High gain amps that clean up with volume knob

kevrock

kevrock

Experienced
I know this has been asked. But I can't find the thread. I mainly use the hbe sim for my gain sounds. What high gainers can clean up with volume knob. And what's the correct way to go about setting the amp to do this? Thanks for any help.
 
I feel like those High Gain Monsters (5150's, Diezels) don't have that huge dynamic range. I'd rather grab a plexi 100 or a Vox AC30. Much more dynamic in my opinion.
 
I play a Rockerverb (actual amp as well) the Axe Citrus cleans up nearly as well as the real deal, dime the gain and add a tubescreamer, bobs your uncle.
 
Brit 800s, All the plexis, Mesa, trainwrecks, Fenders with drive/boost in the front......to name a few. Some mid gain amps are ideal as well.

Assuming you have the Master at optimum setting for the drive sound you are after,......Set the drive roughly to where you want it with your volume knob dimed. Roll back your volume pot to a setting you want it to clean up (between 6 and 8 maybe). Roll back and adjust the drive to the sweet spot that gives you the amount of clean you desire. Home in and fine tune the tone more with the input trim and/or Master. If you overdo the drive and gain settings there won't be any significant "play" on your volume knob.

You want to have the drive give you what you want.....but compromise is sometimes called for. You want the drive to be right at the very edge of what you will need....and no more when your volume pot is dimed. If it doesn't cleanup satisfactorily then roll back the drive some more and other gain related parameters.
 
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Pretty much exactly what Reclavea posted.

I use the Brit 800 for this and it works brilliantly. You can roll back the volume and get crispy cleans, then push it to 10 for a nice Marshall sound. I also use scene 2 to enable the Boost feature (i.e. X/Y switching) if I wanted even more gain, but in the end don't go there that much.
 
I'm not sure if all of those amps that have been mentioned are that high gain. For me at least high gain means something that works for metal without a boost.

Rectos belong to this category but remember to have the gain around noon. It is enough for metal but still cleans up nicely. Rockerverb works in a similar way but I'm not sure if the Orange clean sound is desirable. (Don't get me wrong, I've owned real Orange amps and love them.) I haven't experimented much with this but IIRC Fryettes have a huge dynamic range in the Axe-Fx. Goes from ultra clean to super high gain... I'm not completely sure since I haven't played them since I had an Ultra. :)
 
In my experience when you roll back it will never be squeaky clean.

I always lighten way up on my pick attack. In this mode, with the gtr volume rolled back, it can still get distorted when you pick or strum hard.
 
Another thing to consider is the pickups, I have a Les Paul Studio, and a Les Paul with PAFs (CC#02) - the Studio for some reason never cleans up when I roll the volume back, but with the same patches my CC#02 does this beautifully.
 
Any Marshall Plexi or 800
Suhr Badger
Ruby Rocket
Liverpool
Wrecker
AC30Hot
FTR37 Hi
work well for me.

As others have commented already, none of those is high gain, though. I never got great results with any high gain amp...
 
I use the hbe as my main rhythm sound. Gain is at like 9 or 10 o'clock and master is pretty low. I can't get it to clean up at all.
 
kevrock said:
I use the hbe as my main rhythm sound. Gain is at like 9 or 10 o'clock and master is pretty low. I can't get it to clean up at all.
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Question has been asked already - what guitar are you using? Only those listed in your signature? As far as I know most of them have active EMG's or so... I would not expect them to show that much of a difference when rolling back the volume knob...
 
parlopower said:
Question has been asked already - what guitar are you using? Only those listed in your signature? As far as I know most of them have active EMG's or so... I would not expect them to show that much of a difference when rolling back the volume knob...
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I'm with Parlopower.
EMGs do not react well to volume pot manipulation. You'll definitely want a set of medium output passives if you want to get anywhere with metal amps. I moved from EMGs to high output passives, and only after moving to medium output (plus boosts) did I really get into coaxing a purr instead of a roar out of the high gain amps.
 
In my opinion using guitar's volume pot won't give great clean tone. If you roll down volume pot you decreasing signal from pickups and this have a huge, negative influence on your tone.

If you want to get the best effect possible, get the expression pedal and assign it to the gain knob in the amp block.
 
One simple Idea would be that with master volume at high settings you will ger fatter tone at high levels, and clearer, opened up sounds when signal decreases. That should probably be the case with any amp. I guess you also could use the multiband comp to achive this (but that´s boring, i think) .
Or maybe use a filter that is controlled by envelope.


kevrock said:
I know this has been asked. But I can't find the thread. I mainly use the hbe sim for my gain sounds. What high gainers can clean up with volume knob. And what's the correct way to go about setting the amp to do this? Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
 
Forgot the mention , you can also set the in-imp on the axe fairly low, 120 k ohm or 68 k ohm .This will eat up your treble att full guitar vol. You will get the treble back when you turn down guitar volume. BUT ! this will only work if your guitar goes straight into the axe-input with nothing else in the chain.
kevrock said:
I know this has been asked. But I can't find the thread. I mainly use the hbe sim for my gain sounds. What high gainers can clean up with volume knob. And what's the correct way to go about setting the amp to do this? Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
 
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