Thanks for all the responses guys:
@skolacki - The saturation is purposefully on. The 3 positions are off, on ideal, on authentic. The difference between On ideal, and authentic, is huge. The saturation knob is dialed there because in this particular situation in gave a dusting to all of the notes in an even manner. I am aware of the Triodes being tune-able, I've tried it before, but am still trying to grasp how all of the elements work as a whole. It would be interesting to list under 'Highs" for example, all the potential contributors, i.e. speaker highs, bias in the pwr amp, presence, upper highs, Master vol cap, etc. Just off the top of my head, I'm at work so am going fast.
I thought the Boost switch was also related to the Saturation, I guess not. When it is off however, there still is an effect, you see I have full-OD picked as a boost type, when I switched to Shred as a boost type, there was in fact a change, even with switch turned to off. It was more subtle than with the switch turned to on, but it was there.
Monitors are, at this point in my understanding, easily, the most important part of this whole business. If you are serious, and you want to do recordings or are in a band, invest a ton of time into learning about monitors, go and listen to them using the music you want to create. Even with my limited understanding of monitors I could hear KRK Rokits were so bass heavy. I
just bought Yamaha HR8's, and what you wrote kind of bummed me out. I don't have much money, I put the Yamahas on credit. I've used them for about 5 minutes to check that they work and all the switches work, they do. But what you wrote about the importance of monitors rings true to me. I live in an apt, so neighbors are a consideration, so I thought headphones could be a solution, I read some reviews and people seemed to dig the DT770 pros, I bought them ... oops. I knew right away that they were way too sweet, sold them, did more research and bought ATH R70x, much better, especially the stereo image, but, still too sweet. That's why I get the shock of 'too much hi-end' when I finish doing a session with them, and then listen back through my earbuds, which are pretty good Samsung units. Why'd I pick the Yamaha HS8's. Because I saw a shootout between them and similarly priced JBL's, and KRK's and could hear, even with earbuds that the Yamaha's were reflecting the audio back more neutrally. BUT, I was listening to a shootout, with earbuds! Oops, through a laptops soundcard, 2nd Oops. lol. Only one thing to do, go to a pro audio store and listen to the monitors yourself with the music you listen to.
I'm thinking of the massive amount of hours I've spent tweaking and tweaking and tweaking away, only to realize ... my monitoring was lying to me. Arrrrghhhhhhhhh.
About 10 years ago, all I could afford for monitors were $300 Yorkvilles. Guess what, they were pretty knarly, and I mean that in a good way. I listened to Sheryl Crows "all I wanna do" on them and remember thinking "wow, everything is
right there, like I could touch the damn instrument it was so there" ... I'm reluctant to admit that the Yamahas don't even do this because I might not have a proper understanding of how to use them. ( or, I'm in denial )
True story. A friend of mine is a top-notch musician, he'd send me mixes, and they were pretty good. Then, he sent me a mix, really good, another, really good again, another, really good again, another, really good again? I emailed him and told him, 'man your mixes are really consistent, you're getting good at this!" he wrote back and said he bought some good monitors. Oh.
You. Must. Get. Good. Monitors. if you're serious.