Getting a great high gain taper

[Chubbs]

Question for you all, with high gain circuits are there any best practices or areas to look at when getting to get a great gain taper? With my current circuits the guitar volume knob is basically an on off switch with little ability to roll down for a cleaner tone. For reference I see a lot of the herm modded Marshall’s have a great taper and ability to get clean by just turning down the guitar vol.

At the moment I think I’m probably pushing too much gain too early through the preamp

 

[glpg80]

On one extreme you’ll have tightness and great volume control with poor sustain until the volume is cranked and on the other extreme you’ll have awful volume control but wonderful compression and sustain at any volume.

Designers always walk between either camp and there absolutely is not any way to get both at the same time given the sonic characteristics that we as musicians consider pleasant that must exist. I call it the designers box.

If you want better volume control, it’s best to add gain to an amp in the later stages and not in the early stages. Early stages compound gain and compression but make amps harder to control.

One thing you can do is add a bunch of gain up front and then just use a 12au7 to knock the stage back a bit.

I hope this helps explain which camp a designer prefers to be in. You’ll find upon reflection this holds true for every designer in business right now - it’s a pretty hard defined wall that I won’t attempt to go down the theory path to explain why.

 

[Chubbs]

On one extreme you’ll have tightness and great volume control with poor sustain until the volume is cranked and on the other extreme you’ll have awful volume control but wonderful compression and sustain at any volume.

Designers always walk between either camp and there absolutely is not any way to get both at the same time given the sonic characteristics that we as musicians consider pleasant that must exist. I call it the designers box.

If you want better volume control, it’s best to add gain to an amp in the later stages and not in the early stages. Early stages compound gain and compression but make amps harder to control.

One thing you can do is add a bunch of gain up front and then just use a 12au7 to knock the stage back a bit.

I hope this helps explain which camp a designer prefers to be in. You’ll find upon reflection this holds true for every designer in business right now - it’s a pretty hard defined wall that I won’t attempt to go down the theory path to explain why.

I think your spot on with that. I had a ton of gain up front and was trying to tame it down leading into the TMB controls. For reference I had the deep sea mod into a PF tonestack which was just way too much gain on the first 2 stages. I’ll definitely try adding gain later as your explanation makes a ton of sense.