Less headroom on clean fenders?

I will also say that I would prefer a wider range of useable scale on the drive on those fenders, but clean sounds are easily achievable for me.

For a clean bassman the jtm45 does a pretty good job here. You can crank the master and put the drive fairly high before it begins to break up.
 
Lkdog said:
Dunno what to say here.
FWIW- I find the Fenders smooth and clean on my humbucker guitars.
I have to turn the Drive up quite a bit (past 5) with MV at 9 to get real break up or any grind.
I play with a pretty heavy pick attack on single notes, less so on chords.

My pickups on guitars in signature are standard range PAF to slightly hotter bridge pickups.

FWIW.
Click to expand...

At a drive past 5 and a master at 9 the fenders would be really distorted on mine whether I used humbuckers or single coils. I bring my drive down to 2 or 3 and master down to 7 or 8 to get clean.
 
javajunkie said:
At a drive past 5 and a master at 9 the fenders would be really distorted on mine whether I used humbuckers or single coils. I bring my drive down to 2 or 3 and master down to 7 or 8 to get clean.
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Same here, very distorted on single coils (Anderson & Suhr strats). I can't help but wonder if the firmware is acting differently on different Axes or if we all have a different definition of "clean". Or maybe both things going on!

I have found that taking the Sag down below 1 helps too. I was able to bring the MV & drive up a little to where it starts to open up the sound & give it more body. With both set low, the sound is thin & plinky on the high strings for me.
 
javajunkie said:
At a drive past 5 and a master at 9 the fenders would be really distorted on mine whether I used humbuckers or single coils. I bring my drive down to 2 or 3 and master down to 7 or 8 to get clean.
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Yeah- Not sure what to say when I see these threads. Not disagreeing or questioning anyone at all- just not my experience.

I have stock McCarty pickups in my McTrem
Stock Gibson 57's in my Es 335.
WCR Godwood/Crossroads in my Jaros carvetop (LP style chambered doublecutaway).

All get as grindy and nasty as one wants with the medium and higher gain amps.
I had a Mesa F-50 with the 6L6 tubes and have had a Twin Reverb in past.
The FAS Fender models are pretty sweet to my ears. When I had a Strat they were nice and chimey.

I honestly am still in the
holy Shi* phase with V6.

I was not that enthused about some of the amps in the first 50 lineup before V6.
The ODS lead was really nondescript and dull to me for example.
Now I am pretty impressed with almost every amp.
 
notalemming said:
I got those tones for years with just a 73 twin or a 65 bassman & a guitar. period. nothing else except an occasional wah wah. It's in the touch, not the compression. So did many of the other guitarists I played with in the 70s. Nobody could afford much else even if something practical was available. No one was hauling around LA 2As or 1176s or Fairchilds!
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Well.. a Silverface 73 Twin isnt likely modelled in the Axe (what a luck), the Axe is supposed to model a Blackface AB763 circuit (what a luck). Both amps are reacting in a very different way, the 73 has way more "headroom", a Master Volume added, is biased differently, has different trafos, it´s going to be another amp and imho sounds sterile and lifeless.. CBS time
I´ve an AB763 in front of me and the Axe model is spot on.
The good news is that you can tweak the model, I would start lowering the Master to 4-5 and the Sag some.. you will end destroying the Twin character as CBS did..
 
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I never had a fender amp before but I like the new models in V6 and I can get clean sounds with a strat and with my les paul

I used to have a Hiwat, an Ac30, a jtm 45, and a JVM 205h.
For the first time the above models in AFX sound right with V6. I mean Great.
 
Would also be really cool for the guys who desire a certain tone, if the Axe had a block called tonematching so you could recreate pretty much exactly what sound you want.
Oh wait......
Did i miss something...
Darn it...
 
Look the same most of the time

notalemming said:
Not if you want a clean Bassman sound & not another Marshall. Could we have both the typical Bassman & this more unique one?
Click to expand...


If you look at schematics of all fendermodels you will soon see that most of them look the same.
Some times the only differens is output power, type of -number of- tubes ,and the actuall name of the model(and of course the transformers)
.
Deluxe was week probably because it´s a 1-12 combo and there were no speakers that could handle much power back then (I think)

So if you want a really clean "bassman" take the twin (dual verb) ........;)

(Of course you have the older tweed models and some bassman modell that´s a little different but it doesn´t seem to be your cup of tea.)

I have noticed that the master vol needs to come down a bit to clean up the poweramp in FW6.
What I mean is, that I think the preamp isn´t distorting more now, than in 5,07.
 
notalemming said:
Same here, very distorted on single coils (Anderson & Suhr strats). I can't help but wonder if the firmware is acting differently on different Axes or if we all have a different definition of "clean". Or maybe both things going on!

I have found that taking the Sag down below 1 helps too. I was able to bring the MV & drive up a little to where it starts to open up the sound & give it more body. With both set low, the sound is thin & plinky on the high strings for me.
Click to expand...


Why not take away the bright switch as you lower the gain and master and then increase output volume until it´s loud enough.Maybe your string-action on the high strings is a little low.
 
Ole said:
Would also be really cool for the guys who desire a certain tone, if the Axe had a block called tonematching so you could recreate pretty much exactly what sound you want.
Oh wait......
Did i miss something...
Darn it...
Click to expand...

no, tone matching doesn't do anything to the gain. Think of it as a very detailed eq.
 
All that really needs to be done is lower the input gain, drive and master volume down (at various levels depending on the model). This works for me for the Fenders minus the 65 Bassman. I just wouldnt use that for a sparkley clean.

Let take the doubleverb for example. Here is what I noticed. If you take the master down to 2-3 (no chance to overload the power section) and turn up the drive, it stays clean. This tells me the preamp gain stage is not the source of the distortion (at least not directly). In that case It then becomes a balancing act of getting enough compression from the poweramp section w/o going into overdrive. With a drive from 1-3 and a master volume of 7 to 8, I am able to find a useable range.
Things like dynamics, sag, changing bright cap values, xformer match (sets the relative output transformer primary impedance which in turn controls how easily the power tubes are driven into clipping) can all alter this further.

If you want a wider ranger with the drive knob lower the input gain. This reduces the amount a signal going into the input stage. Therefore, You will need to turn up the drive to get the same amount of signal.



 
Wow, didn't think my post would start all of this! I just wanted to make sure the breakup at lower gain was normal. I am still a beginner with axe tweaking and was able to get the best clean patch I ever dialed in on the Axe using 6.0. Not as good as many i have heard from more veteran tweakers but works fine for my needs.

I will hopefully get more tweaking tme this weekend.
 
I just got a few minutes (literally) with the Axe last night & tried some of these suggestions to clean up the Twin & USA Clean 2 amps. I ended up with Gain 2-3 & Master at 8, just like most are suggesting. That stayed clean on everything but a neck humbucker played hard (atypical for me, anyway).

One thing I did do on the Twin was bring the Damping control up in the 4-5 range (defaults at 2, whereas the USA Clean2 defaults at 5). In my short time testing, I liked the Twin with more damping (negative feedback). Sounded punchier & fuller and seemed to give it more headroom.
 
Phostenix said:
I just got a few minutes (literally) with the Axe last night & tried some of these suggestions to clean up the Twin & USA Clean 2 amps. I ended up with Gain 2-3 & Master at 8, just like most are suggesting. That stayed clean on everything but a neck humbucker played hard (atypical for me, anyway).

One thing I did do on the Twin was bring the Damping control up in the 4-5 range (defaults at 2, whereas the USA Clean2 defaults at 5). In my short time testing, I liked the Twin with more damping (negative feedback). Sounded punchier & fuller and seemed to give it more headroom.
Click to expand...

All these things help getting rid of most of the distortion including lowering the sag to less than 1 but it also negatively affects the overall tone. Maybe as a compromise, Cliff could give us back an additional doubleverb from the V5 era. Call it the doubleclean & be a beast of a twin that is hard to distort. The one in V6 is just too early to distort & ends up with similar break up characteristics as the other Fender sims. Is this possible Cliff???
 
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The Double Verb is UNCHANGED from V5 except for the level from preamp to power amp. Simply reducing the Master slightly will replicate the V5 behavior.
 
notalemming said:
All these things help getting rid of most of the distortion including lowering the sag to less than 1 but it also negatively affects the overall tone. Maybe as a compromise, Cliff could give us back an additional doubleverb from the V5 era. Call it the doubleclean & be a beast of a twin that is hard to distort. The one in V6 is just too early to distort & ends up with similar break up characteristics as the other Fender sims. Is this possible Cliff???
Click to expand...

As we have derailed into the wish list... :)

If you put up a poll in the wish list, a Twin might not be the best circuit choice for clean high headroom Fenders.

I personally think the 70's Dual Showman Reverb is the loudest, highest headroom, clean to the end Fender (cicuit is AC568 or AA768 can't remember?)

I'm guessing other folks would have other ideas besides the Twin also.

Richard
 
Phostenix said:
I just got a few minutes (literally) with the Axe last night & tried some of these suggestions to clean up the Twin & USA Clean 2 amps. I ended up with Gain 2-3 & Master at 8, just like most are suggesting. That stayed clean on everything but a neck humbucker played hard (atypical for me, anyway).

One thing I did do on the Twin was bring the Damping control up in the 4-5 range (defaults at 2, whereas the USA Clean2 defaults at 5). In my short time testing, I liked the Twin with more damping (negative feedback). Sounded punchier & fuller and seemed to give it more headroom.
Click to expand...

The Twin defaults to a damping of 5. Are you using the editor? I'm wondering if this is the source of some of these problems.
 
Phostenix said:
I just got a few minutes (literally) with the Axe last night & tried some of these suggestions to clean up the Twin & USA Clean 2 amps. I ended up with Gain 2-3 & Master at 8, just like most are suggesting. That stayed clean on everything but a neck humbucker played hard (atypical for me, anyway).

One thing I did do on the Twin was bring the Damping control up in the 4-5 range (defaults at 2, whereas the USA Clean2 defaults at 5). In my short time testing, I liked the Twin with more damping (negative feedback). Sounded punchier & fuller and seemed to give it more headroom.
Click to expand...

The Twin defaults to a damping of 5. Are you using the editor? I'm wondering if this is the source of some of these problems.
 
I just chose the twin as it is the most powerful one in the Axe & would seem to be the cleanest one. A dual showman would be great too! At this point, any version of a real clean Fender would make me happy. I have tried lowering MVs & gains, input trims & pretty much everything else I can think of. The issue for me is, while I can get most of the distortion out, it doesn't sound as good tone wise. The tone of the default setting is great, it just distorts way too easily with any medium to aggressive picking attack which was not happening in any version prior to V6. I don't use Axe Edit so that is not the issue for me. I did go from 5.04 to 6.0 so I don't no if there is some corruption issue. All I can say is the twin in my Axe acts more like it's got 40 year old tubes & a half fried transformer.
 
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