Upon Further Review...

[László]

Usually I play with a bit of crunch in my clean tones. In fact, I can't remember the last time a client wanted a truly clean track on a project!

But today I was asked to do a spacey clean part on a piece. I was playing through the clean weapon of choice, the DG30, and the Eventide Space algorithm on the H9. Since I usually set up my DG a certain way, I kind of left it alone and just used the guitar volume to clean up the tone, but during the first take, and the amp sounded pretty clean, but still emitted a crackle here and there. Turned the guitar down some more, but now I had kind of a lean sound I didn't want. Kicked on a compressor, but still a bit lean.

So I tried setting up the amp the way I read that Grissom does it. Dime the master, and bring up the gain (labeled volume on the amp) to get a nice clean sound. I then adjusted the master a little and went back and forth to dial everything in perfectly.

Well, damned if it didn't give me the best clean tone I have ever gotten. I mean, ever. Just gorgeous!

I now feel really, truly stupid for not having done it this way before.

Another "What was Les thinking for the past year?" moment.

 

[JPHoush]

Les,

Are you saying you cannot duplicate the tone with your HX/DA?

 

[Egads]

I had a similar experience with the Sweet 16+ yesterday. I never dime a master volume, because I almost always want that little bit of grit, like you. I did the same, and also tweaked the mids a bit and was blown away by the sparkle and presence. Really impressive amps.

 

[László]

Les,

Are you saying you cannot duplicate the tone with your HX/DA?

Nope.

I'm saying that I got my best clean tone yesterday by dialing in the amp like it was supposed to be worked with by the guys who designed it.

Fact is I've never tried to get a tone this clean with the HXDA.

But the two amps are designed to do fundamentally different things, so there's that difference as well.

I had a similar experience with the Sweet 16+ yesterday. I never dime a master volume, because I almost always want that little bit of grit, like you. I did the same, and also tweaked the mids a bit and was blown away by the sparkle and presence. Really impressive amps.

I agree!

One thing I was going for with this particular track was a certain creaminess in the clean tone, and I got that with The Hammer Of The Gods (my McCarty Singlecut) on the neck pickup. I think it's actually kind of difficult for a clean amp to deliver a tone like this, very full and fat, but at the same time very clean, crisp and defined, with a neck humbucker on an LP style guitar.

Much easier to dial in a single coil tone that does this, in my experience.

I think the point is that there are an awful lot of ways to approach getting a sound with the PRS single channel amps, and each one is worth trying.