Getting an overdriven Fenderish tone on channel 1

[toneguy86]

I ride my guitar volume to bring grit in and out. Right now I have the gain cranked pretty high but don't have much sparkle it seems. I have the lows down almost off and the mids at about 10 or so. Treble is high (at over 1). I use a Les Paul and seem to have Channel two dialed in for an almost Marshall like feel and sound. Channel one just isn't working now. Funny...most everyone here else stuggles with Channel 2.

Ideas and settings?

Thanks,

Mark

 

[MrMarkIII]

Maybe we need to define our terms here, but I associate "sparkle" with a clean, low gain sound, on the edge of breakup at the most. High gain would round off the tone.

 

[toneguy86]

That does seem to happen...as the gain comes up, things do get more rounded off. Sparkle to me is is a bit more cut. I have run the treble up higher and that seems to change other eq settings. It's been tough finding the right balance. I guess the kind of tone I hear is more of a Freddie King blues tone for this channel. I know most of Freddie's tone came from power tube saturation and since I don't want that kind of volume I am limited by what I can get out of the pre amp. Struggling to find the right eq setting I guess.

 

[djw]

Channel 1 doesn't really break up that way, at least not without some funny-looking settings. The gain definitely warms up the tone and as you've discovered, the treble also acts like (i.e., IS) another gain control. Read the manual again if you haven't, it breaks down the way the controls work very succinctly. Also, it's recommended that you forget whatever you think the gain and tone controls should look like and get familiar with how they work together. You should be able to get there.

Personally, I really like the way Ch1 breaks, and it's what I think of when I think of Fender-style breakup. What you describe sounds, to me, like a slightly more "British" style clean breakup (this is totally subjective, of course), which I think of as having more of a crisp top-end and more defined high-mids, with the lows very much in the background or at least not creating any mushy low harmonics of their own. If I were trying to get what I think I hear you saying, I'd start with the bass all the way down, gain at about 12:00 and work the treble and mid controls. Presence will usually smooth things out, so find a setting and then add or subtract presence to taste. Add bass to fill in the bottom end once you have the texture you want.

 

[toneguy86]

I've read the manual several times. It's really something I am still working with (I've had the amp and have been gigging with it for about 4 years) though. So essentially you are saying that maybe the gain I would get by cranking the treble more might get me to where I want to go more then cranking the gain control? Right now I have the gain just above 3:00 and the treble approaching 1:30. Mids about 10 and bass pretty much off, presense up around 11-12. I'll work with the treble control a bit and see what happens.