LSC - how do I keep the volume consistent?

I have a great clean dialed in on CH 1 and an equally great low-gain SRV type dirt on CH 2 "clean". I can match these levels (obviously) with the masters, but when I kick in the drive circuit on CH 2 for that saturated boogie lead, the volume is too loud on that channel.

Anyone have luck using a compressor in the loop to solve such volume differences? Any other ideas I might be missing?

thanks,
Maury

UPDATE - I tried a compressor in the loop and it, well, sucked. I tried setting my Zoom G1 so that one of the presets is a "blank" preset with no FX added but the volume of that patch is lower... that worked ok. Next I tried setting the amp up so that the Solo is on for my cleans and my SRV dirt, and then Solo is de-selected for my high gain boogie dirt. That works great, and with my trio I can get away with it ... but in a band where there's another guitarist and I need the boost, I'm stuck.

You might want to try just dialing in your higher gain setting on channel 2 and using your volume knob on your guitar to bring it down to SRV territory, the different modes do have a large volume gap between them (probably why they aren't footswitchable), but they are made so you have your rhythm channel and lead channel.

Thanks, but my strat loses too much treble when I back off the volume
I appreciate the idea though.

What about running a Boost or Distortion pedal in front of it?? That way you keep your overall volume and just overdrive the preamp a bit when you need it.

Because my SRV tone is so lightly preamped, that boosting it with a dist pedal increases the volume no matter what I try. If my SRV tone was already more compressed, that would probably do it.

I could put a dist pedal in front of channel 1, but I hate to have these awesome SRV tones in the LSC and then use a pedal to get a fake version of these tones. The pedal just doesn't FEEL nearly as responsive.

Maury said:

Because my SRV tone is so lightly preamped, that boosting it with a dist pedal increases the volume no matter what I try. If my SRV tone was already more compressed, that would probably do it.

I could put a dist pedal in front of channel 1, but I hate to have these awesome SRV tones in the LSC and then use a pedal to get a fake version of these tones. The pedal just doesn't FEEL nearly as responsive.

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Put a clean booster pedal in the loop. Somenthing like the Seymour Duncan pickup booster.

Would I use this on CH 2 to turn the SRV into high-gain lead? If so, won't I get the same problem as if I were using the dist pedal?

Maury said:

Would I use this on CH 2 to turn the SRV into high-gain lead? If so, won't I get the same problem as if I were using the dist pedal?

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What I would do is set the clean volume to match with CH 2 with the drive circuit on. When you turn off the drive circuit on ch2 (for that SRV tone you want) the volume will be too low on ch2. Use the clean boost on the effects loop to get that volume back. It's like adding another solo boost to the amp. As a matter of fact, if you are not using the solo boost on the amp you can use it to match the levels. Just set the clean and ch2 with the drive circuit on. When you turn it off, use the solo boost to get that volume back.

Just a thought... did you run the loop % to max. Since you want the compressor to knock down all of the volume increase it seems that you want 100% on the 'effect'.

As a matter of fact, if you are not using the solo boost on the amp you can use it to match the levels. Just set the clean and ch2 with the drive circuit on. When you turn it off, use the solo boost to get that volume back.

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YES! thank you, that will be perfect!!

Mountain - thank you but no matter where I set the FX level the comp just wasn't good.

I got it! Took me a few months and lots of trial & error but I think I finally found MY go-to settings.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TsqYvefwA

MIM strat: volume on 5 through Barber tone press set to 12:00, 3:00 and 3:00. On the cleans, my strat's volume gives me fat, angelic cleans on 5, thicker sustain at 6 & up. On the dirt I have SRV at 5 and I can dime my strat volume for thick violin leads. The best part? I now have 4 different sounds and they do not differ in volume at all! Plus I still have the solo feature if I ever need it (depending on the band I'm with). What an amp!

Now the hard part is being content with this tone and not trying to improve it at every gig LOL.

Maury

What I would do is set the clean volume to match with CH 2 with the drive circuit on. When you turn off the drive circuit on ch2 (for that SRV tone you want) the volume will be too low on ch2. Use the clean boost on the effects loop to get that volume back. It's like adding another solo boost to the amp. As a matter of fact, if you are not using the solo boost on the amp you can use it to match the levels. Just set the clean and ch2 with the drive circuit on. When you turn it off, use the solo boost to get that volume back.

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I back this. If you're already manually switching between drive and normal in ch2, kicking on a clean boost in the loop at the same time should be trivial.

I like to use the Boss GE7 graphic eq for this. It actually can work nicely the other way around, too -- as a volume cut, but you can still boost whatever frequency you're losing.

I share your frustration about this kind of thing! It was why I ditched my old MkIII for the Marshall a long time ago. I couldn't get the clean and dirty sounds I wanted at the same time, and since you can't really clean up a dirty tone (if you want a sweet clean), ended up using a RAT for distortion, which felt silly and ironic, since I'd spent all that cash on supposedly the best overdrive tone out there. :?

Maury said:

Mountain - thank you but no matter where I set the FX level the comp just wasn't good.

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In my experience, compression and distortion through the FX loop pretty much never ever works. A clean boost can, but something about the signal going into an additional gain-enhancer within a loop just ain't happening.

My guess, as an old cracker who actually doesn't know anything about this, is that the signal going in is already fairly compressed, so the box has got a juicy signal to start with -- and just squishes it more, with the noise and everything.

Maury said:

I got it! Took me a few months and lots of trial & error but I think I finally found MY go-to settings.
...
Now the hard part is being content with this tone and not trying to improve it at every gig LOL.

Maury

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Hah! Maury, I've seen your clips on YouTube (nice). I like your attention to detail with these.

Here is my setting, which I've landed on as a good dirty-clean with a Marshall-ish drive:

Drive is on, Thick selected. The master vols are a bit low, which is because it ain't so cool to blast in my apartment at the moment... frustrating...

I'm in a Pretenders tribute thing, and the Marshall sound is called for (especially for the early stuff)... I just got sick of hauling the half-stack everywhere. Oh, and I wanted a new toy.

Here's the silly clip I put up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqMLB4cyPqA

I want to do it again, and do some A/B with the JCM800...

What I would do is set the clean volume to match with CH 2 with the drive circuit on. When you turn off the drive circuit on ch2 (for that SRV tone you want) the volume will be too low on ch2. Use the clean boost on the effects loop to get that volume back.

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This does work but it requires one more button to step on. My new setup eliminates the need to worry about whether or not the solo is on.

NICE playing djw - I like your youtube clip alot. I may end up getting a Les Paul someday - I'm a sucker for the Allman Bros type of tone and I suspect a Gibson is the only way.

Thanks for sharing and I'm curious ... you mentioned you play Preteders stuff ... I am in LOVE with the clean tones I heard on their Decades Live VH1 special. Are you copping that with your LSC? Is it Hynde's Fender, the lead guitarist's Hiwatt or both?

Maury said:

NICE playing djw - I like your youtube clip alot. I may end up getting a Les Paul someday - I'm a sucker for the Allman Bros type of tone and I suspect a Gibson is the only way.

Thanks for sharing and I'm curious ... you mentioned you play Preteders stuff ... I am in LOVE with the clean tones I heard on their Decades Live VH1 special. Are you copping that with your LSC? Is it Hynde's Fender, the lead guitarist's Hiwatt or both?

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Hey, thanks a lot -- you too, Maury!

I have to check out that live special, I haven't seen it. I'm mainly going for the old James Honeyman Scott-era sound, though it's probably not totally faithful. What ends up happening is I'm going for a good ragged overdrive to work as a kind of amalgamation of the two tones from the very early days (his & hers).

I know Chrissie seems to play through Fenders, but her rhythm parts on that first album sound suspiciously big and Marshalley (e.g. The Phone Call) while JHS at times sounds tonally squished by comparison. My singer lets me handle most of the featured guitar parts (she plays a beautiful old Tele custom, through a little Fender Blues Junior) so I figure a clear, edgey overdriven sound with a lot of color and natural definition is what's called for (I pretty much stick to that anyway).

My Marshall has been more than up for the task over the years; I've been looking for a good combo that can do that AND maintain a good clean tone for a long time, and I am so frickin' stoked about the LSC.

so I figure a clear, edgey overdriven sound with a lot of color and natural definition is what's called for (I pretty much stick to that anyway).

My Marshall has been more than up for the task over the years; I've been looking for a good combo that can do that AND maintain a good clean tone for a long time, and I am so frickin' stoked about the LSC.

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Amen to that! I played without an amp as nice as the LSC for so long, I'm still finding new "in-between clean & dirty" tones... and they're so musical and usable.

I'd love to hear some sample clips of your band if you have any.

Maury said:

I'd love to hear some sample clips of your band if you have any.

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Thank you so much, but I don't have any, strangely enough. I've got to change that. I have some stuff from my old band, on the tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53DqixLIrf0 -- I'm closest to the camera) and some downloads from our last studio album (http://www.engine88.net/downloads.htm) which is a good raw 1-take kinda thing with just a few overdubs. It's all Marshall, pretty much, except for the singer's Vox and a coupla tracks with my Deluxe Reverb.

I'm going to keep posting some attempts at tone examples, though.