How does this sound good???

[echoes420]

I was experimenting with my "clean" channel on my DR last night and got a very surprising result with...

Bold and Diodes
Master- 9 o'clock
Presence- Maxed(yeah... I said it)
Bass- 7 o'clock
Mids- 7 o'clock
Treble- 11 o'clock
Gain- 8 o'clock

With these settings, I can hit the strings rather hard and still not get it to break up, which was my intent... I just don't quite understand how those settings make that. Couple this with a Mu-Tron and it becomes next to impossible to get it to break up.

Anybody else run their settings anywhere similar to these?

 

[MusicManJP6]

with your gain that low it's definitely not going to break up...

 

[echoes420]

with your gain that low it's definitely not going to break up...

But the thing is... before, I had the gain even lower but I had the mids and bass up more and the presence not so high. It actually raised the gain. I was harder to get it to break up when the gain was lower.

 

[tunedown]

I'm not at all surprised.

I also like my presence really high on my clean/low-gain channel. And I've also found that, on the vintage channel, my mids and bass knobs tend to be at the same setting. Somewhere around 10 o'clock for each. It's the voicing of the channel...

The longer I own a 2ch DR the more I've realized that where the knobs are pointing doesn't mean a thing. Earlier this week there was a discussion on this board in which a poster wrote something to the effect of "dial your tone in with your ears, don't worry about where the knobs are pointing" and, with Mesa's at least, it's completely true.

I mean, on my high-gain channel (red/bold/diodes), I run my presence at zero, for Pete's sakes. Zero. So... zero Presence on high-gain and almost maxed Presence on clean/low-gain? Ok... don't look at the knobs, just make it sound good...

The gain goes through stages, so on low gain the presence effects a diff frequency range of harmonic distortion and gives you a "glassy" feel and on higher gain the presence effects freq in the mid range and increases attack and...like, "harmonic haze" or however you want to describe it. Every adjustment effects every single other knob, which gives you almost unlimited possibilities, but it can also be sort of infuriating

 

[jdurso]

with the gain, master and mids that low, running the presence that high should give you that JC120 type sound in that the notes are well defined, sort of glassy in the high end with a mid and bottom almost acoustic like... at least thats what my clean channel sounds like. I have similar settings but more bass and mids and less presence (still around 2 oclock which is high for me).