there are not tricks, and it's very easy "dial in". did you bother to read the manual on gain staging for the CLR? if it's gain staged properly, that's literally all you have to do, It's one of the flattest speakers around and only puts out what you put in
Consider the possibility that you’re clipping somewhere in your audio path. With both of your CLR’s knobs turned up almost all the way, your Axe-Fx is capable of producing ear-splitting amounts of volume. You could be overdriving the CLR.
I think that's what you have going on.Overdriving the input by setting the input level too high will result in audible clipping.
then you didn't follow itYes, I did read the manual but it never worked properly.
It's pretty easy to find out if the input of the CLR is clipping, just check if the clip LED on the back is lighting up when you play.
For reference, if I set input level at 10 o'clock on my CLRs I can run the ax8 output level at max without clipping it and I have plenty of volume.
Anyway I once had an issue with my CLR, it suddenly started sounding nasty and overdistorted even at low input/output levels, I thought something was broken. But after a while I realized that the link select switch (the one with 1-2-X settings) got stuck in an in-between position, I just had to move it to solve the issue.
From the CLR manual:
I think that's what you have going on.
Heavy EQing is rarely necessary. You may want to start from scratch, dialing in a new preset at volume. Pick an IR that gets you close to the sound you want. I think you’ll find that you don’t have to do that much EQing after all.