Finally tried the Lonestar Special today - qeustion

Actually I tried the Lonestar Special, the Express 5:25 and the Transatlantic. My question is about the drive channel and the LSP. It seemed to me that the "gain" knob on the drive channel produced a raspy sound whereas the "drive' knob was smoother. Is this by design? Does the "reeder mod" address this raspieness gain issue? I found trying to dial the raspiness out, the tone ended up dark and muffled and muddy. I almost dismissed the amp until the shop manger did some tweaking and dialed the drive up and the gain down the tone became smoother. Then I was able to bring the treble and mids back up to get clarity without it sounding raspy.

That's how it's done. Gain knob stays at noon or below, along with the bass and mid. Drive to taste, say 2-3:00. Treble and presence above noon. The mod is to clear up the mud and murk that exists in that ch stock. Thus giving a clearer rendition than what you heard.

plan-x said:

That's how it's done. Gain knob stays at noon or below, along with the bass and mid. Drive to taste, say 2-3:00. Treble and presence above noon. The mod is to clear up the mud and murk that exists in that ch stock. Thus giving a clearer rendition than what you heard.

Click to expand...

You guys are weird! I have my LSS set opposite to this.....gain most of the way up, drive to taste, currently around the 11 oclock position. I have done both Reeder mods and also swapped out the speakers, and use various drive pedals to push it. Sounds great.

thom said:

plan-x said:

That's how it's done. Gain knob stays at noon or below, along with the bass and mid. Drive to taste, say 2-3:00. Treble and presence above noon. The mod is to clear up the mud and murk that exists in that ch stock. Thus giving a clearer rendition than what you heard.

Click to expand...

You guys are weird! I have my LSS set opposite to this.....gain most of the way up, drive to taste, currently around the 11 oclock position. I have done both Reeder mods and also swapped out the speakers, and use various drive pedals to push it. Sounds great.

Click to expand...

Thats funny Thom,

I gotta say for me planx is right on. Mine is exacty as he is describing. Thom the differance for you might be your drive pedals. The pedal is probably pushing the mud and mirk right out of it. I don't know about planx but I don't use any thing for drive except the LSS.

plan-x said:

That's how it's done. Gain knob stays at noon or below, along with the bass and mid. Drive to taste, say 2-3:00. Treble and presence above noon. The mod is to clear up the mud and murk that exists in that ch stock. Thus giving a clearer rendition than what you heard.

Click to expand...

Ok, thanks. That's what I was hoping for. There may be a LSS in my future...

thom said:

plan-x said:

That's how it's done. Gain knob stays at noon or below, along with the bass and mid. Drive to taste, say 2-3:00. Treble and presence above noon. The mod is to clear up the mud and murk that exists in that ch stock. Thus giving a clearer rendition than what you heard.

Click to expand...

You guys are weird! I have my LSS set opposite to this.....gain most of the way up, drive to taste, currently around the 11 oclock position. I have done both Reeder mods and also swapped out the speakers, and use various drive pedals to push it. Sounds great.

Click to expand...

Weird. That's not what I found with the amp in the store. I didn't even pay attention to the drive knob at first and tried to dial in a decent OD tone. With the gain up it was raspy and harsh, and when I would try to dial that out with the EQ, it would become muddy and dark and inarticulate. Then the shop manager showed me the drive knob; he turned the drive up, the gain down, and then adjusted the EQ and I was able to get a clear, smooth, singing OD - much more musical. Perhaps the reeder mod does make the gain control less raspy.

I set my gain up around 2:00 and my drive is probably around 9:00. I tried it with the drive higher than the gain but I never liked the results... however, the amp does come with two knobs and users are free to balance them in a way they find tonally pleasing.

I find the key to keeping the murk out of the amp is keeping the treble knob high (somewhere above 1:00). The treble knob sets the tonality of the amp more than it does the actual treble... for the actual treble, I adjust the presence pot.

Mids I keep between about 9:00 and 10:30. Someone told me the mids are actually 'flat' somewhere around 9:00 and that turning them up past that starts to form a bit of a mid hump... like an overdrive. I don't know how accurate that theory is as I've never looked at the amp through a spectrum analyser, but that theory feels correct to me when I tune the amp.

Bass is my fullness and tightness control. I try to find the balance between how full I can get it and how rounded I'm willing to tolerate it. I use an 1x12 extension cab under my combo and I find it helps immensely for my tastes. The amp was always just a bit too thin with one speaker, adding that second speaker filled things out enough that it helped me to find a better balance on the bass knob than I could without it.

One thing that I found really helped the open-ness of the amp is to bypass the loop if you're not using any effects and you don't require the solo boost. Failing that... the second thing I found helped was to keep the individual channel masters low... around 9:00 to 10:00 on the loudest channel and the second channel adjusted to balance it. Turning the masters up higher adds a thickness/density to the sound and mushes up the detail. My theory is that turning those channel masters up too high overdrives the buffers in the effects loop, and bringing the individual channels down and using the master output to increase the volume gives you a clearer, more open result.

I've never been into the Reader mod as I don't think they're necessary. When I first got my LSS I did study the theory behind it, but it's mostly about swapping pot tapers so that channel 1 and 2 dial in the same and with a bit of experimentation I found I could achieve that aim by learning the pot tapers as they come stock.

^^^^
We set our amps up very similar. I have both the drive and gain set higher though. I have the master's on the channels low and the out put for overall volume.
Apart from the better clarity it seems to help make delays and etc sit better in the mix this way. Or at least the delays I use. I have one delay, an H2o, that couldnt take to much preamp volume but works fine when its backed down.

Different setting opinions here are telling you that the LSS is very versatile and many tones can be dialed in to your taste. If it sound right to you then it's right. But in general it gets darker as you turn up the gain and brighter as you turn up the drive.

I *love* how different everyone's experience with this amp is. Seriously. I'd call it testament to the amazingly expressive capabilities therein. It's truly a YMMV kind of thing.

I've moved my gain/drive preferences around a bit, but I've landed on a method that works for me: regardless of how much overdrive I'm after, I generally keep the Gain and Drive controls within a click or two of each other, with the Drive slightly higher than the Gain. This seems to give me a nice balance of both girth and clarity to my OD tones... I've stuck with this for a while now, and I move them both up and down the dial depending on what I'm doing. But always relative to each other. Most of the time I'm at Drive 2:30 and Gain 1:30.

I also have lately been keeping both Treble controls almost right at noon these days. Still cuts through the mix somehow.