Good cleans, dual hum guitar

W

Wildwind

Experienced
Feeling a bit stupid here - been a Strat player far too long.

But I now have a sweet dual hum guitar - Carvin CT3 with DiMarzio 36th Anniversary PAFs (so pretty low output) - that I just can't get to sound right with anything approaching a clean sound. I've tried a bunch of amps, input levels are all the way down, etc. I've cleaned up the amps as far as they'll go, but still get a non-musical distortion and simply can't find a decent clean-ish tone (doesn't have to be pristine - "club clean" would be fine). I am not seeing much more than a tickle of the red LEDs when I try this.

I know y'all are playing your Les Pauls, SGs, and PRSi successfully (heard Scott's PRS in person, sounded amazing).

I have to be missing something and am too new to this to figure it out. Any help?

Thanks - Greg
 
The master volume of the amp? Yes, all the way up. If there's another master somewhere...no shortage of knobs on this thing.
 
Try the Shiva or Usa clean models.

They are the least breakup for my Les Pauls with minimal tweaking.

For the fender models, the new princetone 2 is also minimal breakup (as compared to the stock other fenders already there).

Richard
 
Thanks, will try those things. I was running various clean amps with gains set at 1, master full up. I use the Shiva clean as my main clean Strat patch (and love it), but plug in the Carvin, and it gets real crappy.

I've tried lowering the pickups, raising the pickups, animal sacrifice (well, thinking about it anyway). I have to be missing something. I will try the USA Clean and new Princeton model. The other Fenders aren't working (and I'm mainly a Fender guy).
 
Notes on the Master vol from the user manual (you're probably overdriving the power amp tubes):


MASTER – The almighty Master Volume is a very important control. It determines the amount of distortion
contributed by the power amp simulator, and its setting is key to an amp’s sound. As the Master is turned up,
the entire character of the amp will change. The tone controls will have less influence on the sound, and the
sound will have more “bloom” and touch sensitivity. To prevent volume jumps when changing models, Virtual
“master” settings don’t necessarily correspond to knob positions on the amp being modeled.
With a little experimentation on your favorite Axe-Fx II amps, you will learn to appreciate the qualities of
different DRIVE and MASTER settings and how to find the great tones offered by different combinations.
 If a real amp doesn’t have a Master, begin with the Axe-Fx MASTER at or close to maximum when using
that TYPE. Lower settings can also be used, and can sometimes reduce “harshness.”
 For “Cranked Amp” sound, set the MASTER to 3 o’clock and then slowly bring the drive up until the
desired tone is achieved. At high Master settings, less drive is usually required, especially for high-gain
types. If the Master Volume is set high, reducing the drive control is usually required for “best” results.
 Amps designed for preamp distortion will typically sound better with the MASTER set low to prevent the
tone becoming muddy or excessively noisy. This includes the USA Lead types, SOLO 100, and others.
 Amps with negative feedback (damping greater than zero) tend to have a “crunchier” power amp
distortion, which can get “raspy” if driven too hard. You can experiment with the interactivity of DAMPING
(see Advanced Parameters, below) and MASTER to achieve desired power amp distortion timbres.
 Setting SAG (see below) to zero will disable Power Amp simulation, at which point the MASTER becomes a
simple level control with 40 dB of range.
 
Turn master down. I´ve got the 36th on my Les Paul. No problem to get a clean tone. Master vol at max was the only way to overdrive the amps of the old days :)
 
I've always mainly used both pickups or just the neck pickup and rolled off the volume on the guitar a bit for cleans with dual humbucker guitars... on my clean patches I can easily go into clipping using the bridge pickup...
 
Wildwind said:
Thanks, will try those things. I was running various clean amps with gains set at 1, master full up. I use the Shiva clean as my main clean Strat patch (and love it), but plug in the Carvin, and it gets real crappy.

I've tried lowering the pickups, raising the pickups, animal sacrifice (well, thinking about it anyway). I have to be missing something. I will try the USA Clean and new Princeton model. The other Fenders aren't working (and I'm mainly a Fender guy).
Click to expand...

Your gain is too low and master too high. Try 3 on both and use the "LEVEL" to adjust the volume of the preset, the others are to adjust the tone and breakup.
 
beating a dead horse here, but the high master volume will contribute to power amp distortion. my cleans have the master around 3-5 and gain in the same range as well.

do you understand why high master volume creates the distortion (even on a "clean" amp sim)? if not it's a concept you should know.
 
I disagree, high gain and low master is how to get preamp overdrive. High master and low gain gives the amp maximum headroom.

Old amps didn't have master volumes (they were always maxxed out), but had preamp volume control. In clean amp types such as traditional Fenders the volume really only pushed the power amp into overdrive with less, if any, preamp overdrive.

So choose a traditional clean amp type, set the master to 9, keep the drive low, reduce input trim for even less gain if necessary, bright off or with a low cap value (bright gives you near full drive at higher frequencies, regardless of the drive setting).

The other factor here is your 36th Anniversay PAFs. They're hot PAFs (much like the 490R/498T Gibson pups) with more mid focus. I quite like them for rock tones, but you'll never get anything approaching the spank and "chunk" from a typical single coil pup.

Hope this helps.
 
this is the factory Preset 4 (Double Verb) with the Drive modified to 2.25. My pickup is an Air Zone in the neck with full volume and tone, and I think is a nice clean tone... sorry for the sloppy playing

 
Last edited:
GM Arts said:
I disagree, high gain and low master is how to get preamp overdrive. High master and low gain gives the amp maximum headroom.

Old amps didn't have master volumes (they were always maxxed out), but had preamp volume control. In clean amp types such as traditional Fenders the volume really only pushed the power amp into overdrive with less, if any, preamp overdrive.

So choose a traditional clean amp type, set the master to 9, keep the drive low, reduce input trim for even less gain if necessary, bright off or with a low cap value (bright gives you near full drive at higher frequencies, regardless of the drive setting).

The other factor here is your 36th Anniversay PAFs. They're hot PAFs (much like the 490R/498T Gibson pups) with more mid focus. I quite like them for rock tones, but you'll never get anything approaching the spank and "chunk" from a typical single coil pup.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

^This

Cliff gave a little extra oomph to the master for the models of non-master amps. 10 is too much. 9 = orignal non master.

Would be good to change this to 11, IMO, because 10 = dime... jus sayin :)
 
Well, this goes against what I thought I knew...but several of you were right. Turning the Master way down (to 3 as suggested) did solve the problem. Turning it up like my instincts told me produced that ugly sound.

Many thanks - the guitar sounds very good and now I can build a working patch set for it. I would have never guessed this was the solution and would not have even bothered to try it. Humble grasshopper has much to learn...
 
Yes, you need to think guitar amp with this, not your typical gain staging.
Cranking the master up and driving the power amp stage on tube amps is the sound FAS went for.
This is brilliant.
 
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