preserving a clip-free clean sound at low volumes

[Maury]

Wow- I keep discovering new tone secrets with this LSC! I did a gig this past Friday in a pretty small bar ... and I had to turn down lower than desired. It was a bummer - my "bouncy" clean became mildy distorted because I was overdriving the output (gain 2:00 - master 11:00 but output 10:00)

Today I found that if I run the amp more "wide open" - gain 2:00 - master 11:00 and output 12:00 I can turn my strat's volume down to 4 or 5 and my headroom is back! I do have to up the treble & presence to taste since the highs get rolled off doing this - but I'm excited to have the headroom at low volumes.

Maybe most of you guys knew this already, but I never expected my strat could sound good with the volume set so low. VERY cool.

 

[Maury]

Well, this worked wonders for the clean channel, but I can't get anything good happennin on the distortion with the guitar's volume so low.

Bummer.

 

[flieger67]

To be honest, you shouldn't be surprised by what you found in the dirty channel. If you turn your guitar's volume down with the dirty channel set for a moderately- or heavily-distorted tone, you'll tend to reduce the distortion effect because you are giving the amp a lesser signal to amplify.

By the way, from what I've read, Jeff Beck likes to use your clean tone strategy. He says that he often pulls the volume knob on his strat back to around 5 or 6 to get some of his tones.

 

[Maury]

Thanks - that makes ONE thing that JB and I are together on

Yeah, I'm not so much surprised as I am mildly deflated. I found THE answer to low-volume clean tones and naively hoped the dirty channel would be perfect too. Oh well.