Excellent Pete Thorn Video on Amp Cranking
- Thread starter syscokid
- Start date
Tony M.
Ambassador
Pete's right about this.
If you start on 10, you have no place to go.
My starting points on the guitar are roughly
Bridge volume and tone at 7
Neck volume 5-6 neck tone 8
(On 2 dial guitars volume and tone both on 7)
I set my pedals and amp to sound OK with that,
then I can go in either direction.
I change the size of the amplifier according to the venue.
This allows me to turn the amp up past 9 o'clock.
The biggest most powerful amplifier I own is a Supro Thunderbolt.
(Considering selling it. Too much power. I always mic the amp.)
A guy walks into a bar with a Marshall half stack.......
If you start on 10, you have no place to go.
My starting points on the guitar are roughly
Bridge volume and tone at 7
Neck volume 5-6 neck tone 8
(On 2 dial guitars volume and tone both on 7)
I set my pedals and amp to sound OK with that,
then I can go in either direction.
I change the size of the amplifier according to the venue.
This allows me to turn the amp up past 9 o'clock.
The biggest most powerful amplifier I own is a Supro Thunderbolt.
(Considering selling it. Too much power. I always mic the amp.)
A guy walks into a bar with a Marshall half stack.......
Kerry Brown
Ambassador of the Great Northern Bar Jams
I use tube amps in the 15 to 20 watt range and usually have the volume somewhere around 5 to 8, depending on the room. Depending on the guitar the guitar volume is anywhere from 4 to 7 for clean, but on the edge of breakup. Then when you turn up the volume you have all the crunch you need. I don’t usually use any pedals but occasionally I’ll use a fairly clean overdrive pedal with the gain off or very low and the volume dimed or just off of full. It’s amazing the range of tones you can get with this simple setup, guitar, amp, one pedal. Well actually two pedals. I also use a tuner pedal 
This setup works great for bars and studio jams.
This setup works great for bars and studio jams.
I use tube amps in the 15 to 20 watt range and usually have the volume somewhere around 5 to 8, depending on the room. Depending on the guitar the guitar volume is anywhere from 4 to 7 for clean, but on the edge of breakup. Then when you turn up the volume you have all the crunch you need. I don’t usually use any pedals but occasionally I’ll use a fairly clean overdrive pedal with the gain off or very low and the volume dimed or just off of full. It’s amazing the range of tones you can get with this simple setup, guitar, amp, one pedal. Well actually two pedals. I also use a tuner pedal
The attenuator has really expanded my tone tremendously. I run almost every setting on my DSL40C on 10, except for volume and reverb. I run the attenuator about halfway, with the amp switched to 40watts, and volume between 3 &4.
There's a sweet spot here...
Guitar volume and tone settings are usually full up on the six string side, with volume and tone rolled bsck on the 12 string side.
gball
Ambassador of Boogie
Great video, but it’s frankly sad this even needs to be brought up. “Don’t dial in your amp with the guitar volume on 10” should be Guitar 101 for an electric player. But, we live in the era of abundant stompboxes and channel-switching amps and controling an amp seems to be a lost art. Every once in a while I’ll he jamming with Everything-On-Ten guy and I always know from the first chord the dude will be blowing everybody up the whole session and Won’t leave any space in the music or have an dynamics without jumping on a stompbox and making it all even more squashed and busy soundind.
Last edited:
I think everyone has played with "that guy," or, at the very least, one of his disciples.
Playing 80's covers, I never needed to turn my tones down, but when I was with The Travellers, the diverse set list required different amp and guitar settings on almost every song.
Now, since the 12 string is only ever played clean and through its own amp - a Marshall VS265 2X12 Stereo Chorus Combo - I leave the volumes and tones rolled off just a bit.
But, on the 6 string side I don't like the tone and attack of a rolled of2f volume knob.
The Boss FV30L volume pedal - in the loop - was a fabulous investment. it allows me to dial in any volume and still have the bridge pickup set to maximum devastation.
I would have never thought to use a volume pedal in the loop had I not met you guys...
gball
Ambassador of Boogie
Just a couple of weeks ago I was playing with a guy, and at one point while we were taking a break he was commenting on my tone because I wasn't using my pedalboard (just didn't need it for the classic-rocky stuff we were doing) and he couldn't understand how I was getting so many different clean and dirty tones out of one two-channel amp (my Recto 25). So I walked the dude through everything - green channel set for medium crunch with the guitar volume up high, but rolled back it went into pristine clean. Red channel set for full flamethrower with the guitar volume high but rolled back into crunchy rhythm comping. I even let him take my guitar and play through my rig to try to get an understanding, but I think it was lost. When we started playing again it was right back to blasting away and drowning everything out. And what a lot of people don't seem to get is that just sticking a dirtbox in front of the amp and turning it up rarely translates into usable volume and only decreases headroom.
That's a lost art!!!!
Even with my pedals, all I use are a CS-3, a DD-3 and a NS-2. I don't think I have great tone, but its unique...In fact, I admire everyone else's tone but my own...
Last edited:
I routinely see guys with a DSL40C on the "red" channel, full gain, with a dirt pedal. It sounds awful...
gball
Ambassador of Boogie
It just ends up being like a sonic "roar" with no dynamics. I even hear guys using channel-switching amps that have 2 sounds: All-up clean and All-up dirty, nothing in between and no finesse. More players need to go back to basics when they practice IMO - just a guitar, cable, and amp - and learn to control things and make the guitar do what they want, not the pedals or preamp. One you learn that go ahead and color the sound with pedals and add contour with the preamp, but just learn to control things from the guitar first, and use some dynamics.
Reminds me of this video that's made the rounds a few times. I know he's not your favorite player, Robert, but Bonamossa definitely knows his craft and boy does he speak some truthiness in this:
gball
Ambassador of Boogie
Ain't that the truth