Making Amp tone sound more open and less compressed

[Alainarose]

For my higher gain type amp settings (HBE) I have been playing with the dynamics block to try to make the amp tone sound more open and less compressed sounding. I have been playing with the output compression by raising the level, lowering the compression threshold value and adjusting the pick dynamics and pick clarity set points.

What other tricks are there? My main tone is 80s/90s hard rock type tones where I like a lot of response to picking and playing with the volume knob.

 

[dupere11497]

Use less gain! The more distortion, the more compression!

 

[Steve Hodson]

HBE by it's nature is a very gainy, compressed amp (to my ears) ...maybe try the BE (and a DRV block if you want to gain it up a bit....)

 

[Tahoebrian5]

Turn down Xfrmr match

 

[Alainarose]

HBE by it's nature is a very gainy, compressed amp (to my ears) ...maybe try the BE (and a DRV block if you want to gain it up a bit....)

I have tried that but hate how much processing power the DRV block sucks up. Also tried that with a para eq with mids bumped in lieu of the DRV block.