Rediscovered CA3+ Clean. What's your fav clean?

The most satisfying clean to me is the Archon Clean, switched to the Brit 4x12 Greenbacks Speaker Impedance Curve, with my 24 fret superstrat neck humbucker split to outer coil: Bright On, Gain and MV close to dimed. Reduce Input Trim and guitar volume knob until it’s just clean enough. Turn up Bass and Depth to get it sound like it’s compressing and collapsing on its own weight with cowboy chords. Increase Presence for brilliance. Decrease Treble on amp and tone knob on guitar to avoid harshness. Mid for body. My go to IR is Factory Bank 1, #811, the Brownface Super with a 57 in front of it.

To me this clean has a “shimmer” to it that’s very alive sounding, without having to add chorus. It’s also great for blues if I increase the guitar volume knob, with the tone knob to taste.
 
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The most satisfying clean to me is the Archon Clean, switched to the Brit 4x12 Greenbacks Speaker Impedance Curve, with my 24 fret superstrat neck humbucker split to outer coil: Bright On, Gain and MV close to dimed. Reduce Input Trim and guitar volume knob until it’s just clean enough. Turn up Bass and Depth to get it sound like it’s compressing and collapsing on its own weight with cowboy chords. Increase Presence for brilliance. Decrease Treble on amp and tone knob on guitar to avoid harshness. Mid for body. My go to IR is Factory Bank 1, #811, the Brownface Super with a 57 in front of it.

To me this clean has a “shimmer” to it that’s very alive sounding, without having to add chorus. It’s also great for blues if I increase the guitar volume knob, with the tone knob to taste.

That sounds good with my AirNorton S neck on humbucker mode. It doesn't sound so good when I split it, but I made a mistake on the wiring and I am splitting the inner coil.

It is too nasty when I increase the guitar vol. I have to work on that.

I attach the preset
 

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That sounds good with my AirNorton S neck on humbucker mode. It doesn't sound so good when I split it, but I made a mistake on the wiring and I am splitting the inner coil.

It is too nasty when I increase the guitar vol. I have to work on that.

I attach the preset

Oh Man, that’s cool that you actually tried this! I’m buried with work and can’t play for a little while, but I’ll be trying your preset as soon as I can. I’m curious to hear how it hits my guitar.

Very cool!

I feel like presets are a delicate territory, that it’s the easiest thing in the world for my neck to make your preset sound like crap, or your pick to make mine sound thin, or my whatever to make your preset just sound weird. It’s part of the mystery and promises and joy of each guitar, where you have to really work to unlock its secrets, but someone else’s presets is just the key to that guitar in that context with that player, and it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, but the interesting part is, when does it translate, and how? What was the thought behind that tone? Did presence mean harsh, or did it mean brilliant on that guitar? Was treble another term for shitty upper mids, or was it just an upper cut of definition from a prize fighter? This is how I’m always seeing it.

And the fact that what I wrote worked well for your series but not your split is so cool and weird, and just goes to show how much your guitar is dictating just what he or she needs, and how well you’re obliging. For me the series was just muddy and annoying mids I could not lose, but low output on the split was magic. And I’m using these weird asymmetric humbuckers made by Awesome Guitars, made to split differently for each coil, which they do. But I always go to the outer, telling me I’d just be happier with a noiseless single coil. Sometimes you don’t really know who you are until later in life.

I’m rambling, but I’m just getting over brutal food poisoning, so this helps exorcise the demon.
 
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That sounds good with my AirNorton S neck on humbucker mode. It doesn't sound so good when I split it, but I made a mistake on the wiring and I am splitting the inner coil.

It is too nasty when I increase the guitar vol. I have to work on that.

I attach the preset

Oh, I have no idea if you care about this at all, but I used this awesome GuitarNuts2 forum members wiring, where you use two mini switches, one three way and one two way, to give you series, parallel, inner split, and outer split. I used to have it for both humbuckers, but I realized I never liked the splits or the parallel on the bridge:

https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/6008/series-parallel-switch-north-south
 
Oh, I have no idea if you care about this at all, but I used this awesome GuitarNuts2 forum members wiring, where you use two mini switches, one three way and one two way, to give you series, parallel, inner split, and outer split. I used to have it for both humbuckers, but I realized I never liked the splits or the parallel on the bridge:

https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/6008/series-parallel-switch-north-south

I'm using this diagram that I made myself.
HSH Wiring 1.jpg

I've made I mistake. When split-switch is at position B, and 5-way switch at position 1 (neck) [the current positions at the schematic] I am selecting the neck pup South Pole (white/green wires) instead of the North Pole (red/black wires).

I shall swap white/black, but then it may not be noise-cancelling at position 2 with the mid pickup, so I'll have to rethink all the wiring again.
 
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Not always, but a lot of my presets have scenes with amps from the same family at different gain levels and textures. In that context, I often use a clean amp from that same family for clean. That's partly for cohesiveness across scenes, and partly so different presets have different sorts of cleans.

Many amps do cool clean and reads-as-clean slightly dirty tones.
 
I shall swap white/black, but then it may not be noise-cancelling at position 2 with the mid pickup, so I'll have to rethink all the wiring again.

Very versatile setup there; I like it. I guess you could see about the opposite wind and polarity for the middle, but then the bridge split is the issue. You’re right about a reconceptualization. If possible, just get an HSH ZexCoil set, and you can wire every possibility noise free.
 
The most satisfying clean to me is the Archon Clean, switched to the Brit 4x12 Greenbacks Speaker Impedance Curve, with my 24 fret superstrat neck humbucker split to outer coil: Bright On, Gain and MV close to dimed. Reduce Input Trim and guitar volume knob until it’s just clean enough. Turn up Bass and Depth to get it sound like it’s compressing and collapsing on its own weight with cowboy chords. Increase Presence for brilliance. Decrease Treble on amp and tone knob on guitar to avoid harshness. Mid for body. My go to IR is Factory Bank 1, #811, the Brownface Super with a 57 in front of it.

To me this clean has a “shimmer” to it that’s very alive sounding, without having to add chorus. It’s also great for blues if I increase the guitar volume knob, with the tone knob to taste.

Thanks much for this!
It is a different approach than the rest of the cleans I have tried and it works great for certain styles. It combined well with a clean boost version of the Klon hack (FET Boost that Yek came up with). I also used a PEQ block to kill the specific harsh frequencies because it killed less of the "shimmer."
 
I tried the CA3 last night through phones. It sounds very good but I’m sticking to the Band Commander and AC20 for cleans, which I don’t set up too clean to begin with.
 
Thanks much for this!
It is a different approach than the rest of the cleans I have tried and it works great for certain styles. It combined well with a clean boost version of the Klon hack (FET Boost that Yek came up with). I also used a PEQ block to kill the specific harsh frequencies because it killed less of the "shimmer."

Ah, very cool ideas; I’ve never tried the Klon hack for anything, so I’ll definitely have to give that a try. For the PEQ, where did you place it in the chain? Also, just out of curiosity, what pickup type did this sound good with?
 
I bounce between a handful of 'em:
BF PrinceTone Rev
59 Bassguy
Delux Verb
Supro
AC15TB
Plexi1970

Not being in the metal crowd, my cleans are generally a little pushed sounding, with the bounce that comes from power tubes and power supply being barely able to hold onto cleanliness, rather than hyper-clean like a MkIV, Archon, Soldano, etc.
 
I’ve been “stuck“ on the Div/13 FT37 for a couple of days now, and can’t comprehend why it took me as long as it did to really dive into it. Amazing clean and EoB tones to be had with both the Strat and the Les Paul, takes dirt pedals well and just in general really tickles my tone bone and brings a smile to my face when playing.
 
Bandcommander all the way, with a compressor up front. I like a bit of drive too, so if you really dig it has a tiny bit of dirt. Can’t help myself I guess.
 
Ah, very cool ideas; I’ve never tried the Klon hack for anything, so I’ll definitely have to give that a try. For the PEQ, where did you place it in the chain? Also, just out of curiosity, what pickup type did this sound good with?
I put the PEQ at the end of the chain after cabs, etc. I exclusively use a strat neck pickup for cleans.

For the "Klon," I balanced its drive with amp input trim and guitar volume to to get to my desired clean tone. I tried to replace the Klon with a fuzz face, but I never managed to dial in a clean enough clean that got to my desired crunch when the guitar volume was dimed.
 
Not sure I have a favourite but I've been really enjoying the Mesa Mk 4 cleans recently.

Any of the blackface style amps on the edge of breakup sound fantastic. Don't love them when they start to get more dirty though. If I want to push more into the mid-gain territory my go to is a dimed plexi.
 
A while ago I discovered the PVH 6161+Clean, which gives me with all my guitars a warm round sound. And when I want even more body, I switch on Fat and a saturation of 1.500.
 
5F8 Tweed Bright (HPTT) - strat bridge pickup
BF Prince Tone Reverb - strat neck

Both models with a YA 2x10 Vibrolux Cab.


UPDATE...

Well like most others here, I came around to the Band Commander in the end with a light touch of compression in front.
 
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