Tip on Strong/Fat Clean Tone

LJHood

Member
I usually only post asking for help but this time I thought I'd post something that worked for me so it might work for someone else. One of the biggest problems I have had is getting my clean tone to sound strong and thick in the context of my band (drums, bass, keys and me on guitar). The issue I've been having is that it always sounds like the clean sound is on 1...so overly bright without any weight to it, again in the context of a band.

I play a PRS McCary and for clean, I have been using the Double Verb with master on 10, bass at 4, Mid at 6, Treble at 7 though the Dumble cabs from the Producer pack. I tried cutting treble and adding bass in the tone stack but then I'd lose the sparkly characteristics of the amp that made it fun to play. But as is, there was no balls to the tone via the PA.

What really helped me was adding a PEQ at the end with the following: 250 hz, Q of .350, and 4.5 db boost AND 750 hz, Q of 2.5, 5 db boost. Instantly, it sounded bigger, heavier and sat in the mix much nicer.

The other thing was that I had just a touch of break up in the clean tone, particularly as I dig into the guitar. Again, something that helped it jump out of the mix nicely but without it being perceived by the ear as having any gain.

Now my clean tone is big, fat and sparkly and more importantly, it feels really fun to play. In the end, that's what all of tone chasing is about anyway, just getting it where you are having a ton of fun playing.
 
Thanks for the post.

I really dig that aspect of the AxeFx II. I can just put an EQ at the end of the chain or use the global EQ just like I would in a DAW to carve up my beautiful noises :)
 
Tried this on a JTM 45 patch Ive been fussing with . Works great . fattened it up with no loss of sparkle . And cured these annoying high order harmonics I was getting from my low strings - VRYCowul thanks

I wonder if this would work on a High gain patch I have where the treble is just way over the top, especially on my new FRFR speaker cab ?
 
Tried this on a JTM 45 patch Ive been fussing with . Works great . fattened it up with no loss of sparkle . And cured these annoying high order harmonics I was getting from my low strings - VRYCowul thanks

I wonder if this would work on a High gain patch I have where the treble is just way over the top, especially on my new FRFR speaker cab ?

I tried it on a Splawn patch and it gets pretty bassy/flubby. For some reason it doesn't get that way on the Double Verb. For taming high end, I set the PEQ to have a block at around 6500 hz until I feel that high end has been tamed without killing it too much.
 
Interesting. Where do you place the PEQ on the grid? I'm playing around with it. I'm a Strat player, so the highs needed to be tamed. And the difference isn't dramatic, but I do like what I'm hearing so far. Thanks for the tip - well worth pursuing. If nothing else, you got me to change back to the Twin for my cleans.
 
Try the boost at 750hz (700 usually for me) before the amp. Don't be afraid to broaden the q.

Compressor helps of course too.

Tape distortion block with a gain of 3.3 and level at 7.7 - 8.

On higher gain stuff to kill too much top end, I use the low pass blocking parameter In the peq, I'll go as low as 3k sometimes. There are many ways to handle fizz and harsh top end, this has been the best for me.
 
Back
Top Bottom