Solo 100 Lead Model

T

Thenewexhibit

Power User
How are you guys finding the Solo 100 Lead (SLO 100) model in these recent updates? They seem really bloated and dark to me at stock settings. Not saying that's wrong or inaccurate, but just much different from what I remember it being like from the last times I've used this amp. It used to feel tighter and more percussive, and not as "slow" feeling. At stock settings, it even sounds like the DI of the guitar is coming through at times (I don't have any weird routing).

Once again, not saying this is wrong, but seems different from my previous experiences. I can get closer by turning the master way down, to around 2, where as I feel like it used to go to 3-4 and still sound alright. Knobs could generally be around noon with a notch up or down here or there. Not it seems like more tweaking is necessary. From what I've heard in real life, this amp likes to be turned loud for it's tone, but anywhere past 2-2.5 and it seems like it gets very saturated and bloated, so I just follow the input meter and the advice about the meter how when it's approaching 0 headroom that the Power section is saturating. Is this how this amp responds live too? Thoughts? Once again, I'm not complaining; it's just an observation. If this is closer to how the amp responds, I'd love to hear tweaking advice.
 
Boost it
And watch the gain the gain as Freidman says anything over 6 or 6.5 is a fuzz box also as gain goes up bass starts to flub
Even just turn on the input boost
 
IIRC, Justin gave many tips for it...
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/search/6752238/?q="SLO"&c[users]=York+Audio&o=date

For example:
"Treat it like a 4-knob amp with just Gain, Presence, Depth, and Master Volume. There's a ton of tone-shaping tools with just those four knobs.
If you like more mids in your tone, set the Master Volume at 5. If you want to tame some mids and add in a little top end air, slowly turn down the Master Volume. I find the sweet spot usually somewhere around 4.5-ish. Use Depth and Presence as your bass and treble controls. Much like Master Volume, small movements can make a big difference. Once you get the tone where you like it, you can mess with the BMT, but they typically don't need to be tweaked +/- half a notch or so. If you use lower gain settings, try increasing the Supply Sag to bring back some feeling in your fingers."
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...st-cab-pack-kw-412-m25-sh.156603/post-2266279

The wiki may contain others.
 
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baron55 said:
Gotta crank the power amp levels, same with the real amp, the power tube compression is what tames the low-end flub and high-end fizziness.
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I actually started this thread based on the master volume and stock settings because the power amp is distorting so much at stock settings that a PAF style guitar sounds like a thick bloated mess, so turning up the master (at least from stock settings) isn’t the answer at all.

I started this because I remember the amp being different in earlier firmwares. That being said, I know Cliff has done some amazing things with the modeling as far as accuracy, so I’m wondering if this is why things sound so different.

All of this being said, as I said above, using the headroom meter is a great indication of where to set the Master. This lead me to around 2.5 which helped, and turning the treble and presence up to around 6 helped bring brightness back into as well as lowering gain to like 3. It started to sound how I remember.

But the reason I started the thread is because the claim to SLOs is turning the Master up, yet at default settings, it sounds overly saturated, loose, and dark, so I’m just wondering if the Master at default settings is actually considered a “typical” setting, or if the default could actually use a tweak to represent that sonically.

Once again, not complaining; turning down the master, the gain, turning down bass a bit, and turning up treble and presence brought it kind of back to what I remember it being. I’m just wondering if anyone else experiences what I do at default settings for this amp.
 
Lilarcor said:
To me it also seems that it's become pretty lose in the low end. Can't say if that's accurate to the real amp since I don't have any experience with it.
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At default settings, it doesn’t sound like the best representation of the amp, at least from playing one live once, and based on my past experiences of this model in earlier firmwares.

That being said, turning the master down to 2.5, the bass down a bit, the gain down to 3, and the treble and presence to around 6 started to sound really nice and reminded me of what the model sounded like in earlier firmwares where I only had to turn the gain down a bit and maybe the master down a pinch. I could also use some depth back then, but on this recent firmware, I have it down all the way.
 
Brewce said:
IIRC, Justin gave many tips for it...
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/search/6752238/?q="SLO"&c[users]=York+Audio&o=date

For example:
"Treat it like a 4-knob amp with just Gain, Presence, Depth, and Master Volume. There's a ton of tone-shaping tools with just those four knobs.
If you like more mids in your tone, set the Master Volume at 5. If you want to tame some mids and add in a little top end air, slowly turn down the Master Volume. I find the sweet spot usually somewhere around 4.5-ish. Use Depth and Presence as your bass and treble controls. Much like Master Volume, small movements can make a big difference. Once you get the tone where you like it, you can mess with the BMT, but they typically don't need to be tweaked +/- half a notch or so. If you use lower gain settings, try increasing the Supply Sag to bring back some feeling in your fingers."
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...st-cab-pack-kw-412-m25-sh.156603/post-2266279

The wiki may contain others.
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Some of what Justin said in those posts are actually the guidelines I used for dialing that amp in. That’s why I wrote the thread, because you can’t (at least I can’t) get away with the master being at 4.5 at all because it sounds super saturated, dampened, and dark at that setting. I have to drop it down to around 2.5 to actually have it sound like I remember it sounding when I was previously able to run the master at 4.5. That’s why I started the thread to see if anyone else has experienced this and if the new updates to the algorithms is what requires far lower than default master volume levels than previously.
 
Thenewexhibit said:
Some of what Justin said in those posts are actually the guidelines I used for dialing that amp in. That’s why I wrote the thread, because you can’t (at least I can’t) get away with the master being at 4.5 at all because it sounds super saturated, dampened, and dark at that setting. I have to drop it down to around 2.5 to actually have it sound like I remember it sounding when I was previously able to run the master at 4.5. That’s why I started the thread to see if anyone else has experienced this and if the new updates to the algorithms is what requires far lower than default master volume levels than previously.
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There is a video of Leon Todd showing the master on 4 and then the master on 6 or 7 and it gets a lot thicker
I think ultimately if your doing heavy stuff or drip tune SLO needs a boost
 
Randalljax said:
There is a video of Leon Todd showing the master on 4 and then the master on 6 or 7 and it gets a lot thicker
I think ultimately if your doing heavy stuff or drip tune SLO needs a boost
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Got ya! So, if I’m not mistaken (from what I remember last night) the default setting is around the 5 area. I used to drop it to like 4.5 based on how Justin talked about the amp and it worked. In order for it to not sound so thick and bloated (for me) I have to drop it to like 2.5 now. Not too much more above that there, serious saturating kicks in. I could not at all imagine the model being usable at 6-7 on the master. Where I used to put it at 4.5 isn’t even useable anymore (for me personally), where I would be able to use it at 4.5 and it didn’t require a boost; same guitar.

This was the main reason I started this thread. I’m assuming the new tweaks to the algorithms is what is affecting this—once again, I’m not complaining and it’s not a big deal; turning the master down to around 2.5 sounds like 4.5 used to—but at default settings, the headroom meter is maxed out, so I was curious if anyone else has the same pre and post experiences I have had.
 
Thenewexhibit said:
At default settings, it doesn’t sound like the best representation of the amp, at least from playing one live once, and based on my past experiences of this model in earlier firmwares.
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Default settings on the Tone page are pretty much arbitrary for every amp.

They aren't intended to be a "good representation" of the amp.

From everything I have ever read about the SLO-100 is that cranking the MV is key to getting the best results.

And a big reason why most people don't use them unless they're on big stages - because they're incredibly loud at those settings.

Personally, I've never really figured out how to make that model work for me, though ;)
 
unix-guy said:
Default settings on the Tone page are pretty much arbitrary for every amp.

They aren't intended to be a "good representation" of the amp.

From everything I have ever read about the SLO-100 is that cranking the MV is key to getting the best results.

And a big reason why most people don't use them unless they're on big stages - because they're incredibly loud at those settings.

Personally, I've never really figured out how to make that model work for me, though ;)
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Got ya! I thought I read (could be wrong) in the wiki that the Master volume on each model was set to a “typical” setting that people will use the amp at, so at the default setting, I couldn't imagine that being the value just based on the initial sound alone, so that’s kind of what I meant by the representation of the amp. While that default number in real life might look correct on the model, the sound doesn’t seem like it was in earlier firmwares, whereas 4.5 on the master not only seemed like a typical starting point, but also sounded as the expected sound as well, so that’s why I started the thread to see if people were experiencing the same thing.

I thank God for the headroom feature because it’s a great indication of why a model might sound the way it does, and it lead me to bring the master down to 2.5, which sounds like I remember 4.5 sounding.

I’m not sure what guitar or pickups you have, but try the master around 2.5, the gain around 3, bass maybe in the range of 3.5 to 5, mids at 4 to 5, and treble and presence around 6 give or take. Perhaps the amp is just not your thing, but maybe these settings might be kind of fun to mess with! These settings got me closer to what I remember the model sounding like several firmwares ago; perhaps like earlier in the year or last year. I don’t remember needing to tweak the knobs this much in earlier firmwares, but it sounds closer to what I remember this model sounding like with these settings.
 
On the real amp, setting the volume at the 9:00 position is basically full tilt if not more on the real amp, so higher MV settings you are just clipping the power section too hard.

Owned a SLO and built several "SLO Cones" for people, one of most overrated amps ever made.
 
baron55 said:
On the real amp, setting the volume at the 9:00 position is basically full tilt if not more on the real amp, so higher MV settings you are just clipping the power section too hard.

Owned a SLO and built several "SLO Cones" for people, one of most overrated amps ever made.
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Very interesting! I didn’t know 9 o clock was consider getting the power tubes cooking. I feel like I’ve seen people turn it up to 1 or 2 o clock.

What did you not like about the SLO?
 
baron55 said:
On the real amp, setting the volume at the 9:00 position is basically full tilt if not more on the real amp, so higher MV settings you are just clipping the power section too hard.

Owned a SLO and built several "SLO Cones" for people, one of most overrated amps ever made.
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I think I remember Cliff saying he uses smoother taper pot values on master volumes compared to real amps, so your 9 o’clock could very have been his 11 o’clock or so.
 
biggness said:
I think I remember Cliff saying he uses smoother taper pot values on master volumes compared to real amps, so your 9 o’clock could very have been his 11 o’clock or so.
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The interesting thing though (at least in my experience) is that 9 o clock or a little above on the model is where it seems the power amp is cooking but not utterly obliterated like the default value is. I used to be closer to 11 o clock which could be around 4 or 4.5, but 2.5 seems to sound like 4.5 used to, so I’m wondering if the new algorithms for accuracy reflect this.
 
From the wiki...

"Note that the knobs on '5' on the Axe-Fx correspond to '6' on an SLO because they go to 11. 'Noon' on an SLO isn't actually the knobs at half-way. The range of the knobs is like 8:00 to 6:00 as opposed to 7:00 to 5:00. They're biased clockwise."

"The key to an SLO100 is to run the MV high so that the mids thicken up. Otherwise it's a shrill mess. In certain contexts with the right IR it can be a cool sound."

(Also: don't confuse between 9 and 9 o' clock...?)
 
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