In Search Of Clean Tone

moster78

So in lieu of having any kind of assignment from my weekly guitar lesson, I've made it my mission this week to find the optimum settings on my amp for a good clean tone. Once I have that I plan of playing with my various pedals to get all the other sounds I want. I currently play an American Strat and an SG Special through a Fender Blues Junior.

My problem is, that as I fiddle with the amp, such as lowering the bass when it sounds like there's too much bass, it kind of throws everything else out of whack and sounds like crap to me. I was curious if anyone could recommend some settings to dial in with to get a good clean tone to start of with.

As always, much appreciated.

reaching hands

er........lets see.....................if you have a five way tone switch put the switch one or two notces away from 'rythm', turn down the volume knob a little, make sure your amp hasn't got too much gain on it.

you shouldnt have too much trouble finding a clean tone on a strat, my mate once flattened out (or lowered )his pick ups and it made a sweet tone

moster78

Sort of following you. I guess I'm looking for more what a good setting for my bass, treble and mids on the amp would be. I already have the pre-amp volume, or gain, turned down, FAT switch off. I'm sure the Strat would be preferable to the SG in this case as well, but I'm sure I could get something out it as well.

Pacomc79

you could go with a stiffer coned speaker for later breakup. The vintage 30 is actually pretty good with that amp it's pretty moderate interms of breakup, or with a slightly more expensive higher wattage 6L6 amp to give you around 40 watts and more of a glassy clean though the volume might be too loud.

I think you might be happy with a fairly inexpensive speaker swap.

check out http://www.tedweber.com

moster78

Pacomc79 wrote:

you could go with a stiffer coned speaker for later breakup. The vintage 30 is actually pretty good with that amp it's pretty moderate interms of breakup, or with a slightly more expensive higher wattage 6L6 amp to give you around 40 watts and more of a glassy clean though the volume might be too loud.

I think you might be happy with a fairly inexpensive speaker swap.

check out http://www.tedweber.com

I've been debating a speaker swap. Mine came with a Jensen. I'm just trying to conserve cash at the moment so if I could get something good out of what I got, I'd be happy. I have some decent settings I can dial in with to get some good overdrive, but just lowering the pre-amp volume/gain and turning the FAT switch off still doesn't sound right to me. I think, going from 1-12 I had the bass at 10, mids at 9 and treble at like 6.

Pacomc79

moster78 wrote:

I've been debating a speaker swap. Mine came with a Jensen. I'm just trying to conserve cash at the moment so if I could get something good out of what I got, I'd be happy. I have some decent settings I can dial in with to get some good overdrive, but just lowering the pre-amp volume/gain and turning the FAT switch off still doesn't sound right to me. I think, going from 1-12 I had the bass at 10, mids at 9 and treble at like 6.

yeah it's a bit of a bright amp, unfortunately it breaks up early, I have that issue with my Orange too. You'll just have to play with it, Preamp levels low and then tweak the eq and see what you can get, I always roll the treble back a lot on them. One thing you can do is to roll your guitar volume down lower, and run with the amps Post Gain quite high, adjust the volume on your guitar and you might get a better clean. I like it better with the Fat engaged. You will be getting slightly darker (without a treble bleed kit installed) on your guitar but with a bright amp that's not much of a fuss, and the post volume up and pre gain way down should help you coax a bit more clean headroom out of it.

moster78

Pacomc79 wrote:

yeah it's a bit of a bright amp, unfortunately it breaks up early, I have that issue with my Orange too. You'll just have to play with it, Preamp levels low and then tweak the eq and see what you can get, I always roll the treble back a lot on them. One thing you can do is to roll your guitar volume down lower, and run with the amps Post Gain quite high, adjust the volume on your guitar and you might get a better clean. I like it better with the Fat engaged. You will be getting slightly darker (without a treble bleed kit installed) on your guitar but with a bright amp that's not much of a fuss, and the post volume up and pre gain way down should help you coax a bit more clean headroom out of it.

Thanks Pac. I'm thinking less treble, a little less bass and more mids?

harrisonmerwin

i play a fender deluxe, similar to what you got. I would start by having your bass and treble at 12 o'clock, and then tweak your mid to whatever you want, clockwise for more treble, counter for more bass, once you have it where you want adjust the treble and bass accordingly, but not too much. Make sure before you get too deep into EQing you amp, that you have all your gains and masters set to where they should be, and allways test it out with each pedal ocne you think you have it in, because some circuitry in some pedals really manipulate what you guitar sounds like (obviously, its why we buy them!) allways remember too, you can come back to what you had so really go for extremes and see what you get out of it.

moster78

harrisonmerwin wrote:

i play a fender deluxe, similar to what you got. I would start by having your bass and treble at 12 o'clock, and then tweak your mid to whatever you want, clockwise for more treble, counter for more bass, once you have it where you want adjust the treble and bass accordingly, but not too much. Make sure before you get too deep into EQing you amp, that you have all your gains and masters set to where they should be, and allways test it out with each pedal ocne you think you have it in, because some circuitry in some pedals really manipulate what you guitar sounds like (obviously, its why we buy them!) allways remember too, you can come back to what you had so really go for extremes and see what you get out of it.

Thanks man. I did what you said and its starting to sound how I like it. Once I get the clean down pat, its time to find the right tone I'm trying to get with each pedal. Definitely had some fun messing around with my delay last night.