So I've been noodling around on my new-to-me VH4, and I noticed something while dialing in a clean sound. I've heard that people generally prefer the cleans on the herbert to those on the VH4, but I've also heard Peter Diezel say that the clean channel preamp schematics are virtually identical. Power amp differences aside (which would certainly have an effect on the sound), there's another possible source of difference - the VH4 has two extra controls. The herbert lacks the bright switch and the gain control.
On most amps, a bright switch engages/disengages a capacitor that allows high frequencies to bypass the gain potentiometer. So (while the bright switch is enabled) the lower the gain control is set, the more high-frequency emphasis there is. So, with the bright switch on, you can alter the tone of the VH4's clean channel just through the interaction of the volume knob and the gain knob. If your gain is at noon and you dial it back to 9:00, then up the volume until its about the same as it was before, you get a totally different tone.
So if the herbert schematic is very close to that of the VH4 on the clean channel, the herbert most likely just has a "fixed" setting for "gain knob". Perhaps we can find a position with the gain knob on the VH4 whereby the cleans are more herbert-like (or just generally better than leaving it at noon as I suspect some people do, thinking it's just a redundant volume control).
Hopefully interesting/useful to SOMEONE....
On most amps, a bright switch engages/disengages a capacitor that allows high frequencies to bypass the gain potentiometer. So (while the bright switch is enabled) the lower the gain control is set, the more high-frequency emphasis there is. So, with the bright switch on, you can alter the tone of the VH4's clean channel just through the interaction of the volume knob and the gain knob. If your gain is at noon and you dial it back to 9:00, then up the volume until its about the same as it was before, you get a totally different tone.
So if the herbert schematic is very close to that of the VH4 on the clean channel, the herbert most likely just has a "fixed" setting for "gain knob". Perhaps we can find a position with the gain knob on the VH4 whereby the cleans are more herbert-like (or just generally better than leaving it at noon as I suspect some people do, thinking it's just a redundant volume control).
Hopefully interesting/useful to SOMEONE....
