My Tone Journey With The DG30 Amplifier

So Les
All this changing amps thing is so hard I am such a creature of habit , I have always like to play at the lowest SPL I could and get my sound.

First impressions are this amps control work differently than any of my current or past amps and for 30 watts this thing can be LOUD with a ton of low end thump and a very strong attack even with the presence turned all the way down more experimenting tonight :)

Questions ???

How loud do you typically have a play to get the sound you like ??

When you say Cabs matter I have a V30 loaded PRS Deep Stealth cab at the moment and I really like the sound it with my H or Boogie should I be looking elsewhere for a longer term solution
 
Rider1260 said:
So Les
All this changing amps thing is so hard I am such a creature of habit , I have always like to play at the lowest SPL I could and get my sound.

First impressions are this amps control work differently than any of my current or past amps and for 30 watts this thing can be LOUD with a ton of low end thump and a very strong attack even with the presence turned all the way down more experimenting tonight :)

Questions ???

How loud do you typically have a play to get the sound you like ??

When you say Cabs matter I have a V30 loaded PRS Deep Stealth cab at the moment and I really like the sound it with my H or Boogie should I be looking elsewhere for a longer term solution
Click to expand...

The DG may not be suited to your situation. I’ve said many times on this forum that it isn’t a bedroom amp. It’s a pro amp, with everything that implies.

The amp clearly was built to work best as a traditional, non-Master volume, single channel amp. Because the design of the Master is (I believe) pre-phase inverter, it’s unlike most amps with master volume controls.

It’s designed to be controlled with the guitar volume, and it’s very responsive to that. Set it up so the amp starts to go into light crunch with the guitar volume at 6, and you’ll have a lot of control.

However, if you don’t run it in Boost mode, and you don’t crank the gain too high, it’s a normal volume 30 Watt amp, no louder than most.

Only if you have to crank up the gain around 2/3 to 3/4, should the master come into play. Otherwise, set it high.

The amp sounds much better with an open or ported back cab. It’s designed for it. The Grissom cab is the perfect match, with its double open ports in the rear. The H and Boogie are different types of amps than the DG. Horses for courses. A closed back cab is definitely not the right choice. I have the PRS Big Mouth deep closed back cab, and the DG sounds, well, not its best with it. Yet with the HXDA, the Big Mouth deep cab is terrific.

Here’s the thing: The DG is similar to a highly tuned race car. It’s designed to run a certain way, with specific tires and fuel.

There’s a treble cut control that works like an AC30’s on the rear panel. Make use of it, especially with the closed back cab. After doing that play with the presence control.

Turn the bass down if there’s too much with that cab. But keep in mind that the cab designed to go with the amp is a better choice by far, and has a much more balanced sound with that amp, because the amp and cab are a system.

I had my DG a while before I got the matching cab, and didn’t grok the amp nearly as well until I got the cab. Then it all fell into place.
 
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When I heard this I had / have hope , I had a bit more luck with it tonight going back for another go , it takes me awhile to retrain my ears to a different sound this amp is VERY present and percussive compared to anything I have played before , in the right hands I can see killer tones.



 
Rider1260 said:
When I heard this I had / have hope , I had a bit more luck with it tonight going back for another go , it takes me awhile to retrain my ears to a different sound this amp is VERY present and percussive compared to anything I have played before , in the right hands I can see killer tones.



Click to expand...

Note that in that video, he has the gain all the way up and the master low; this is exactly what I was talking about. When the gain is high, the master works well.

Honestly, I’m getting my best tone ever out of it. The overdrives you make should be a stellar combination with the amp as well.
 
Thanks Les - I am enjoying this adventure , pushing my tonal sensibilities bit.
Last night was difficult again but better spent a bunch of time just turning knobs and this afternoon a breakthrough :) first the guitar grabbed the Brushstroke 24 love 408 pickups when Im trying to figure things out.
I still want to play at a lowish level SOooo
Vol 4
Master 2
Treble is around 7
Mid at 5 ( mid )
Bass 3
Bright off
Boost ON ( Just like the amp better in boost so far )
Presence is pretty low ( thats pretty normal for me )
Top Cut is at the mid point right now

Set like this roll off the guitar to 6-7 nice rhythm with just a touch of hair roll to 9-10 for some mid overdriven tones
then I set a few pedals to add more and more drive

Like Les said with this amp and this cab there is a BUNCH of bottom actually a bunch of everything it very real sounding so to speak very out front even with the presence set almost off
Hoping to get a clip recorded tonight
I'm having a blast
Thanks for the push Les
 
My most recent DG30 settings are:

Volume: 10am
Master: 3pm(but it should run wide open as we all know, right?)
Treble: 1pm
Middle: 11am
Bass: 1pm
Bright: Off
Boost: OFF
Presence: Off
Top Cut: 11am

Going thru a DG Custom cabinet with a WGS Veteran 30 and a ET65 pair. (The original Vintage 30's are long gone...they just had these weird overtones/speaker wobble at certain frequencies).
 
Rider1260 said:
Last night was difficult again but better spent a bunch of time just turning knobs and this afternoon a breakthrough :) first the guitar grabbed the Brushstroke 24 love 408 pickups when Im trying to figure things out.
Click to expand...

By strange coincidence, I was using the 20th PS Anniversary with the 408 pickups this afternoon! Great match for the amp, in my rarely-humble, overblown opinion. ;)

I don’t know why, maybe it’s just what I’ve been working on lately, but after nearly 4 years, the DG has become the amp I turn to most often.

It took me a while to truly “get” what the amp can do. If you stick with it, and get to know its many voices, you might find that it’s a very rewarding, long-term, keeper amp. I truly hope that’s the case!

Glad you’re giving it a shot!
 
Mike, I think you need a couple new cabs. :D Seriously, there are amp/cab combinations that have confounded me in the past and led me to believe the problem was the amp. Turned out to be the cab/speakers couldn’t yield the sound in my head or the sounds that led me to the amp in the beginning. When I finalized on the Grissom amp of the day (before there was a DG amp line) I didn’t want to take a chance on going thru this experience again, so I got the 2x12 Pine cab that was used in the demos that I liked. The mating of the amp/cab/speakers was essential to achieving that sound. Maybe a DG cab will help you get where you want to go?

(Hey, this helping people spend their money thing is fun!)
 
sergiodeblanc said:
I hear only suckers have these amps.
Click to expand...

Ha :) "Sucker" I don t think so

"Mike, I think you need a couple new cabs"

Funny thing its easy for me to spend $$$ on a new guitar but changing amps and cabs or buying them is like pulling teeth for me.

I think the tone or tones I am after is fundamentaly changing so the indecision is making it impossible to like anything I do at this point.
Yesterday I really overdid the volume so my ears are really ringing ( more than normal ) really need to go back to quite as possible also trying out a borrowed 1x12 cab

So back to this thread The Grissom amp is a sweet amp it does take pedals well and rewards quality playing and patience I have neither of those things right now, so Sergio and I had some fun
lessons , tacos and a bucket list amp await
 
Rider1260 said:
Ha :) "Sucker" I don t think so

"Mike, I think you need a couple new cabs"

Funny thing its easy for me to spend $$$ on a new guitar but changing amps and cabs or buying them is like pulling teeth for me.

I think the tone or tones I am after is fundamentaly changing so the indecision is making it impossible to like anything I do at this point.
Yesterday I really overdid the volume so my ears are really ringing ( more than normal ) really need to go back to quite as possible also trying out a borrowed 1x12 cab

So back to this thread The Grissom amp is a sweet amp it does take pedals well and rewards quality playing and patience I have neither of those things right now, so Sergio and I had some fun
lessons , tacos and a bucket list amp await
Click to expand...

Awww.... I missed tacos....:(.....but may be to blame for this situation :oops:
 
sergiodeblanc said:
I hear only suckers have these amps.
Click to expand...

Quite possibly. ;)

Rider1260 said:
The Grissom amp is a sweet amp it does take pedals well and rewards quality playing and patience I have neither of those things right now, so Sergio and I had some fun
lessons , tacos and a bucket list amp await
Click to expand...

I’ve said this in a few posts, but one thing the Grissom amp does is saturate a bit, even clean. It was designed to do that. What that gives the amp is a little bit of clean compression, which in turn supports the sustain of a note when not using pedals, and also helps the amp meld with pedals when I am using my pedalboard.

Thus the front end of the DG30 is not unlike high end studio gear like the $3,000 studio tool, the Black Box HG 2 (harmonic generator), and similar expensive studio boxes in that regard. The object is less to audibly distort than to add character, a little compression, and sustain to stuff the engineer runs through it.

I think that’s one of the things that makes it such a great pedal platform.

I wish I could have been there to walk you through it, but alas, that didn’t happen.
 
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