"Best" clean Fender (or similar) tones

W

Wildwind

Experienced
My band is down one guitarist for a while - he usually plays acoustic or clean electric. I will need to go away from some of my usual tones and use clean electric tones more than usual.

There are so many great amps in the II - I'm very curious what you guys are loving. I like the Super Reverb a lot. I changed to the Twin for last weekend and it didn't seem to do the job as well, though it sounded great at home. I strongly favor Fender cleans, but will consider any other amps that product strong clean tones.

By clean - I don't mean squeaky clean. I always dial in a bit of hair (and have an OD on tap if needed for some hair extensions).

Guitars are various Strats, tending toward vintage tones. Music is p&w, but it's contemporary - classic rock, pop, and country tones, just to give a reference - and my guitar is featured heavily in many of our songs (keys are featured at times).

Maybe too vague - but I'm about to do some tweaking for Thursday and Sunday. FW is 9.02. I know FW 10 will change a lot of things, but unless it shows up in the next day or two, I need to get this done by Thursday.

Thanks for your suggestions.
 
I do a lot of clean Tele tones. Been loving the Bassman, Twin, Deluxe, Vox 30 and yes the Super and the Vibro. All of the above have some great "hair" with a little more drive around 6:00 or so. Also, try turning on the boost. I like the Ownhammer IR's original beta 2x12 Shiva with JBB and/or 12CN (? going by memory). I also like lots of compression, after the amp, before the cab (country style suggestion I picked up from someone here, sorry can't give credit because I don't remember atm).

Bottom line, plenty of cleans. Once I got a template I liked (drive - amp - comp - cab - efx - delay/verb), then I just save a bunch of presets with the same template and switch out the amp/cab.
 
I like the Plexi normal with bright sw ON & Plexi Treble with bright sw OFF. The Brit JM45 is also great for cleans. Pretty much all the Fender sims can be made squeaky clean but some need more work than others to get there. Drop the input trim in the adv. page & if you are using a compressor, make sure to lower the level so it is the same volume bypassed as it is on so as not to overdrive the input of the amp.
 
I like the fender, shiver.... but the Boutique1 is a brigt sounding very nice one. Try the "blulb clean (shiver) preset and switch to the Boutique1 amp. Adjust the amount of delay for taste... very shimmering clean .... me like!
 
I am liking the new Fender amps as well but just really keep coming back to the JTM 45. Clean, not sterile but smooth.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
 
Totally awesome Shiva clip, Sean. I don't think it's too clean, not with that much body. I used Shiva for a while, was thinking about trying it again. As for the others - thanks. I'll explore your suggestions and respond more later. Switch on.
 
This is going to be tough! To choose, that is. I have tried all your suggestions. Current front runners (which will no doubt change without notice) are the Vibroverb and Vox AC30TB. The Vibroverb felt like a Super with a slightly different attitude - very nice! The Vox surprised me - I have never dialed in a Vox tone that I cared for. No particular reason - never owned one, have plugged into one maybe twice.

But when I swapped the Vibroverb for the AC30TB in the patch, I found myself playing it at length. I swapped cabs from my usual RW Fender cabs (4x10 Bassman and 2x12 JBL) to the Vox Blue and Silver. I played with the mics a bit (tried without - lost too much flavor IMO) and like what I'm hearing so far.

I'm going to let my ears clear out and try some more. I was also super impressed with the Hiwatt and Shiva. I will revisit them. But right now, I think I'll create a bank of clean tones and try them Thursday night with the band.

So one more question - I want an OD with essentially the same tone but with a bit more edge. The AC30TB seems to dislike most of the built-in ODs - most change the tone completely and drive too hard. Logic told me to try the Xotic AC Boost - after playing with the knobs, I'm getting pretty close, will find out more when I play with some tracks prior to Thursday. So any advice there for a drive that meets my description?

FWIW, I'm not using scenes, haven't gotten that far yet. And I don't have room in my usual basic five patches to use the same amp with more drive, though I might make room. Again, something to try. I will take the time to learn scenes here soon (waiting for FW10 and need to update my MFC).

Thanks everyone - Greg
 
Wildwind said:
So one more question - I want an OD with essentially the same tone but with a bit more edge. The AC30TB seems to dislike most of the built-in ODs - most change the tone completely and drive too hard. Logic told me to try the Xotic AC Boost - after playing with the knobs, I'm getting pretty close, will find out more when I play with some tracks prior to Thursday. So any advice there for a drive that meets my description?
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Greg, if you just want a bit more hair, you could use the Tape Drive, set its drive to 6 and level at 6-7, adjust lo/hi-cut to taste. Same with the FET Boost. Now, maybe the best thing you can do is to try putting a PEQ before the amp, using something simple like +3dB @ 700-800Hz, Q~0.707, blocking below 120Hz and above 6kHz, and then set level to taste.
Or something more specific, along the lines of Scott Peterson's idea: set the PEQ center frequency at the same as the Vox tone stack, boost it, and at half and double of that center frequency, boost it just a little, using a narrower Q.
 
Interesting thought on the Tape Drive, hadn't considered that. And I forgot about Scott's idea. Thanks will try those. Using ODs, the Vibroverb seems easier to set up. Right now it's the FET Boost, which seems to be doing almost exactly what I need. Right now I'm leaning toward the Vibroverb, which has responded to my tweaking.
 
flyingfadr said:
The AC30 Top boost is lust-worthy... especially with a stereo chorus mixed in... OMG !!!!
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I have been messing with this lately, I set up a low drive setting 9:30ish, master around 2:30 and set up an I/A for the boost when you want to go into another territory. Setup effect to taste... I wound up adding 1.5 dB in the EQ section of the amp @ 500k and .75dB @1k.
 
The Tape Drive is a bit more compressed than the FET Boost, and I feel it gives a fuller character, I usually set it its lo-cut from 150Hz-250Hz; try the clipping settings, Silicon/HV tube sound nice. Actually, I like to leave the Tape Drive on, and have the PEQ after it, so that I have an additional boost, without changing the amp's core tone.

Since you've mentioned that you like your cleans to have some hair, one combination I came across yesterday sounded very pleasing with a Strat - Plexi treble, with Top Boost tone stack, gives glassy and round clean-semi-dirty tones. 4x12 G12H RW R121 stock cab, with the G12M 20 RW stock cab. I was looking for some Blackmore MkII tones, like these: Deep Purple - No No No (Studio Rehersal Beat Club Take 2) HD - YouTube
 
iggypop said:
The Tape Drive is a bit more compressed than the FET Boost, and I feel it gives a fuller character, I usually set it its lo-cut from 150Hz-250Hz; try the clipping settings, Silicon/HV tube sound nice. Actually, I like to leave the Tape Drive on, and have the PEQ after it, so that I have an additional boost, without changing the amp's core tone.

Since you've mentioned that you like your cleans to have some hair, one combination I came across yesterday sounded very pleasing with a Strat - Plexi treble, with Top Boost tone stack, gives glassy and round clean-semi-dirty tones. 4x12 G12H RW R121 stock cab, with the G12M 20 RW stock cab. I was looking for some Blackmore MkII tones, like these: Deep Purple - No No No (Studio Rehersal Beat Club Take 2) HD - YouTube
Click to expand...

Try also the top boost tone stack with the Spawn Nitrous (Splawn Nitro) model. The Splawn model is based on KT88s like the Marshall Majors, that Ritchie was using.
 
Shiva is too clean for me. Vibroverb too dark.

My #1 is Super Reverb.

Also like the 59 Bassman for ultra clean, and /13 (single coils only).

Fw 10 will bring the CAE clean, improved Twin, Vibrolux, Dumble clean....
 
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