How do you tune in your amp?

Hootsmon · September 2016

how do you go about getting the absolute best tone from your amps rhythm channel, for a nice clean rhythm tone .......which PUP do you use, neck or bridge

do you locate that little "shelf" of tone lurking in every pot, where all the action appears tae take place , and then just centre the pot there....?

how do you do YOURS?

menamestom · September 2016

Not really, Volume 4, treble 5, bass 5, reverb 3 pretty much covers it.

Neck for rhythm, obviously.

Lebarque · September 2016

I like the little 'shelf' method you describe. Then adjust controls on guitar to taste.

octatonic · September 2016

Depends on the amp but I tend to put the bass on 5, mids and treble on 7, gain half way up and go from there.
Bridge pickup- volume on 8/10 for rhythm, 10/10 for solo.

HAL9000 · September 2016

What a good question.

I normally set my guitar's volume at about 6 or 7. I then play with the amp's volume and gain controls so that the sound is pretty clean but will get dirty by turning up the volume on the guitar and will clean up by turning down the guitar.

For tone I tend to start with the amp EQs all at the halfway mark and then tweak to taste. So it's mainly a listening thing and deciding that I'd like,say, a bit more bass and then adjusting things little by little until I'm happy.

I do find though that moving the amp into a different sized space can require quite a bit of tweaking to keep roughly the same sound.

Hootsmon · September 2016

nice one Hal

uncledick · September 2016

I basically set my amp so that with the guitar knobs on 10, the bridge pickup is a bit loud and harsh. I then wind everything back from there. Filling a room with a crowd deadens everything in any case so a sound check needs to account for it. One thing to avoid, particularly with modelling amps, is setting the tone at home and then thinking you can just turn up the volume at a gig.

professorben · September 2016

Bass, Mid, Treble all at 6,6,6.
it sounds crap but it's worth it for the cool points, if I have to suffer for my art, so should my audience.

professorben · September 2016

But in all seriousness, I find that setting works really well, to give me a nice warm, round tone, the secret I've discovered is using a compressor, now I can use the bridge pickup without it being too spiky and the split positions are useable too volume wise.

pintspiller · September 2016

Generally tone halfway, volume to suit. Then adjust to taste

viz · September 2016

Everything on 7; add master volume to taste.

ICBM · September 2016

Bass up full, middle on zero, treble to about 2 o'clock, volume where necessary.

Adjust if it doesn't sound good like that.

richardhomer · September 2016

I have a Mesa LSS - so no 'intuitive' settings work.

With these, the manual sample settings really are the best place to start (bass/mids in particular need to be lower than you'd think).

All of which encourages me to seek out a simpler alternative....

DLM · September 2016

I have a Diezel Herbert. 180w, six EL34s.

Here we are dialling it in before my gig last Saturday:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--WDVYl2QQ--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/1526645637873028931.jpg

fretmeister · September 2016

Fender Twin for clean. Modded JCM800 for dirty clean. TS pedal with the JCM800 for crunch. Rectifier with TS for filth.

6db boost with a tiny bit of delay for solos.

dogload · September 2016

On my Selmer T&B I go into input 1 and jump it to input 2, both volumes around 10 o'clock, both treble controls around 2 o' clock and bass controls both probably between 12 and 1 o'clock. The Presence control is variable depending on my ears! This is very clean and glassy. All filth and reverb coming from my pedals.

My Laney Cub head is usually pre-amp at 2, master volume at 9, treble 7, mids at 5 and bass at about 6 (all 'ish'). Tone control is set to about 2/3rds and reverb on 7. This is a slightly edgy sound with reverb, although I can up the ante on both counts nicely with my pedalboard.

Both amps go into a home-made 2x12 with Celestion G12-75s (I think...). The Laney sounds great but it really is running at the top of it's capabilities to push the volume out, whereas the Selmer is barely ticking over. If only the Laney had a few more watts!

p90fool · September 2016

I just set all amps quite bright and very loud, then use the guitar controls.

I like to have the power under my fingertips to make the occasional phrase jump out then to drop back behind the vocal again.

Beexter · September 2016

Depends on the amp. For simplicity, I love the natural channel of my Orange Rocker 30 - it only has a volume knob. None of those dastardly tone controls to worry about - it just sounds right and I do tone adjustments on the guitar.
At the other end of the complexity scale is my Mesa Express 5 25 - in addition to the regular bass, Mid and treble, you have the choice of further tonal options via either a 5 band graphic eq or pre-configured contour control. Add in the choice of 4 different preamp voices and 3 different power configurations and it gets complicated. The manual is a godsend and the consensus seems to be to work from left to right, starting with gain level (which affects the tone as well!!) and then on to treble, Mid, bass in that order.
I start with everything about 9 o' clock and adjust from there.

I've also found the little "shelf of tone" method works really well too.

nick79 · September 2016

Thank god a couple of Mesa owners have chimed in and said exactly what i was thinking, i've got a relatively basic one and its still not simple to dial in. Although when its done right its worth it.

impmann · September 2016

Depends on the amp/gig/room.

I remember one of the guys at Marshall telling me for a classic Marshall based amp, dime all the tone controls and then back off whichever control that removes any unwanted 'bits'. That doesn't work with Fenders so much but it certainly works with an old JMP.

bbill335 · September 2016

The only thing I try to ensure is mucho mids and just enough bass to get by.

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How do you tune in your amp?

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