I've spent a lot of time (too much...) trying to emulate the classic Hiwatt sound Pete got from his CP103 amps during the 1969-1970 touring years. A few weekends ago I think I finally made a breakthrough.
One key aspect to his tone that I've never seen talked about anywhere on the web (not even on
http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/guitar/ptgear.html, surprisingly) is his use of the volume of the guitar. In order to play the acoustic-like rhythmic passages of Pinball Wizard, Captain Walker, etc I believe he keeps his guitar volume whisper quiet.
As in, turn your guitar volume all the way to OFF, then ever-so-gently roll it up to you get faint volume (at 1 or below on your volume pots). Then, dial up your amp tone and settings from there. Once you get the tone dialed in, you'll notice with your guitar volume set this low that the amp will have an
incredible amount of dynamic response to your playing. Distortion comes naturally as you really dig into the strings, whereas playing gracefully has a chimey clearness to it (think the opening chords of I'm A Boy). Rolling up your guitar volume a bit more now allows you to easily achieve a distortion with decent feedback for heavy leads (think the heavy instrumental jam on Shakin' All Over, in A-major before the Spoonful section). Put a fuzz pedal in front of the amp for the chaotic in-your-face leads. Even with your guitar volume whisper quiet, the volume boost that the fuzz pedal provides will drive your amp into crazy amounts of distortion, tastefully laden with feedback.
I spent a lot of my teenage years and early twenties trying to emulate his tone with little to no success. Only after playing with the guitar volume as described above do I think I've stumbled on the secret. I believe if you watch videos of Pete playing from this era you'll see him messing with his volume a lot throughout the set. I think I can even recall moments where you hear his volume completely drop out then gently rolled back in, which furthers my suspicion.
I'm not at my Axe FX II right now, but when I am I'll post my preset. I spent some time adjusting the character frequency on the DR103, and I paired it with the Fane-loaded Ultrares cab that comes in the samples folder when you download a new firmware (the stock Fane cabinet just didn't sound right to me).
Hope your set went well--I've always wanted to play some Who stuff live, but have never had the pleasure. If you have any recordings of your performance, please share! I'll chime back in on this thread once I'm able to share my preset.
EDIT: Only just noticed after posting that this original thread was started years ago. Oh well, I'll still post my preset soon enough.