Am I crazy? Setting my INSTR IN slightly hotter sounds better to me . . .

Alabama man

Alabama man

Inspired
I'm running a Fender Modern Telecaster Plus (Stock pickups) - It has a humbucker in the bridge and I set my INSTR IN to that pickup. Here's the thing: When I set my INSTR IN to where it's basically tickling the red lights, everything's fine. That's at around 49-50. However, after experimenting I found 57.3 to be the special number for this guitar.

Maybe I'm just hearing things, but everything "grinds" a little harder and has more edge to it.

What say ye?
 
hmm, that difference in the input setting shouldn't make much change, if any at all. extreme settings or changes might, like turning all the way up to 100 or down to 0 or so. as said above, it it works, then cool.

curious, do the input LEDs on the front panel show a difference between 50 and 57?
 
I think you could be limiting/clipping your signal a little bit.
Maybe you just like the sound of that.
Only if you have hot pick-ups I think.
Anyway, I'm not sure....
 
Chris@AxeFxTutorials said:
hmm, that difference in the input setting shouldn't make much change, if any at all. extreme settings or changes might, like turning all the way up to 100 or down to 0 or so. as said above, it it works, then cool.

curious, do the input LEDs on the front panel show a difference between 50 and 57?
Click to expand...

The input LEDs do tickle more, but they're not on with every hit. It's a little easier for them to show at 57.3 vs 45-50. The only way I can explain it is that things sound slightly duller and palm muting is slightly more woofy with a lower number.

I'm going to have to mess with this again and make sure I'm not drinking any koolaid.
 
A few years ago, after updating firmware and doing a system reset, I thought things sounded off then realized I hadn't set the input level back to where I keep it (usually around 74) which fixed the issue. So I think it makes a difference too, but everyone says it doesn't?
 
Alabama man said:
The input LEDs do tickle more, but they're not on with every hit. It's a little easier for them to show at 57.3 vs 45-50. The only way I can explain it is that things sound slightly duller and palm muting is slightly more woofy with a lower number.

I'm going to have to mess with this again and make sure I'm not drinking any koolaid.
Click to expand...

I tickle my reds a lot with my hottest pickup guitar - but just leave the Instr In set at that for all my other guitars - a couple of them faintly tickle red and some just get to the yellows. As I recall Cliff chimed in on a post or 2 in the past saying when the reds briefly light up there's still a bit of leeway before you actually get the nasty clipping - so as long as they are not permanently on and you don't hear any clipping artifacts you should be ok.

You could experiment with comparing the 'VU' meter output readings with different Instr In settings to see if there's any significant additional gain showing up.

In probably every YT vid of the AxeFX being demo'd I've seen I've yet to see anyone actually tickling them when playing ..... some sort of red phobia or just averting smarmy 'you're clipping' comments for the video maybe :)
 
You aren't the only one. I've noticed a difference too. My guitars only hit the red when I pick really hard, but it doesn't stay lit up. I think my setting was on 68.8 or something like that when I checked the other day. I backed it down to 50.2 and tried it out. It sounded slightly different. On the lower setting my leads didn't feel/sound as liquidy, kinda like it was muffled somewhat. Played for a few minutes last night with it set on 50 and still had the same impression. Bumped it back up to 68.8 and it was super fluid sounding again. It wasn't a major difference, but it was enough to feel and hear slightly. Maybe I'm crazy too.. lol
 
Count me in (on the placebo effect? :) ).

It feels different to me at lower levels.

I don't use the "tickle the reds" technique. I just load up a preset I know really well and start raising the input 1 level until I get where I want it by feel.
 
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