Technical data

28
29
CLEAN 1
The Clean Channel delivers a wide spectrum of crystal clear (VOLUME up
to 5) to dynamically reacting, lightly overdriven tones. In principal, it works
like a classic California Clean amp with a ‘Bright’ switch. The more the vol-
ume is turned down, the more transparent and HiFi-like the Clean Channel
sounds. For my tastes, clean sounds are at their best just before you can hear
the signal starting to break up. The output factor from single coil pickups to
active humbuckers varies up to a factor of 10! Because of this, there is no
perfect Clean Volume setting that works for all pickups. To find your own
clean sound, first turn your clean volume to about 6 – depending on your
pickups, you may already hear noticeable amounts of overdrive – and then
turn it down until the tone becomes clean enough for your tastes (for single
coils, this would normally be 5-6, for humbuckers 3-5).
CLEAN-TONE 29 allows silky warm (backed off) and bril-
liant, glittery high (turned up) cleans for single coils and
humbuckers. The Clean Channel can also be overdriven,
which means it can deliver perfect sounds from blues to
classic rock. The Clean Channel is also ideal for combining
with FX pedals like boosts, overdrives and compressors.
By switching on the internal
BOOST, you can enormously
expand on the tonal spectrum of
the Clean Channel. If you have
the Boost on at the minimum
level, you’ll get fine, shimmering
highs. This can really freshen up
humbuckers, or produce those
ultra-clean “straight into the
mixing desk” single coil tones.
VINTAGE 1
Classic British overdrive. This Channel covers the versatile sonic spectrum
between almost clean and distorted sounds, ideally suited to anything from
blues to AC/DC. Full gain with boost is my trademark sound. I personally
control my gain with the volume pot on my guitar.
This purist Overdrive Channel, with its fat and dynamic distorted character,
cannot be edited by AMP1
™
’s CUSTOM CONTROL
™
, as it would lose
its character. The 3-band EQ should be enough to adapt this sound to your
speaker and the room. In contrast to the Classic Channel, Vintage features
some compression, as you know from those classic cranked amps. If you
want to increase the effect even more, use the PowerSoak.
Combined with BOOST, you get expressive, creamy rhythm and lead
sounds. If you turn down the CUSTOM CONTROL
™
Boost, you’ll get
“woody” lead sounds; turn it up, and the lead tone is “creamier”.
AMP1
™
’s channels
If you turn the Boost up more, the tube-like boost circuit will go into
overdrive. This way, you can use the Boost to switch between clean and
lightly distorted sounds. If Boost and Volume are both fully turned up,
this Channel will also deliver dynamic vintage lead sounds. For experts,
there’s an additional trick: the possibility to drive the power amp into
saturation or overdrive, and using the PowerSoak (which you can only
activate via REMOTE1
™
or MIDI) to turn the volume down to suitable
levels. This gives you the possibility to create very special sounds, like we
know from the Guitar Heroes of the 60´s and flower power era. This way
you can do exactly what those artists did: they turned their clean amps
up until the power amp was compressed or distorted.
The Vintage Channel delivers the good old honest TONE of rock ‘n’ roll.
Vintage responds to every playing nuance. It reveals the differences between
every pickup and guitar, and also lets you control the sound with your
volume pot.
Tip: For lightly distorted riffs, I recommend settings between 5 and 7 for
single coil pickups. If using high output pickups – like humbuckers or ac-
tive pickups – you should test settings between 3 and 5. If you push the
gain control way up past 7, you can produce beautifully fat “power crunch
chords” and classic lead sounds.
Fig. 2: optimal gain in the Vintage Channel.
Single Coil
Humbucker
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Single Coil
Humbucker
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Tonal colour and overdrive of the Clean Channel.
Clean
Drive
Fig. 1: Boost Custom Control
California
Sparkling