Input level

Got mine at 25.5 at the moment. I'll get a red flicker or two when I hit really hard with my Les Paul (Duncan JB).

0.8! :shock What in the world are you using for pickups, industrial electro-magnets and car batteries? :lol

Ha ha you're a pisser mr_fender!
 
Seymour Duncan has a tone chart (as most of you know) that displays the eq (bass, mids, treble) of a particular pickup from 0 to 10.
The Heavy Metal Livewire tone chart went something like this (from memory)
Bass: 7
Treble: 5
Mids: 11 - yep 11! The mids were off the chart! I'm used to the pickup now after playing with it for years live, but if I get a friend up to play,
the guitar squeals it's head off as they can't handle the output!
Here's a bit of a spiel of the pickup below in a link. They don't make this pup anymore.
Seymour Duncan LW-HMET Livewire Metal Humbucker | Musician's Friend
 
I have to ask: can you even get a clean sound out of it? :lol

Ha! Well with 'normal' guitars with normal or hot pickups, if you switch to the humbucker, you get a clean/crunchy sound. In the humbucker and middle position, you get a typical strat nasal sound. With my humbucker, there is NO WAY you can get a clean sound from it. If I'm in a clean preset (shiver amp) and i flick to the humbucker, I swear it sounds
like i've changed presets to a Friedman HBE! Obviously my clean sounds come from my single coils but there's no way you'll get anywhere near a clean sound from that humbucker.

I remember watching Cooper Carter in one of his videos. He was on a clean amp preset and he flicked to his humbucker and it sounded nice and crunchy and usable. I remember thinking to myself, I'd love my humbucker to be able to be as clean as that! Having said that, as a dirty pup - it's sickening!
 
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I found I had to raise input level from 48% to 55% to tickle the red with Q1b. Anyone else noticed a difference? I play heavy strings and have Suhr Aldrich humbuckers in my main guitar. Maybe I should change my strings...
 
I found I had to raise input level from 48% to 55% to tickle the red with Q1b. Anyone else noticed a difference? I play heavy strings and have Suhr Aldrich humbuckers in my main guitar. Maybe I should change my strings...

I set the gain (amp) till everything sings but no more because I like to hear the sound of the guitar/pickups and more gain seems to hide a lot of those little nuances. With quantum I've noticed I have to pick a little harder to hear the smoothing effect of the gain. Exactly like old tube amps I used to have when I didn't have a drive pedal.
 
I set the gain (amp) till everything sings but no more because I like to hear the sound of the guitar/pickups and more gain seems to hide a lot of those little nuances. With quantum I've noticed I have to pick a little harder to hear the smoothing effect of the gain. Exactly like old tube amps I used to have when I didn't have a drive pedal.
I completely agree with your approach. But the current discussion is about Input Lexel, not amp gain. Different beast together.
 
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