Strat Players--EQing your amp?

[TS808]

Just curious for all the strat players. I'm always tweaking my tone on my amps and jump alot between the bridge pickup and neck pickup for soloing.
I find however, that if I crank the mids (which I like to do) the tone is great for the bridge pup, but then comes across as too dark on the neck. Likewise, if I turn the mids down and get a nice tone out of the neck, it's too much treble for the bridge and comes across as that "ice pick" tone.

I've set my amp for the neck pup and use the tone control on the bridge to compensate so I can switch between the two. The patches on Patchtronix.com and Valvetronix.net are okay, but seem to be for one pickup only...plus the creators of the patches rarely specify which pup they use.

Just curious what others do? I like to keep my Valvetronix with one channel clean and the other dirty. I'm considering using the footswitch to do a 3rd channel (manual) that way I have two lead settings..one for bridge and one for neck.

Anyone found a good "universal" setting that works well on both pups? All amps are different, as I don't have that problem with my Hughes and Kettner...one setting sounds really good on both pups, but the Valvetronix takes alot more tweaking.

Thanks in advance...

[Tone2TheBone]

I rarely mess with the tone controls on my amps. I usually set them for whatever room I happen to play in and they stay in that position. Setting enough low end and treble to fill the room with hi fi tone and then adding or subtracting mids for presence. Even when playing different guitars the tone controls pretty much stay the same on my amps once I find a good balance. I feel that a good amp will make a good guitar sound awesome without much tweaking at all....but only if the amp isn't moved to a different location or even a different angle in the room it's in.. (my disclaimer).

When I did have the Valvetronix I usually left the middle tone knob at about 1:00 on all the models and like you I compensated with the guitar's tone knob when switching to different pickups on the same guitar. You can always back off on treble with the guitar, especially from Strats, so I'd always eq the amp to my skull and the room for nice crisp highs that I like. The reason I eq'd the tones on the Valvetronix amps pretty much straight up was that I wanted to let the amp models play the way they were designed without imparting any other tone mods. To me they sounded good like this. Also remember that reducing the bass tone knob will increase your ability to hear the treble frequencies without having to actually turn the treble up....and vice versa. You can compromise a good tone spot if you experiment with where your bass tone knob is in relation to which pickup you're playing through and then make the treble tone knob bright enough for all pickups.

[Tim]

I keep all my tones right smack in the middle. This would be at the 12:00 position. With my Strat I will tweak in a little more bass.

The more I play my Peavy Envoy SS 40 watt amp, the more I dislike my VOX AD30VT. The "blanket" effect still haunts the VOX amp.

[Robert]

What is the "blanket" effect, Tim?

The more I play AD50VT, the more impressed I am with it.

[TS808]

The reason I eq'd the tones on the Valvetronix amps pretty much straight up was that I wanted to let the amp models play the way they were designed without imparting any other tone mods. To me they sounded good like this. Also remember that reducing the bass tone knob will increase your ability to hear the treble frequencies without having to actually turn the treble up....and vice versa. You can compromise a good tone spot if you experiment with where your bass tone knob is in relation to which pickup you're playing through and then make the treble tone knob bright enough for all pickups.

That's pretty much what I'm finding...the mid control is pretty punchy so I usually keep it anywhere from 11:00 to 1:00 depending on what sounds good that day. Bass is usually around 10:00-11:00 and treble at about 1:00 also.

[SuperSwede]

I think that the ADxxVT amps works in the same way as the tonelab. Be sure to check out the manual for what the controls does on each amp! One control might be set to control top cut on the vox model, and not presence. And models that doesnt have middle usually has their "neutral" position at 12.

[Tim]

Well the best way to explain it is that it sounds like a blanket has been thrown over the entire amp. No matter how adjust the EQ, that sound remains.

It was a big topic over at "patchtronics" and "valvetronics" websites. I never could solve the problem. It was the main reason why I went from the 15 watt unit to the 30 watt cab. Even playing the Strat, it has the blanket effect sound to it.

[TS808]

Well the best way to explain it is that it sounds like a blanket has been thrown over the entire amp. No matter how adjust the EQ, that sound remains.

It was a big topic over at "patchtronics" and "valvetronics" websites. I never could solve the problem. It was the main reason why I went from the 15 watt unit to the 30 watt cab. Even playing the Strat, it has the blanket effect sound to it.

One of the things I'm inclined to try is a BBE Sonic Maximizer through the effects loop. When I had my Line 6 amps, alot of folks recommended the Sonic Maximizer, stating that it added a whole different dimension to their amps. I didn't hear one complaint about them.

I've also placed an EQ in the effects loop periodically to add some "sparkle" to the top end, since the AD series doesn't have a presence knob. It does the trick pretty well actually.

As far as the "blanket effect" the Line 6 amps had a similar problem...they started sounding kind of flat to me and lacking in dynamics, and I thought the Duoverb I had was an awesome amp.

[TS808]

Well the best way to explain it is that it sounds like a blanket has been thrown over the entire amp. No matter how adjust the EQ, that sound remains.

It was a big topic over at "patchtronics" and "valvetronics" websites. I never could solve the problem. It was the main reason why I went from the 15 watt unit to the 30 watt cab. Even playing the Strat, it has the blanket effect sound to it.

I was thinking about this a little more since my last post (a whole 2 minutes of thought..lol).

Here's my take on the "blanket effect": Everyone I've talked to when buying the amp, as well as seen on many forums, recommends turning the master volume up to 3:00 for the simulated power amp distortion. When I do that is when I seem to be less satisfied with my tones. Personally, I'm not huge on power amp distortion but I'll listen to a cranked Bassman any day. You lose alot of top end with power amp distortion and your headroom really diminishes.

Nonetheless, I think when you get into power amp distortion, you begin to get a lot of bottom end. Even with Fender amps, when you really kick one in, Fender recommends rolling back on the bass or you lose alot of dynamics.

Last night when I was messing with the Valvetronix, I was rolling the bass down more and more when I would crank the master. I'm finding that I'm the most satisfied with my tones with the Master below 1:00 and for additional volume, I turn up the power attenuator. Much more "headroom" and clarity even at higher distortion settings.

[el_goodo_maximo]

Lots more bass than I usually use, and very very little treble (try like a 1/4 way up at the most). Midrange varies but usually i prefer to keep it pretty close to flat otherwise the overdrive just gets too messy for my tastes.

All personal preference however..

Another way to control treble on the bridge pickup is to slightly turn it down inbetween 10 and 9 and you might be able to find a less bright spot. But the pot in yours may be different. Very helpful trick there for me though..