Volume Knob Response Question

[Steve B]

I have an MC58 that I run through a Mesa Rectoverb25 head on top of two 1x12 cabinets.

Adjusting the volume knob on my MC58 has a larger impact on the actual volume than I'd like. I'd like it to have more of an impact on taking my tone from clean to dirty without the huge increase in volume that I seem to be getting through my current set up. By comparison, when I run my MC58 through my Vox Valvetronix modelling amp the volume knob takes my tone from clean to dirty without the large increase in actual volume. This is more what I'd like to see through my Mesa Setup.

Anyone have suggestions on how to setup a rig so that the guitar's volume knob will effect the tone more than the actual volume?

Thanks in advance for any/all advice!

 

[László]

What's happening has a lot more to do with the difference between your amps than it is about your guitar. Your modeling amp is simply responding to guitar volume differently than your real tube amp. But you'd experience something similar between any two different amps, tube, solid state, modeler, etc. Your modeler obviously compresses the signal coming from the guitar more than your tube amp.

It's all about gain staging between your guitar volume, your amplifier's preamp stage, and the master volume to do what you want, and it takes some experimentation.

For the most part, I set my amps up for a light crunch with the guitar volume around 6 or so. That gives me plenty of gain as I take the guitar volume higher, but at a lower overall output level from the guitar. I hope this makes sense!

Also, the master volume will control your overall output level better if you set it after you have the other settings the way you like.

You could also try a compressor pedal and see how that works for you, but I'd do the other things first.

 

[Steve B]

Thanks Les!

I guess I'll have to fiddle some more with my settings. Being a two channel amp the clean can be dirtied up but never fully hits the crunch that the distorted channel 2 can hit. Conversely the distorted channel can never get to the shimmering clean that the clean channel is capable of. So I appear to be caught between two worlds. Not a huge deal I guess as I can just use the foot switch to jump between clean and distorted but boy I do like the elegance of rolling the guitar volume knob to go between the two tones.

I'll keep fiddlin with it and see if I can't find what I'm lookin for. Otherwise I might go find me a compressor pedal.

Thanks again for the insight my friend!

 

[gush]

When I use my amp as a two channel machine I would always roll guitar volume down to zero before switching channels. Takes some practice but sure makes the switch smoother.

I don't use my clean channel in my current band. I have it set up with 3 dba boost on Gmajor then roll guitar vol down.