food, or a Soul Pog if he has room in the stocking for it.

deluxe reverb? turn the amp volume knob up some more, seriously.... need more grunt and mids? change the phase inverter tube from the stock 12AT7 to a 12AX7 and look at mid to low efficiency speakers with early breakup like a weber DT or something... you can bias it colder for earlier breakup and experiment with smaller rectifiers for more sag while doing so if you have knowhow too

a well maintained, properly biased mid-sized blackface amp should produce a light cowboy crunch when you dig in at gig volume... if your gig volume has to be low then consider switching to a Princeton reverb (maybe in a tall combo cab to accomodate a 12", but if you want light 60s American OD then I can attest that the Princeton is totally giggable in small clubs)... or try a brownface deluxe or tweed tremolux/Harvard if you can live without reverb

i might speaker swap now, I've not looked into it too much because I wasn't sure where to start, and volumes not an issue most places have good enough PA's to mic my amp to.

I meant volume the other way around, where a deluxe pushed into light breakup might offend the soundman. In theory your amp should really do the work for you. The deluxe reverb is known for its ear-friendly light OD... blackface fender is not great when pushed into full bore distortion, but all of them excel at gentler growling and crunching depending on how many decibels you want to tolerate to get there... little known fact, Ric Nielsen of Cheap Trick uses silverface deluxe reverbs chopped into head form. He just turns 'em up and elts rip, back in the day the marshall stacks were just for show.