Drive knob higher than Gain knob?

Because the Mesa manual suggests that the best tones out of the amp will probably be achieved with the gain knob adjusted higher than the drive knob, I have followed this rule, but recently, I have violated this guideline and am hearing better tones on the amp. I also noticed that Andy Timmons follows the same principal. Has anyone else also made this same discovery?

When I'm going for SRVish tones, it seems that the high-end frequencies are better and the overdrive is smoother with such settings. Before, it seemed that the amp was a little too dark, or the overdrive was a little too weak......

I've got to agree! I generally leave the drive on 2 and run the gain between 12 and 2. I've also found plugging the speaker cable into the alternate 8 ohm jack cleans it up a bit too.

Drive knob higher than Gain knob? Always! Actually the manual does suggest it.

Yah, personal taste. I've gone back and forth on this a couple of times. Up until last week I was at Drive = 3:00 and Gain = 11:30. Now I've backed off and have the Drive at 11:00, just below the Gain again.

Your overall output level can really change how this relationship works, too. And, of course, your EQ.

It depends on the guitar for me. If it has 'buckers, the drive is quite low, like 9:00. Any higher and it gets too 'woofy' for me. I usually use the Drive off actually, just Channel 2 with the Gain, unless I am trying to cover a 'Marshall-y' type sound, then I click it on.

With single coil guitars, I have the Drive up around 12-1 o'clock.

Yeah, with my singles, I run my drive at 2:30 and gain at 12:30 on 50w with thick. Awesome OD. Thats with the Reeder mods of course. It keeps things clean. I can match ch 1 tone with the knobs set virtually identical.

I spent a considerable amount of time today experimenting with both the clean and dirty sounds on my LSS as well as hearing the difference in town by plugging the speaker into the 35W input and decided I actually like that better!

Anyways after working channel two for a while I ended up have the Drive knob at 3:00 and the Gain at 12:00 of course I lost some bass frequency so I just made up for it with the bass knob and voila! Sounds amazing!

Of course if the Drive and Gain were reversed it would sound WAY TOO DARK and I would have to turn the Bass off completely! Which is how I have been working it for about a year now.....Can't wait for my next rehearsal and gig to see how it feels with the band with these new settings.

I also found the sweetest spot on the clean channel with my gain set to about 2:00 so it has a bit of gain smoothing it out just enough to make it have that Deluxe type vibe. Pretty amazing!

Loving this amp more and more everyday!

I've been going back and forth trying different settings. This, after the Reeder Mod. I also think that the overall volume you're playing at will have a lot of effect on the sound. So, you might have the drive higher than the gain at low volumes, but decide to change that at higher volumes (and vice-versa).

Kiteboarder said:

I've been going back and forth trying different settings. This, after the Reeder Mod. I also think that the overall volume you're playing at will have a lot of effect on the sound. So, you might have the drive higher than the gain at low volumes, but decide to change that at higher volumes (and vice-versa).

Click to expand...

Yep. +1

Volume makes a huge difference.......last time I ran my LSS at high volumes I had no need for the dirty channel because the gain on the clean got so dirty on its own! It sounded phenomenal too! And obviously it ceased to be clean anymore!

At the moment, drive at 2:00, gain at 2:00 but always subject to change
My rule is never to go by the rules......

Usually though when doing a loud volume gig like my last tour which was mostly arenas and amphitheaters I would use the LSC instead of the LSS.

Then you can really get some volume!!!

plan-x said:

Drive knob higher than Gain knob? Always! Actually the manual does suggest it.

Click to expand...

I'm looking at the v1 manual, and it says, "Generally speaking, you will find better response and dynamics combined with smoother saturation
by setting the GAIN control higher than DRIVE. In fact you might try leaving the GAIN set to 2:00
or 3:00 and just playing with the DRIVE to learn the regions of saturation. You will probably find the
more blues oriented sounds between 9:00 and 11:00, while the really saturated high gain sounds
appear between 1:00 and 3:00.

Setting the GAIN control slightly higher than the DRIVE will produce a warmer quality to the sound
and in most cases this is preferable. By all means experiment with setting the GAIN lower than the DRIVE, as the brighter, thinner
character may be desirable for your application."

But here's what I'm finding. Some of you are complaining about the dark quality of the drive channel. I'm finding that pushing the drive higher than the gain removes this problem and opens up the high end better. With my Strat, I get more spank with these settings.

But here's the kicker that I just discovered at a gig this weekend. With the drive set higher than the gain, I'm finding that I can set the EQs more like a traditional amp with the treble and high past noon and the mids dipped.

Here are the settings that are giving me tonal bliss right now:
Drive 2:00
Gain 10:

Treble 2:30
Mids: 10:00
Bass 1:30

Now granted, I am using an Ayan Enterprises Smooth N Slim which is supposed to remove the flatulence of the bass but to be honest, it doesn't do as dramatically as claimed.... Without it, I might drop the Bass to 12:00.

I should also point out that ALL of the sample factory settings in the Lonestar manual show the drive lower than the gain, so this just goes to show that one should always experiment beyond what even the manufacturer suggests....

Finally, I'd be remiss to not mention that to get the SRV tones that I go for, I'm using a custom TS808 pedal. The settings I listed don't yield enough gain without it.

We opened for a touring Beatles tribute band called Magical Mystery Tour last year and the arrangement was that the
"lads" would use our gear as a backline and just take the stage with their instruments. First, let me say these guys were incredible. Not only did they nail the musical performance but they dressed and looked the part. It was a very cool show. Ok..so the point is this: The dude playing the part of George was using my rig. First time for him with a Lonestar. I quickly showed him the main points of the amp and left the stage thinking he'd just plug into my pedal board and use my tuner, volume, effects, whatever. So I went out front to hear these guys and was amazed at the tones he was getting. He was using a Telecaster for the whole show and had it so well dialed in you'd have thought it was a Gretcsh. After they were done he chatted with me for a minute on how he liked the amp. Then I noticed that he'd not used the pedal board afterall. He'd unplugged my signal lead from the pedal board and went thru a Boss Tuner (that he sat on top of the amp) then straight into the Lonestar. He had turned the Main Vol all the way up to 10 and had the Channel Vol (clean channel) down to around 3 or 4. I thought that was whacked out and crazy. But I gotta say...the tone he got for those old Beatle tunes was amazing.

Master Volume close to Max, and use the gain as my volume control is the way I used to run my LSC with great success.

plan-x said:

Yeah, with my singles, I run my drive at 2:30 and gain at 12:30 on 50w with thick. Awesome OD. Thats with the Reeder mods of course. It keeps things clean. I can match ch 1 tone with the knobs set virtually identical.

Click to expand...

You know, I actually never tried this until I read this thread. I just did a gig Sat. night and liked how my amp sounded, but decided to experiment anyway. I took the drive up to about 2:00 and brought the gain down to 10:00 and...wow! It changes things considerably and as others have said, it seems to make the controls a bit more like controls on other amps and also makes matching an EQ setting to channel 1 a bit easier (I have no mods). I could bring the bass up considerably for one thing. I will have to test it a bit on stage, but so far this seems to really do some cool things for this amp. I liked it with both a LP and a P90 loaded PRS.

Mark

So, I had a practice with my band today and it was the first time I have practiced or played a gig with the new amp settings. I'll have to see what happens with a mic on it but so far I am really happy. At practice levels it always seemed just a little processed and muddy sounding on channel two. It got better at a bit higher gigish levels, but still not what I was looking for. I now have the gain at 11:00 and the drive at about 1:00. I even brought the treble up just above 3:00 which allowed me to bring the presense down some (about 11:00) and the bass and mids up a bit. Holy ****! I was easily cutting through and the tone was just really nice, punchy and pretty much just what I always had hoped could come out of this amp. Thanks for the suggestion. It seems to be the big fix.

Mark

Actually, I don't see how anyone can get a decent tone(mid gain)without the drive up higher than gain. Flip the thick and back off some mids for a well....thick tone.