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Of course, it also depends on whether you have an amp that has active/inter-related EQ (e.g. some of the Mesa ones) were tweaking one knob has an impact on all the others.
Hmmm no wonder people find Mesa’s a bit awkward... I swear it’s fine if you read the manual!
The reason the classic Fender tone stack has a huge mid cut with all the knobs at 12 o'clock is because that's necessary to get something like a reasonably flat response from an open-back combo with single-cone speakers that essentially only give midrange... it does *not* mean that the amp has a flat response if you turn the mid up full and the bass and treble right down.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Anyone who knows me might be surprised I'd say that after many years of learning the geeky depths of audio gear but genuinely, without doubt, just getting used to how a knob, switch or slider changes the sound in practice then using that experience to save time with trial and error is the most effective approach.
E.g. Knowing how the presence control works differently to the treble and bass controls might make someone come up with a theory on how they might be best used but really the only thing that matters is how the sound changes when the knobs are turned.
On my boss katana (which doesn't sound at all like the stereotypical Solid state amp), I find it quite hard to dial in so I tend to download presets and tweak over the course of weeks when I notice something I don't like. Part of this I could put down to everything sounding pretty good on it, part of it is me being picky with all the options.
Trading feedback
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
It sounds basic but it might be a good starting point.
My experience of Fender's (Twin, DRRI or Super Reverb) is all straight up works or is also a good starting point. Boogies are much harder and Mesa suggest turning the bass down as you increase the gain.
So any starting point is essentially arbitrary; 12 o clock makes sense because it allows you to turn it both up and down an equal amount. But it doesn't really matter.
A concept I have for a software audio processor, like an EQ, would be that when it's inserted, the values of each band's setting is randomly chosen and hidden. The user can turn the value up or down but is never shown what the value is. That would mean they would just have to listen and turn it up if it needs more or down if it needs less but wouldn't be influenced at all by where they think the knob should be.
For example, someone might turn a band on an EQ up 15db and think it sounds good but when they see that they've turned it up so much decide something must be wrong because it should never be turned up so high. In my concept, they wouldn't know that they'd turned it up so much, just that it sounds right. In fact, the +15db might have been the value that was randomly chosen and they found that turning it down made it worse.