The Boogie Board

I have been tweeking my studio pre, but just wasn't getting there. I ran into an old PSA-1 that I had laying at the bottom of a closet, and A/B'd it with the SP. The PSA sounded a lot better with its stock Mesa - emulation patches. More tight bass, better overall sound, etc. The SP sounded really anemic by comparison. I spent an hour or more trying to beat the PSA with the SP. It took a lot of work, but finally the PSA is the one that sounds anemic. It has a pretty good pretend recto sound, though!

Anyway, it's easy to get way out of touch just turning knobs. An occasional A/B, even with a transistor amp, can be a good thing. I left the PSA in my rack, just in case...

I had a PSA-1 and it always sounded muffled. It drove me nuts. I remember it did have a patch called "Boogie Lead" that absolutely was impossible to stop playing (what's that? A factor preset that doesn't suck?). That's what finally drove me to get a TriAxis.

With the studio pre you really need to take the time to find your sound. For me, the thrick was in the EQ. Although I liked it, I switched to a Triaxis because I got one cheap.

Psa-1 was definetly a good piece..
What power amp did you use to this A/B comparison?
And I'm too curious...what settings wiped away the Psa?!

I use a 50/50, which I love. Very punchy.

Studio pre settings:
Vol 5
Mast 5
Treb 8.5
Bass 2.5
Mid 2
LD 7.5
'verb 0 (I use external FX)
LM 3.5

EQ
80 Top line
240 just above mid line
750 cut all the way
2200 right at mid line
6600 just above mid line

I REALLY tried to not cut all the mids, but any amount sounds bad to me. The toe setings are a bit of a compromise between the rhythm and lead settings, and are closer to the lead settings.

The tweeking was tricky. The PSA recto patch has a really punchy low end that I think is a combination of lows and highs, kind of like the AJFA kick drum with a 4kHz click added to the thump. Then I had to get some fizz, but be careful to limit it to just audible, so 6600 was tricky. The thing that the recto (and PSA) has, that I really can't quite get yet, is a bit of buzz. I'm not so much trying to get a recto sound as interested in whether I can or not. When I started, the big difference was that the PSA had a HUGE low end that was not mushy, and my previous attempts at that with the SP made me just give up and dial it out. Now I have a very good low end from the SP. The big difference now is that the PSA gets really high cut, so it sounds weak in the high end, while the SP has as much high end as I want. It also has a really alive sparkly response, where the PSA is more dead.

Overall my experience is that you have to kill off most of the lows and mids pre-distortion and ad them back with the EQ down the line. The SP distortion circuit really chokes on low frequencies. I got that cue from some of the guys who posted settings on youtube. In the end I tried to mimic a lot of their settings, but never quite got what I wanted. The EQ is very powerful, so a tiny change is really audible, and one frequency band in the wrong positions screws the whole thing up. I originally started with everything in the middle, trying to boost/cut to get what I wanted. What worked better for me was to drop everything to full cut, and add each band one at a time.

What is your presence set to on your 50/50?

I usually set presence to 50%-70%.

What I found a good idea dialing on highs, was to add a nice amount of 6600 on the eq, and add on my gmajor a low pass filter at appx 10000/11000hz...you have a nice buzz with less fizz!
Oh, yes and I also add 50% of power amp presence!
Anyway, I'll be trying your settings soon..thanks!
P.s. I forgot to ask...what cab/speakers?

I like the post-EQ idea - thanks! I have actually continued tweeking, so now I have a bit more 240Hz, and a bit less 2200 I think. I am using stock recto 1x12s. I am thrilled lately, because I never believed that I could get as much low end out of them as I am now. I was starting to miss my 4x12, but no longer.

You guys caught my curiosity. I own a PSA-1 1.0 mono (left channel dead, tried everything ) that I haven't played for years. I hooked it to my 295. WOW. Unbelievable, that thing is HUGE ! lots of artificial harmonics, big sound, .... despites it lacks the great tube sound.
If I buy/built a midi matrix or something like this it will integrate my rack for sure !